Conil de la Frontera, Spain 1989

 Note The writer of this piece is Miguel Romero "a.k.a. Red Pill Junkie" who is a cartoonist (no problem there) , however, he is a fortean blogger and this piece was posted over at Mysterious Universe and any comments are his own. I have not seen the original source (I do not read or speak Spanish) and have so far failed to find another report source -this case is not mentioned on URECAT. 

Always check the originals posts as they contain more images and if anyone can help with a full report on this case get in touch -Thanks.

Part 1  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/01/the-night-of-the-shape-shifting-humanoids-part-1/

Part 2 https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/01/the-night-of-the-shape-shifting-humanoids-part-2/

 Conil de la Frontera

The story takes place in the coastal town of Conil de la Frontera –Conil for short- on the night of September 29th, 1989. Although to be precise, our story began weeks earlier, with 2 couples of local youngsters: Loli Bermúdez and Pedro Sánchez, Isabel Sánchez and Pedro González (relationship between the members is not entirely clear) who were taking a placid stroll along the ‘playa de los Bateles’ or ‘Bateles beach’ (“Batel” is a traditional local term for a small, oar-propelled boat). The age of the kids varied between 17 and 23 years old, and just when they were enjoying the cool breeze from the sea and each other’s company, at around 8:30 or 9:00 pm, they suddenly noticed something odd: A glowing, round, reddish-orange object, as big as the full moon, which appeared to be standing still, some 200 meters directly above the Roche cape, approximately 5 kilometers away from their viewing position.

The amazed group contemplated the ‘light’ for around half an hour, until it silently moved toward the horizon and was out of sight. Driven by curiosity, the young witnesses decided to return the next night at the same hour, equipped with a pair of 7×50 binoculars, to see if by any chance the object would return; sure enough, the ‘red moon’ was punctual to the meeting, and performed exactly the same as the night before. The binoculars allowed the adolescents to discern 4 white dots in a square formation at the center of the glowing circle, like the flamboyant button missing from a god’s jacket.

The ‘button‘ would emit a random flash from time to time, and then it was lost out of sight towards the western horizon, after completing it’s indecipherable ‘mission’. The same bizarre operation was repeated for 14 or 15 consecutive nights, always leaving around 9:30; the kids would always remain up until 10, in hope the light would make a second come-back; it never did.

The Encounter

By that time, the witnesses’ families and others in their inner circle were aware of what the youngsters had been witnessing for a whole fortnight –whether they all gave credence to their testimony or not is clear. What we do know is that on the night of September 29th, a 5th member had joined the group of intrepid UFO hunters: Lázaro, the brother of Isabel, and the youngest member of the party.

As it was by now their routine, they all sat on the beach at 8:30, directly in front of the Los Corales bar. The sea was calm and the coast was practically empty, with no boat in sight (we’ll get back to this on part 2). Their approximate distance from their position to the bar was around 300 meters. And they waited.

They didn’t have to wait long. Aside from their old friend, the “red moon,” which had faithfully appeared in its accustomed position, for the first time the witnesses also saw a new development: What looked like a bright white ‘semicircle’ coming from the sea; with the help of their binoculars they could observe, at the center of it, a group of ‘red lights’ forming a sort of triangle. This new UFO silently flew past above their heads, moving toward the town, leaving the group amazed, and excitedly commenting the impressions of the event among themselves.

But then a third, blaring light appeared right over them, seemingly so high or bright they couldn’t discern any sort of shape. The witnesses noticed that when the UFO above them made three consecutive flashes, the red UFO at Roche cape would respond with two, and so on and so forth. A sort of ‘communication’ between these two objects seemed to be taking place, which lasted for around half an hour.

While they were fascinatingly observing this luminous ‘exchange’, something else caught the attention of our young witnesses: At around 9 pm, they noticed two strange figures standing by the beach’s shoreline; their presence raised the alarms of the UFO hunters, not only because of the literally ‘alien’ appearance of the entities –identical in appearance, almost 7 feet tall, covered with white flowing ‘cloaks’ whose ends reached all the way down to the water, and with round, featureless white heads with no hair– but because their arrival had not been detected by the youngsters; almost as if they had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

One of the girls of the group, understandably unnerved by this observation, proposed to the rest of them to leave. Pedro González urged his companions to remain calm, suggesting the two ‘cloaked’ individuals could be some ‘pranksters’; perhaps two of their town neighbors had decided to play a joke on them by –rather lamely– dressing themselves as ‘ghosts’ with white sheets? The idea, however improbable –if nothing else because the tunics of the two beings were so bright they almost looked as if glowing– momentarily swayed the fears of the witnesses, who decided to stay.

But suddenly, the two entities started to move out of the water, towards them. Their gait was awkward and laborious, as if they were unable to bend their knees, and while they walked they kept their arms firmly on each side of their torso. Their long clothes covered their feet, as well as their hands.

The approaching figures finally managed to trigger the fight-or-flight response in all the members of the group. Panicked, they started to run away –in all honesty, could ANYONE blame them?

The group broke down their escape, though, once they realized the beings were not in pursuit of them. Instead, they had stopped and turned on their axis to face the sea, apparently looking in the direction of the ‘red moon’, which had faithfully remained on its fixed position the whole time. The group of witnesses miraculously controlled their nerves, and decided to remain observing the amazing sight from a cautionary distance (approximately some 30 meters or 100 feet away from the figures).

The unfolding of otherworldly events on this fateful night were far from over…

The Transformation

While the two cloaked visitors kept their attention toward the glowing red object in the distance, the young UFO hunters observed something akin to a ‘shooting star’ on the night sky: a small, white-blue light the size of a tennis ball falling toward the beach, yet vanishing or ‘turning off’ just 2 feet or so before crashing over the heads of the entities. As if on cue by the disappearance of the orb, the two humanoids proceeded to seat on the beach, with their backs kept stiffly straight, while at the same time swiftly digging into the sand to build a sort of u-shaped wall surrounding them; once completed, they presently lied on their backs of this makeshift fortress.

 

In-situ reconstruction of the ‘trench’ built by the beings, in which they laid down

If the purpose of the sand ‘trench’ was to obstruct the sight of the humanoids from uninvited interlopers, it was only partially successful; let’s not forget our original witnesses were still at the scene and quite capable to observe the prostate figures, although with more difficulty. Pedro González was once again forced to calm the nerves of the more jitterish among them, while the rest kept passing on the binoculars to better watch the bizarre spectacle, which proceeded to yet another unexpected act.

Soon after the beings lied down on their backs, they proceeded to pass around them a bright, small sphere of a cyan-blue color –perhaps, we could speculate, the same orb which had fallen down moments before– although this time it seemed as small as a ping-pong ball in the eyes of our young witnesses, who observed this strange ‘ball game’ performed among the humanoids around a half-dozen times or so, until Pedro González –the one who had bravely convinced the rest of the friends to stick around– without any warning tossed the binoculars to the ground and started to flee the scene. The other Pedro (Sánchez) quickly intercepted him to know what was going on, and that’s when the terrified young man informed his friend he had observed a third figure at the scene, at the foot of the other two entities. This new humanoid was considerably taller (around ten foot, according to their testimony), clad on a dark, tight-fitting suit and displaying an enormous pear-shaped head. The two young men decided not to tell the rest about the ‘giant’ and returned to their friends, but when Pedro González took the binoculars, he could not longer find the enormous humanoid near the two others, who still remained lying on their backs and passing the little blue sphere back and forth between each other.

The strangest act in this alien stage play the young men and women had been observing, was about to commence.

Suddenly the little blue light disappeared, and a few seconds later the two beings got up from the sand. To the amazement of our witnesses, though, they no longer retained their original appearance: The white, cloaked figures had somehow changed into what looked like a human couple! The male was tall (around 7 feet, which was the original height of the white beings) had long blond hair and was wearing dark jeans and a checkered shirt; the woman was slightly shorter than the man, her hair was also long but dark in color, and wore a thin blouse and long skirt.

Without saying any word, they turned and started walking toward the town, one in front of the other, without even bothering to ever once look at the startled group of youngsters who had bore witness to their entire transformation; a transformation, it should be pointed out, that for some reason wasn’t 100% perfect: The witnesses later revealed to the researchers who went to Conil to investigate the case, that although the features of the ‘female changeling’ were very beautiful and perfectly ordinary, the forehead of his male companion on the other hand was abnormally prominent. How could someone looking like an extra in a cheesy sci-fi flick could go around unnoticed in a tourist town?

The Giant

Just when they were about to reach one of the Conil’s dark alleys, the witnesses’ attention was shifted once again toward the beach, where they could see above the water a small, white cloud coming from the coast toward them at great speed. When the compact ‘cloud’ reached the shore it stopped and rapidly evaporated, and at that moment is when Loli –who was using the binoculars– alerted her friends about the presence of a dark figure near the water. Pedro González snatched the field glasses out of the girl’s hand, and confirmed it was indeed the same enormous being he had seen before.

The black giant with the pear-shaped head stood motionless in front of the young, baffled witnesses, until it quickly moved rapidly away toward the west. As if this wasn’t already strange enough, the humanoid –according to the witnesses– wasn’t even ‘touching’ the ground! Rather, its feet hovered some 8 inches above the sand, and as it floated away its arms were kept firmly on each side of its torso.

The being’s departure elicited a strange response among the members of the UFO party: The oldest and the youngest in the group –Pedro G. and Lázaro– suddenly started to run in pursuit of the giant. Asked later why they reacted in such a way, they couldn’t give a proper explanation; their chase turned out fruitless though, since no matter how hard they ran, the giant moved (or ‘floated’) even faster. When the two were about 50 or 60 meters away from the being, they finally heeded the desperate shouts of their companions pleading them to stop, which they did.

 

Sketch of the black-suited ‘giant’ observed by the witnesse

Above: J J Benitez

It was at that moment when the giant also stopped moving and turned its head toward Pedro and Lázaro. Its black eyes, huge as hen eggs, robbed the two of whatever courage they still possessed, and even though the being’s attitude was not menacing, it somehow gave the impression to the young men that it was warning them not to follow any further. At last they returned to their frantic friends and let the giant lose itself in the night.

With the couple nowhere to be seen, and the giant gone –was its purpose just to deviate the witnesses’ attention and prevent them not to chase the other beings?– the incredible events of the night were apparently over… or so they seemed.

The Aftermath

 

Graphic explaining the location of the sand trench in relation to the witnesses’ viewing position. It also shows the distance between the beach shore and the town

As the group of young men and women remained at the beach, excitedly commenting among themselves on what had just transpired at that humble location of the Cádiz province, they were able to witness one last unknown phenomenon around 10 pm: By the coast and heading from west to east, a small white light followed a silent, zigzagging trajectory, like a bouncing ball in one of those old sing-along children TV shows. A rather unimpressive finale, judging by the sort of spectacle preceding it.

Shortly after, an additional witness appeared on the beach and joined the group. Juan Bermúdez was an adult town resident –possibly related to Loli, one of the girls– correspondent for a local radio station as well as a painter; he had heard of his young neighbors’ nightly escapades at the Bateles beach, and as he had done on previous occasions decided to go there and see if anything interesting occurred –in a later interrogation with UFO investigator Bruno Cardeñosa, Bermúdez confessed he himself had actually had the chance to observe the giant humanoid on 3 previous separate occasions, during the first hour of dawn; if true, that would mean the Bateles beach had been the scene of extreme high strangeness even before the night of September 29th.

When the boys and girls told him what had happened, Bermúdez helped them investigate the area where the two cloaked humanoids had accomplished their incredible transformation. The group noticed the ‘trench’ the beings had built –which was approximately 2 meters wide by 1 meter long– showed discernible ‘scratch marks’ on the sand, as if it had been done by long and slender fingers.

 

Reconstruction of the footprints left by the couple, compared with the size of an ordinary foot

But was even more interesting were the ‘footprints’ the beings had left on the beach as they made their escape toward the town. They were enormous: 18 inches long and 6 inches in their widest part, with a very prominent arc as well as a huge toe impression that seemed to go deeper than the rest of the foot. Which raises the question: When the young witnesses saw the ‘transmogrified’ alien couple walk out of the beach, why didn’t they notice such abnormal feet?

…Unless the image of the human couple wearing ordinary clothes was just an elaborate illusion, one that was nevertheless unable to conceal their actual imprints left in the sand? This might serve to explain why both set of footprints had exactly the same size, despite the fact the female walk-in was not as tall as her 7-foot companion.

Adding to the confusion was the fact the group also found many more footprints than they expected. Aside from the ones going from the ‘sand trench’ to the Conil, an action observed by the witnesses, 20 paces away from the trench there were imprints of the same size and characteristics, but going in several different directions and covering an area of approximately 10 feet in diameter. What’s confusing about this is the fact the 4 boys and girls NEVER observed the couple deviate from their straight line toward the town alley, so they couldn’t had the time to leave all those additional prints.

But if they didn’t do it, then who did?

 

Local newspaper running an article about the Conil encounter (October 5th, 1989)

The fantastic Conil encounter with what seemed to be shape-shifting humanoids took little time to garner attention from the local media. First through the radio station Juan Bermúdez worked for, and then via an article published by El Diario de Cádiz on October the 5th. On the second part on my retelling of this wonderful episode, we will explore what else transpired after debunkers attempted to shoot down the case. But far more interestingly, we will discover what happened after the enigmatic couple of alien infiltrators returned to the ‘scene of the crime’.

The Debunking

As we briefly mentioned by the end of part 1, it only took a few days until the incidents occurring on the night of September 29th, 1989 became a matter of public knowledge. After El Diario de Cádiz ran a story about the case on October 5th, members of the Spanish Group of UFO Investigations (GEIFO in the Spanish acronym), a skeptically-oriented organization, visited Conil de la Frontera to conduct a field research and interview the witnesses; they asked the same local newspaper to publish their findings, which it did on October 16th.

 

Cover of El Diario de Cádiz from October 16th, 1989, running the debunking explanation by the GEIFO group

The conclusion by GEIFO’s researchers? The whole episode had been nothing but a big misidentification caused by over-excited imagination. The red UFO observed by the group of local boys and girls for the past couple of weeks —“as big as the moon” according to their testimony– had actually been a British ship in charge of laying down underwater cable for the Telefónica phone company in that area, which was near the coast of Conil during the night in question according to their findings, and used ‘light signals’ to coordinate the work with ground personnel. The ‘aliens’, according to the skeptics, were two crew members of said vessel wearing scuba-diving equipment and covering themselves with blankets or towels, and the ‘white cloud’ they had observed coming down from the sea, was nothing but the wake left by a Zodiac boat they divers had used to reach the beach. Case closed, Scooby Doo!

“But wait!” you may be asking, “what about the trench the ‘divers’ dug out in the sand? What about the blue light they passed around each other while they were lying down on it? What about the TEN-FOOT-TALL GIANT which appeared after the couple walked to the town (leaving their ‘towels’ AND all their equipment behind?)?”

GEIFO’s answers to all these questions –and the way they left other questions unanswered– seem to be more incredible than the testimony of the witnesses itself: The trench was built by the divers because they wanted to ‘remove their gear in privacy’ –you know, instead of doing it much more easily onboard the British ship or the Zodiac?– or maybe because after a hard night’s work laying out cable, they wanted to spend a few hours under the Cádiz’s fair weather doing *ahem* ‘other things’ *wink wink*. The ‘orb’ they had on their hands was a mere torchlight, and the black-suited giant was another diver, possibly in charge to pilot the Zodiac boat (!)

So, in the eyes of the ‘scientifically-oriented’ investigators –the ones who think any sort of explanation, no matter how tenuous or downright improbable, is always better than entertaining the possibility of a truly anomalous event– the 5 Conil witnesses rather than being UFO hoaxers seeking publicity, were just a bunch of gullible idiots. I’ll leave you Coppertops to decide which is more insulting…

The Counter-Debunking

 

5 months after GEIFO’s report had ‘satisfactorily’ solved the case –and quite possibly subjected the 5 witnesses to all sorts of ridicule in the process– investigator Juan José Benítez visited Conil to make a research of his own. Benítez is one of the most famous UFO hunters in Spain and has been instrumental in coaxing his government to declassify a good number of cases which were investigated by the Spanish Air Force. He has also traveled thousands of miles all across the globe to conduct field investigations and interview hundreds of witnesses, most of them humble townsfolk living in remote villages, who had never shared their testimony outside their circle of friends and family. He is a bestselling author not only in his home country but in all of Latin America, and it was in 1990 when he described his involvement on the Conil case in his book La Quinta Columna.

Benítez’s approach to put GEIFO’s theory to the test was simple and straightforward: The skeptics’ main argument was that the UFO observed by the witnesses had been one of two British vessels laying down underwater cable –this despite the boys’ insistence that during the night in question there was NO ship or boat on sight.

Benítez did corroborate the existence of two oceanographic ships, the British Enterprise Two and the C.S. Monarch, which had been hired by a Spanish subcontractor to conduct work for the Telefónica phone company. According to GEIFO, the Monarch had been the one near the coast on the night of September 29th; yet their first mistake was in stating the ship was laying down the cable, whereas in fact they were conducting preliminary prospecting of the littoral.

It took some hard work, but in the end Benítez managed to uncover 3 important pieces of the puzzle:

•           When the Monarch started working in the area (September 18) its position was 60 miles away from the coast, which was too far to have been able to be spotted from the beach (not to mention the witnesses started to observe the red UFO on the night of September 14th).

•           On the night of September 29th the meteorological report indicated the weather conditions were inadequate for any medium-to-large ship to even approach the coast, due to the strong winds winds mixed with the low tide and the littoral currents.

•           But the coup’ de grace came when Benítez was able to contact captain, J. A. B. Simkins –Chairman and Chief Executive of BT Marine, the oceanographic fleet which owned the Monarch– who on July of 1990 wrote him a letter stating the approximate position of their vessel during the night in question (36º 23′ N, 06º 44′ W), placing it 30 miles away from the Bateles beach. Consider how during the best viewing conditions, the horizon line on the sea only extends 8 miles.

And if that is not enough, here’s a link to Benítez’s own web page describing the Conil case, where if you scroll down you can find a scanned copy of Simkins’ letter. In it one can read the final nail in GEIFO’s coffin:

“[During our operation] (W)e would not have employed frogmen.”

Check. And mate.

As an aside note, Benítez also managed to discover (according to an article written by Bruno Cardeñosa published by the magazine Año Cero in 1996) that around the time of the incidents two individuals bearing the characteristics of the ‘changeling’ couple were lodging on a small guest house in Conil around the days of the encounter; these ‘tourists’ registered themselves using the passports of German citizens who, supposedly, hadn’t abandoned their country in those days –unfortunately, La Quinta Columna doesn’t mention this detail, nor can further information be found in Benítez’s website.

But wait, there’s more! Benítez also uncovered another interesting part to this mystery: On the nights from Sept 27th to Sept 30th, the military radar station located in Algeciras (Cádiz) suffered an inexplicable malfunction, which rendered the whole Conil area ‘dark’ during the period in which the alleged UFO activity and close encounter took place. Coincidence, or did someone (or something) was trying to avoid detection?

Benítez’s detective job showed GEIFO’s main argument failed to convincingly explain the events that took place at Conil. But although it proved the UFO was not a British oceanographic ship, and the humanoids were not British scuba divers, it can’t unfortunately substantiate the testimony of the witnesses and what they claimed they saw.

Corroboration to their fantastic story did take place, though; albeit indirectly and in the typical inconclusive manner in which the phenomenon tends to conduct itself…

The Return

How many UFO hunters, I wonder, feel as if they are doomed to always remain 2 steps behind their ‘prey’? Always trying to document cases, interview witnesses and collect whatever evidence remains AFTER the objects and their occupants take off or leave the area; but never having the chance, just for once, of actually be able to witness the high strangeness with their own eyes.

Well, for local UFO hunter Jesús Borrego López that was about to change when he decided to travel to Conil in search for more answers on October 15th. A police officer of 44 years old assigned to the Security and Control office of the Cádiz town hall, Borrego López easily managed to locate four of the witnesses (Loli, Isabel and the two Pedros) who politely accepted to answer his questions.

Once they finished talking at one of the witnesses’ home, the researcher asked them to accompany him to the Bateles beach, which they accepted even though it was already late at night. Once Borrego López was satisfied with his field survey, he invited the group of boys and girls to a local bar for a refreshment, where they remained lively discussing the incident.

It was around 10:35 pm when the group instantly fell silent, because they had all taken notice of a strange couple crossing in front of them toward the sea. Borrego López was the first to say “have you noticed the forehead of that man?”

The youngsters said nothing and kept looking at the odd individual and each other in total amazement. Borrego López insisted: “look at his height! He measures 2 meters tall, easily!”

The boys finally dared to open their mouth, confirming that was indeed the same ‘man’ and ‘woman’ they had observed leaving the Bateles beach after their ‘transformation’ inside the ‘sand trench’.

The male with the prominent cranium was walking 2 steps ahead of his female partner. Like the witnesses had described in their original testimony, he had long blond hair reaching up to his shoulders, and was wearing a denim attire which looked somewhat worn out and tightly fit. The woman was way above regular height (1.90 meters) and wore similar clothes as her less-conspicuous companion.

Borrego López and Pedro Sánchez quickly got up the table and left two of the witnesses behind, with the clear intention of intersecting the couple who were ahead of them by at least 150 meters.

“Visibility was perfect,” Borrego López reported later to Benítez, “despite the fact the streetlights at the marine promenade were turned off  (according to town hall’s regulations). But the night was very clear. There was a full moon and also low clouds reflecting the town’s illumination and lunar light over the sea.”

 

La Quinta Columna (The Fifth Column). The book where Benítez narrates (among many other encounter reports) the events surrounding the Conil case

Yet despite these optimal viewing conditions, and the fact the two UFO hunter and his young sidekick were keeping pace with the odd couple, the individuals suddenly vanished in front of Borrego López and Pedro’s very eyes. Bewildered, the two chasers looked in all directions, but their pursuants were nowhere to be found.

The unexpected disappearance raised goosebumps on both Pedro and the seasoned researcher, who had now become another witness of this incredible case. But the surprises were not over: When they both looked toward the east they noticed what looked like a ‘black dot’ the size of a soccer ball approaching rapidly from the sea shore.

Meanwhile the two other kids they had left at the bar joined them in time to observe the dark ‘ball’ which kept moving toward them at a preternatural speed. As it got nearer, the witnesses saw how its shape started to change; its trajectory became more erratic, at times looking as if it was floating above the ground, and at others as if it was being ‘yanked’ or ‘dragged’ by an invisible force.

The group continued to observe the mesmerizing vision, until they finally realized the incoming dark mass was actually a human figure; though its legs were moving so fast they were a mere blur.

When the ‘sprinter’ was just 60 meters away from the witnesses, it stopped. It was a woman! She was standing in front of the group very close to the water age, and without any warning she removed the upper portion of her clothes to reveal her female curves, and started walking toward the Roche cape, faraway in the west. And when she had put some distance between herself and the astonished group, these observed yet another figure who joined her and watched the two individuals lose themselves in the night.

According to their later calculations given the apparent size of the figure from their position, the strange female had managed to traverse a distance of 4 kilometers in around 45 seconds; something impossible to achieve even with a land vehicle. Not to mention the woman didn’t raise a tremendous wake of sand while racing through the beach, nor even make any discernible noise.

Had that been the same man and woman Borrego López and Pedro had tried to pursue? Or were they an additional element to this absurd stage play, intended to distract the witnesses the same way the ten-foot-tall giant had done on the night of September 29th, when it showed itself floating inches above the ground while the couple of changelings were making their move toward the anonymity of the Conil streets?

Whatever the case, the only thing Borrego López could do was analyze the footprints left by the (original) couple before they vanished. While the tracks made by the woman were very light and faintly discernible, the man’s were very profound; so much so that Borrego López estimated the individual had to weigh more than 100 kilograms. The size and shape were consistent with the ones found by the youngsters on the night of the 29th, not only in their unusual shape and monstrous size, but also due to the fact the researcher found tracks hinting how whomever made them, had been apparently making strange swirls as if going in circles –movements unobserved by neither Borrego López nor Pedro, the same way the original witnesses had watched the couple walk straight toward the town, yet they later found a great number of large footprints going in different directions.

After the ‘circles´, only one set of footprints was detectable… and it went straight into the water.

It was close to midnight when Borrego López confirmed there were no more tracks to be found in a 100-meter radius, and with that he was ready to call it a night. While he was advising his young acquaintances not to reveal to anyone what had transpired that night, Pedro suddenly yelled “here they come!”. Sure enough, the enigmatic couple was making yet another uncalled-for appearance right in front of the witnesses. One of the boys was (finally!) carrying a super-8 film camera and began recording the seemingly hurried movements of the couple as they passed by.

The man looked straight into Borrego López’s with cold, unfriendly eyes. His face was very pale. The woman on the other hand was stunningly beautiful, and she seemed to have somewhat oriental features, with her eyes slanted slightly at the edges and glimpsing at the gathering of witnesses with an expression of animosity or nervousness. The seasoned UFO hunter noticed both their clothes were completely dry, which ran counter to the evidence of the tracks heading into the sea.

The witnesses never dared to address the couple. They just kept staring at them until, for the second time, they reached the streets of Conil and were lost out of sight. They didn’t return that night, nor any other subsequent night.

When they revealed the Super-8 film, nothing appeared on screen. ‘Convenient’ would say the hardcore skeptic; ‘customary’ would reply the experienced Fortean, who knows fully well these sort of things happen all the time.

The Epilogue

Our tale has basically come to an end, which doesn’t mean the UFO activity in the area fully ceased; Benítez reveals other interesting incidents near Conil during that time of 1989 in his book La Quinta Columna –including the observation of another giant being by a local artisan on the morning on September 22nd. Further confirming the supposition made by few people in the UFO field –including yours truly– that high strangeness events almost never happen in isolation; rather, it seems the ‘energy’ conducing to these  manifestations slowly increases, until a final dramatic ‘crisis’ unfolds.

Libreville, Gabon: 1963

 I really must be sounding like a scratched old record by now but I will pass that off by using a current and VERY annoying phrase: it is what it is!

There is just one CE3K report for the African state of Gabon and, unbelievably, fifty odd years later it is still just a few lines -and Vallee at least quotes LDLN because if it was down to just his word I'd mark this as dubious.

In his catalogue of UFO landings, Jacques Vallée indicates that on December 25, 1963, at night in Libreville, Gabon, a fisherman witnessed the landing of a craft, from which a terrifying creature emerged.

It was humanoid in shape, spoke sounds he could not understand, left footprints on the sand, and went back to the machine and flew off.

Vallée indicates that his source are "147; LDLN 70."

Does anyone have that issue of LDLN (all my links to archives were lost when my laptop and computer died on me at the same time) or can shed any more light on the report?

After all this time I am guessing that the fisherman has passed away.

• jv1] * "Passport to Magonia - On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds", book by Jacques Vallée, Contemporary Books publisher, USA, 1969.
• [jv1] * "Chronique des Apparitions Extra-Terrestres", French translation of "Passport to Magonia", book by Jacques Vallée, Denoel publisher, France, 1972.

The Case of the Imjarvii Skiers

 

NOTE:  This is just a summary of the case that was forwarded to me by someone who thought that I might be interested. In fact, I have quite a file on the case and that is mainly thanks to the AFU Newsletters I used to receive. The case is far more complicated than this account lets on and I recall reading the material in the AFU Newsletter and just asking myself "What the hell?!"

I may try to reasses the case at some point out of interest. Only things I lack are photographs of the two alleged percipients so if anyone can help there please get in touch -blacktowercg@hotmail.com.

It was late afternoon on Wednesday, 7 January 1970 when countrymen Aarno Heinonen and Esko Viljo were out skiing.  They paused in a small clearing to enjoy the few stars in the cold sunset.  

After a short time they heard a buzzing noise and saw a bright light moving through the sky towards them.  As it neared them above treetop height, they saw a red-grey mist swirling around it and puffs of smoke emanating from it.  Inside the cloud was a circular, saucer-shaped object, metallic in appearance and some nine feet (274 cm) wide.  It had a dome above, and beneath were three spheres around the rim, reminiscent of the Adamski photographs of nearly twenty years earlier [1952.12.13].  

From the base of the object a tube suddenly fired a sharp beam of light down towards the ground.  By this time the object had lowered itself to around ten feet (three metres) from the ground, almost within touching distance of the men.

If the witnesses were astonished now, the next instant was to take what was left of their breath away.  As Heinonen related, “I was standing completely still.  Suddenly I felt as if somebody has seized my waist from behind and pulled me backwards.  I think I took a step backwards, and in the same second I caught sight of the creature.  It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands.  From around the opening in the box there came a yellow light, pulsating.  The creature was about 35 inches (90 cm) tall, with very thin arms and legs.  Its face was pale like wax.  I didn’t notice the eyes, but the nose was very strange.  It was a hook rather than a nose.  The ears were very small and narrow towards the head.  The creature wore some kind of overall in a light green material.  On its feet were boots of a darker green colour, which stretched above the knee.  There were also white gauntlets going up to the elbows, and the fingers were bent like claws around the black box.

Viljo also described the creature as “luminous like phosphorus” and wearing a conical, metallic-like helmet [cf abductee on For the Love Of].  The creature was less than three feet (91 cm) tall.

Suddenly Heinonen was hit by the light from the box in the creature’s hands.  The forest became suddenly quiet, the red-grey mist drew down from the object and sparks could be seen flying into the snow.  The mist hid the creature and surrounded both the witnesses.  Suddenly the light beam disappeared and was sucked up into the craft, apparently taking the entity with it.  Then even the craft itself was gone!  Heinonen was paralyzed on his right side and Viljo had to almost carry his friend the two miles (three km) to their home.

Later, at the Heinola clinic they were examined and the doctor prescribed sleeping pills and sedatives.  He believed that the symptoms of aching joints and headache would disappear within ten days, but for Heinonen they continued for some time.  Some five months later he was still suffering from the same pains and although the paralysis of his right leg disappeared he could still not balance properly.

Heinonen’s memory was also severely affected and it got so bad that whenever he left home he had to tell his family where he was going so that they could search for him and collect him if he didn’t return! Viljo himself was not unaffected by the event; he had a red and swollen face and had become incoherent and absent-minded.

Dr Pauli Kajanoja stated “The symptoms he described are like those after being exposed to radioactivity.”  He added “Both men seem sincere; I don’t think they had made the thing up.  I am sure they were in a state of shock when they came to me; something must have frightened them.”

The experience was corroborated by two other people who reported UFOs in the sky at the same time and in the same area as the Imjärvi encounter.

For Heinonen it was not at an end; between the time of the encounter and August 1972 he reported 23 other UFO contacts.  Occasionally, he reported meeting with an extremely beautiful space woman and one entity very reminiscent of the Adamski Venusian who had progressed considerably beyond the mere telepathy of the Adamski encounter and was able to speak fluent Finnish.

These later claims have tended to create an atmosphere of disbelief even amongst hardened UFO researchers. Of those who knew the witnesses, one farmer, Matti Haapaniemi, a neighbour, stated “Many people in this neighbourhood have laughed at this story.  But I don’t think it’s anything to joke about.  I have known both Aarno and Esko since they were little boys.  Both are quiet, rational fellows and moreover they are abstainers.  I am sure their story is true.”

There were many other sightings of “distant lights in the sky” in the area around the same time as this event, which also added to the credibility of the case.

How Things Have Changed Since 1977

The following is part of a chapter from Beyond Contact to be published in 2021.  Images are for the purposes of this post only.

All material (c)2020 Terry Hooper-Scharf

__________________________________________________________

   I have always had a great deal of respect for the work carried out by Ted Bloecher on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien Entity reports –in fact, Bloecher was working on these reports in the 1950s (as noted in UFO Contact).  From the 24^th to 26^th June, 1977, the International UFO Congress was held at Chicago’s Pick-Congress Hotel and Bloecher gave a talk aptly titled Close Encounters of the Third Kind and this can be found in Proceedings of the First International UFO Congress (Ed. Curtis G. Fuller, Warner Books, NY 1980: pp. 171-182).

   At that time Bloecher and David Webb had collected some 1500 accounts for their Humanoid Catalog (HUM-CAT).  He stated that the subject of CE 3Ks was:

     “Once shunned by many UFO researchers as far too outrageous for

     serious consideration, they now are accepted as a legitimate part of

     the UFO phenomenon, perhaps even its most important part.”

   Unfortunately, it can be said that in 1977 the push to investigate and study these reports was probably only vocal and even then amongst a small group. In the UK I was still the butt of jokes over my work and the abysmal state of investigating UFO reports let alone CE 3K reports was depressing. In 2020 it still is. The same could be said for the United States at this time since the majority of CE 3K reports from the 1973 “UFO Wave” had not been fully investigated by 1977 and some still have not been.  So why did Bloecher feel these reports were so worthy of study? He wrote:

     “They are significant because they provide information about the UFO

     mystery that we do not get from the far more frequent yet often inconclusive

     reports of random night lights.  With CEIIIs the chance of misidentification

     of conventional phenomena is minimal –these are close range sightings of

     structured objects which sometimes leave traces at the site or produce

     physical effects upon people or machinery.”

   Bloecher went on to state that these reports:

     “…can be explained in only three ways: (1) As a hoax (either the witness is

     lying or he is the victim of someone else’s practical joke); (2) as a

     delusion or a psychotic aberration; (3) as a “real” experience reported as

     accurately and honestly as the witness is capable of reporting it.”

   As Bloecher then pointed out such “reports are as old as the UFO phenomenon itself” and notes that there were CE 3K reports in local newspapers in 1947 but these reports were treated as jokes since there was no precedent for such accounts. Where I disagree with Bloecher is that “only the esoteric knew of the 1896-97 “airship” sightings during which over sixty accounts of “aeronauts” (i.e., UFO occupants) appeared in the press.”  Like Dr Geoffrey Doel before me (though I had no idea of this at the time) I looked into the 1896-1897 airship wave and there did indeed appear to be people testing out some early air vessels but the majority of reports were either misidentifications or press hoaxes and press hoaxes were far from rare at that time –the Aurora UFO crash being one of these.  Another example is the still often quoted Lamy report.

   26^th March, 1880 Lamy (then Galisteo Junction), New Mexico,

   On the 29^th March the Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican newspaper headlined that a mysterious aerial phenomenon had appeared at Galisteo Junction. Three or four people had reported that a balloon of "monsterous" size, fish-shaped, propelled and directed by a fan and probably from Asia had been visible. It was reported that there were 8 to 10 people on board and they looked like normal human beings and were singing and talking (in a foreign language) and music was playing it was as if there were some party.  On the outside of the balloon “elegantly drawn characters” but not understood and thus the newspaper speculated that it must have been an air ship from Asia.

   After a while this huge craft ascended and then departed to the east at a fast speed.

Allegedly, those on board the balloon's car threw out various items –so not only were they partying loudly over a small town but they were also unconcerned about waste dumping over it. As the story goes, some of these items were picked up by the witnesses. One item was a beautiful flower with some silk-like paper with characters which reminded the witnesses of designs they had seen on Japanese tea chests. And come daylight a cup was also found –the witnesses had seen it thrown out of the balloon but failed to locate it in the darkness. The newspaper reported the cup to be of very peculiar workmanship entirely different to anything used in the United states. These items were put on display.

   Then, a week later, the same newspaper reported that the mystery was solved: the balloon, or "Aerial Monster", was the first of a regular line of airships from China to America. How did the newspaper know this?  Well, it seems that quite coincidentally a party of tourists which included a “wealthy young Chinaman” had stopped in the vicinity. This young man became very excited on seeing the articles dropped from the airship that were on display at the station because among them was a note in his fiancée's hand. If you are not muttering to yourself “Oh, give me a break!” by now wait for the next piece of the story because this young Chinaman, of course, could read what was found and so he explained that Chinese experiments in flying had succeeded and the airship which crossed the skies of Galisteo Junction was actually the first flight of a China-to-America airlines. And this is where the story ends or, rather, this was one of the endings because various accounts all claiming to quote the same source also report that “on the evening” (?) a mysterious gentleman identified only as a "collector of curiosities" appeared in the town, examined the finds and suggested they were Asiatic in origin and offered such a large sum of money for them that the agent –the man running the display at the station? -  had no choice but to accept. The "collector" scooped up his purchases and never was seen again.

   There were a few secret “Asiatic” aeronauts around in the1890s it seems. Like the infamous calf-napping in 1897 the story was a hoax. Also these were very easily proven hoaxes as that practice was widespread amongst American newspapers at the time but these reports are still cited in the literature by people such as Vallee.* 

   Bloecher was probably more concentrated on contemporary reports and relied on the work of other “credible” Ufologists –at least two have admitted to me that they knew certain reports still in use today as ‘evidence’ were nothing more than tall stories (see Some Things Strange And Sinister).  People such as John Keel found that stories of these strange craft and people sold well –as did accounts of “phantom fliers” from the1930s.

   Ignoring the historical accounts Bloecher then went on to discuss the appearances of the entities in modern reports noting that “the considerable majority fall into these three categories”:

 

(1)   “dwarfs” that average three to four and a half feet tall; (2) “normals” of standard height or slightly under; and (3) “giants” of seven feet or more.

   Unfortunately, Bloecher then refers to a ‘study’ published in Flying Saucer Review. This was the work of Vallee which is so tainted with its inclusion of hoaxes and fake reports that it really has no value in research.  However, this is what happens if there is no peer review and you take someone’s word for something. Based on triple checked reports (sometimes even quadruple checked) I wrote a lengthy article for FSR titled “Behaviour, Motivation and Speculation” –it was rejected because “Dr Vallee had conducted a thorough study in the1960s” and dogma is dogma.  Some of the things Bloecher notes are still interesting to read.

   There has been widespread time wasting of course with more theories than sense: Ortotheny, UFOs and ley-lines, UFOs and the Mars Cycle or Venus Cycle, UFOs and the coincidences of witnesses names being similar, times and so on.  When you throw hoaxes as well as natural phenomenon and misidentification of earthly objects into these things then you get nonsense and when it is all proven to be nonsense that is part of “their” plan!

   Ufologists do also have a tendency to love to categorise, sub categorise and then even sub-sub categories or try to use highly confusing phraseology.. I have seen this at work over and over again across four decades because Ufologists think this then makes their subject “like science”.  With CE 3K reports noted varieties of CEIII experience:

Type A: Entity is observed inside the object only (the true occupant), through doors, ports, windows, transparent dome, or whatever. The association is explicit.

Type B: Entity is observed getting into and/or out of an object. Association is still explicit.

Type C: Entity is seen in the immediate vicinity of an object but not actually entering or leaving it.  Association is implicit.

Type D: Entity is observed independent of UFO but there is UFO activity in the area at the time, usually reported by independent sources.  Association is circumstantial.

Type E: Entity is observed independent of an object and there is no record of UFO activity in the area at the time. The association with UFOs is negative.

Type F: Neither entity nor UFO (or in some cases, only a UFO) is seen, but the percipient experiences some manner of intelligent communication, either directly or psychically.

Type G: Percipient has an on-board experience, either voluntarily or involuntarily.  Entities may or may not be physically present, but their involvement is at least implicit.

   These categories created certain problems and I know this because early notes carry these category pointers –an “E” or “C” etc..  Type D for example is problematic since we assume (and we know what assumption is the “mother” of) that an entity observed must have some connection with a UFO(s) because where else would a 5 feet tall, silver suited person with a large round helmet who can paralyse a witness come from?

   The same can be said of Type E reports if we are not including reports of gnome-like, “ghosts” or other entities that could be a hallucination of some type.  Type F –unless some form of solid evidence can be provided I tend to dismiss these as they could be psychological in nature.

   Type G we would call abductions and whether or not entities are seen if there is corroboration of some kind such as physical trace evidence, physiological evidence –a person in the middle of Wiltshire or on some lonely backwoods road is not likely to get radiation burns or low level radiation sickness- or even a sighting of a UFO then there has to be something intelligently controlling things –unless everything is automated.  If we have only one percipient with just an account then we have anecdotal material at best.

   All of this leads to Bloecher’s next point and what he wrote/said in 1977 is still valid today.  He concluded by asking “How credible are these reports?” :

 

     “At this stage we can answer that question only by determining, through

     careful investigation, the reliability of the person or persons reporting

     the experience.  The contents of such reports are no longer a dependable

     index for credibility since perfectly credible people do report wholly

     incredible experiences.  When an investigator approaches a particular

     case he must not allow himself to be put off by its bizarre nature; he must

     concern himself with such matters as establishing the sanity and sincerity

     of the claimant and finding independent verification of the report, if such

     exists.”

   He follows this with a closing paragraph that says a great deal:

    “A great deal of research remains to be done obviously, as we gingerly wend

    our way through the complex problems suggested by the CEIII phenomenon.

    These reports continue to provoke disbelief, confusion, and controversy –but

    they do continue, in what seem to be ever-increasing numbers— and they force

    us to confront an almost impenetrable mystery.”

 

   Of course, Bloecher could not investigate every report because the work was and is not funded.  It was through Bloecher’s efforts that we know about the details of the Euporia, Mississippi report CE 3K because he contacted the radio station and got a copy of the tape they made.  Two local investigators promised to look into the case but avoided doing so at every turn and this appears to have been due to racial prejudice –the same type of prejudice that resulted in UFO reports from “black” witnesses being ignored or even dismissed.

   Reports are only as good as the report makers. In the UK I have seen reports on CE 3K cases by so-called elite investigators that are shameful. No matter-of-fact reporting but ‘reports’ full of pet theories or even simply providing a typed copy of what a percipient wrote.  Very few of these notes even evaluate the person involved and quite often it is noted that the report is so bizarre that it has to be true because the person involved gains nothing from it.

   Sadly, Bloecher retired from Ufology in, I believe, 2000 and all of his data went to Budd Hopkins which seems to have been a waste of time because Hopkins only had one interest –the lucrative alien abduction phenomenon.  After Hopkins death the papers went to David Jacobs so it can be counted as lost.  Neither Hopkins or Jacobs maintained any credibility and both appear to have had no interest in studying ‘mundane’ CE 3K reports but in manufacturing a false alien agenda claim in which many millions of humans have been abducted all of their lives and their families abducted for generations.

   The serious study of people such as Bloecher and Webb had to contend with two major problems if we ignore the ongoing dismissal of these reports by Ufologists.  The first is the enormous time wasting sub-culture of “New Ufology” and those involved in it and, sadly, they spread their new spin to other countries. It was welcomed by some previous “believers” who stamped their feet and had childish fits of pique because after decades there were no real answers or open alien contact. For this reason New Ufology sounded good to them as it also helped cover-up their own hoaxing of other Ufologists and utterly inadequate ‘investigations’ which consisted mainly of collecting press cuttings.  The idea that one need do nothing but collect clippings to reach a conclusion was reinforced by the advent of the internet because this veritable cess-pit of misinformation also provided them with a platform.

   We can look at it this way: scientists and doctors have been searching or a cure for cancer for many decades –longer than Ufology has been around. They are till looking. They did not throw their toys out of the pram but carried on and they found better treatments etc. while still looking for the ultimate cure.  

   The second major problem was the whole “Grey Abduction Phenomenon” and although Hopkins’ initial work seemed solid and backed up by others it was not. Hopkins told me and others that all the work was basically peer reviewed when in fact it was not. It was all solely handled by Hopkins and it was Hopkins that decided what evidence would be used by stacking the decks.  Everybody in Ufology, in the United States at least, then considered Hopkins the authority of CE 3K reports and in that way they could wash their hands of these awkward nasty things –“We keep referring to aliens and we are going to get made fun of!”

   When Jacobs then became a follower of  –later considered by Hopkins an equal in this “work”— the rot set in.  As Jacobs roared in one You Tube interview: “People say ‘I saw a UFO and it moved so fast it just vanished’ No! That person was abducted!” In Jacobs mind there is no such thing as a plain ordinary UFO sighting and there never was.  Back in the 1990s when I corresponded with him he was concerned about abduction cases but at some point he threw reality out the window and even cites hypnotic interviews carried out with alleged abductees over the telephone. Reading his work is like reading the worst kind of science fiction.

   Do Ufologists discuss certain aspects of CE 3K reports these days? It seems that the only reports Ufologists receive are bog standard UFO abductions involving Greys, Reptilians or Tall Whites and I have been told by one British Ufologist that he gets 100-150 new abduction reports each month and he even has a hypnotist he takes with him when visiting new claimants because the sooner they can be put under and the facts ascertained the better.

   We have reports from the 1950s that have never been investigated not just in the United States but the world over.  No one is even bothering to try to track down those percipients/witnesses before time takes its toll.  Did Bloecher envision in his worst nightmares back in 1977 that this was how CE 3K investigation and research would develop decades on?  I doubt it.

   While all of this “Grey Agenda” paranoia has taken over people reporting actual observations of UFOs and entities –the real CE 3Ks— are ignored as UFO and CE 3K history is rebooted to make it palatable for entertainment shows and that is what Ufology has become. The Hill case is over 50 years old and all other cases are shoved to one side to promote that and a star map that was never real evidence and even Betty Hill disputed its accuracy. “The first case of alien abduction” is how the Hill case is promoted by the likes of MUFON today when it was never the first alleged alien abduction case just the best publicised in American media.

   What Bloecher wrote back in 1977 is something we should look at today.  We should ignore the newspaper fakery of the 1890s.  We should ignore the Ufological fakery of the1930s “ghost fliers” and put aside the work of Hopkins and Jacobs and begin opening up cold case files and talking to percipients before they die or their memories become too unreliable. We need to start tracking down reports that have been ignored that tie-in with the Types Bloecher outlined (excluding those already noted in my comments).

   In 2020 we should be much further along in our research but while I (and I do hope

there are others out there) have continued to look at old reports as best I can and re-assess them the rest of Ufology has stagnated since the mid 1980s.

 

 

 

 

 

300 million habitable planets in our Milky Way galaxy, say scientists

 https://uk.yahoo.com/news/300-million-habitable-planets-163743646.html

Some of these potential planets are also very close to Earth, relatively speaking, with the closest likely to be a mere 20 light years away. (Getty)

There are at least 300 million habitable planets in the Milky Way, new NASA research has shown – hinting that it’s less likely that humanity is alone in the universe.

Research based on scans by NASA’s retired planet-hunting Kepler telescope suggest that about half the stars similar in temperature to our sun could have a rocky planet capable of having liquid water on its surface.

That means the planets could potentially harbour life, scientists believe.

Some of these potential planets are also very close to Earth (relatively speaking) with the closest likely to be a mere 20 light years away.

Four are within 30 light years of Earth, the researchers say.

"Kepler already told us there were billions of planets, but now we know a good chunk of those planets might be rocky and habitable," said the lead author Steve Bryson, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

"Though this result is far from a final value, and water on a planet's surface is only one of many factors to support life, it's extremely exciting that we calculated these worlds are this common with such high confidence and precision."

The researchers say that there could be many, many more than 300 million habitable planets, according to the research published in the Astronomical Journal.

These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7% of sun-like stars host such worlds.

However, at the average expected rate of 50%, there could be many more.

For the purposes of calculating this occurrence rate, the team looked at exoplanets between a radius of 0.5 and 1.5 times that of Earth's, narrowing in on planets that are most likely rocky.

The study is based on observations by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

This new finding is a significant step forward in Kepler's original mission to understand how many potentially habitable worlds exist in our galaxy.

Previous estimates of the frequency, also known as the occurrence rate, of such planets ignored the relationship between the star's temperature and the kinds of light given off by the star and absorbed by the planet.

The new analysis accounts for these relationships, and provides a more complete understanding of whether or not a given planet might be capable of supporting liquid water, and potentially life.

That approach is made possible by combining Kepler's final dataset of planetary signals with data about each star's energy output from an extensive trove of data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission.

"We always knew defining habitability simply in terms of a planet's physical distance from a star, so that it's not too hot or cold, left us making a lot of assumptions," said Ravi Kopparapu, an author on the paper and a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Gaia's data on stars allowed us to look at these planets and their stars in an entirely new way."

"Not every star is alike," said Kopparapu. "And neither is every planet.

Ufology Needs To Get Into The Real World

 

 I think, before I let this blog go, I need to make my position clear on certain points especially since certain Ufologists keep telling outright lies (some of this may be due to mental instability on their part).

I do not believe that an extra terrestrial space craft crashed anywhere in Wales. Samples of material I had turned out to have mundane origins -as I noted in Some Things Strange & Sinister. Margaret Fry was fully aware of my explanation and I have the correspondence to prove this. Cover ups and a "not of this Earth" material claims were all her own and based on anything but fact.

I am an "MI5 stooge"/"Security Service plant". Again, pure fantasy. I hyave never been in any military ser4vice. I never held the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy nor of Captain or Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force and I was certainly not a Captain in the British Army -all to conduct a secret investigation into UFOs.

I have worked with people who have been in the military and other services just a I have worked with biologists, geographers, aeronautical engineers and astronomers. These are or were all private and unofficial.

I do not believe that either the United Kingdom or United States and certainly not Russia or China have ever had a captured/crashed extra terrestrial craft. What branches of intelligence services do and why is beside the matter. 

In my work on relic British wild cats the Royal Air Force were very helpful and communicative.  When it came to the case of the 'ghost lear jet' (Some Things Strange and Sinister) I receive above and beyond the standard response from the Ministry of Defence. 

When it comes to the subjecxt of UFOs all parties have been fairly straight on the matter and it is important to understand to constraints of the various riules and regulations at work. We have seen how a witness to a UFO sighting can have Ufologists barrage them with phone call, turn up on their doorstep or even get the press involved. Statring constantly that the MoD is using "the Official Secrets Act" to hide things is silly. The data protection act is quite binding -I know because I had to work within its constraints. 

Why is everyone surprised that, despite no defence implications, the intelligence services of various countries still maintain an interest and investigation capacity?  Defence and Intelligence agencies are there not to just prepare for any possible conflict to defend their respective countries.  Just because something (in this case not proven to be extra terrestrial) shows no hostility on a Monday does not mean that it will maintain that stance on Wednesday. "Remember Pearl Harbor!" is not just a war time slogan but has far deeper meaning and if you do not know that then study history.

Radar, satellite and many other means are used by the military-intelligence services to keep an eye on things and a snippet of information such as "The Russians are trying to find out what UFOs are" help in assessing things.  A great deal of equipment used is still unknown to the public (who probably do not care) as well as potential enemies.  Why won't anyone tell us what was discussed at defence oversight meetings? You have to be dense not to know the answer to that.

From the very outset of my own work in the 1970s, when everyone was paranoid and discussing how the MoD wanted to get at their reports, I made it very clear in public and elsewhere that what they needed to do was forward copies of reports to the MoD. I once shocked a UFO conference in the 1970 by announcing that "My work may be private but why would the MoD spy on me when all they have to do is ask for any data they were interested in?" What were Ufologists doing with that data other than putting it in newsletters? 

The Defence and Intelligence communities are not youyr enemies. They may use UFOs a a cover for aircraft or drone testing but that is to be expected.

Personally, I am very happy to see official interest in the conbtinued study of UFOs and my guess is that they know about as much as Ufologists -though some technical data/analysis would be beyond civil;ian groups.

There. I never believed that USAF or US Navy interest in UFOs had stopped (it was well known that it had never stopped) and no doubt in 10 years someone will reveal (again) that it is still ongoing.

Ufology and Ufologits need to grow up and look at the real world once in a while.