Now That's Weird Conference 2008

The first ever Now That’s Weird conference is over and it was an unequivocal success. The event brought together 18 top international speakers on the paranormal, spiritual research and conspiracies, as well has several hundred other thinkers to watch and learn, including myself. It turns out I was the first person to buy a ticket! I’m very glad I went because it’s the best conference I’ve ever been to. Instead of the usual two days of weekend conferences, it also had an event on the Friday evening. The venue was the charming and comfortable Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury, the heartland of British spirit, myth and legend. The organizer of the event was Ross Hemsworth, the former presenter of the TV programmes: Ghost Detectives, Haunted Halloween Live (ITV) and Ghostwatch Live - Tower of London (BBC) and now host of the radio talk show (and soon to be TV show!) Now That’s Weird. ( http://www.nowthatsweird.co.uk/news.php ) He also runs the Now That’s Weird shop in Glastonbury which sells merchandise based on his radio show. He work is completely dedicated to raising awareness of the paranormal, psychic powers, shadow government activities and spirituality among people in the world today. I’ve known Ross for quite a while as a correspondent on the ATS forum (see links) and it was great to meet him, and his wife Penny who is the director of the show. They do a damn good job! I think Ross understands, as I do, that the basis of the millennia-long history of the domination of the masses by the power-elite, although we both go into the details at great length, can be summed up in a single sentence: We are manipulated away from being spiritualistic and towards being more materialistic. Our natural spiritual instinct has been deliberately side-tracked into the empty cul-de-sac of organized dogmatic religion. But this is now changing, and the conference was a good gauge to observe that change.

On Friday I traveled by train to Bristol and got the bus to Glastonbury. I was camping and had my tent and all my camping gear in a rucksack that was pretty heavy. The bus ride from Bristol to Glastonbury takes almost as long as the train journey from Oxford to Bristol! This is something I’ve noticed during my other expeditions to this enigmatic town. The town is not easy to reach. It has no railway and is accessed only by narrow twisting roads and the last few miles into the town always seem to take a lot longer than they should. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. What’s more the weather in the area is often vastly different to the weather outside it; the campsite manager pointed out to me that Glastonbury was the only part of Somerset to escape the last floods. Another anomaly is its size. It’s about the same size on the map as Witney in Oxfordshire but it seems much bigger. Why is this? It could be that the town and its environs sit in a space-time distortion? Brain Allan (see below) talks about this in detail in his books. The town could sit on the cusp of another dimensional plain, semi-independent from the rest of the universe. I arrived at Glastonbury and wandered through the town centre past shops specializing in crystals, spiritual books and Arthurian mythology. I felt a wonderful sense of being in a place where I felt at home. I sometimes feel lonely in Oxford, isolated and alienated from most other people, but not there! That place is a haven for nonConformists and rebels! The population is very cosmopolitan, with people speaking all sorts of accents, not just the local West Country twang. Many were foreigners too. One shop had fridge magnets saying words of wisdom like: “GOD WANTS SPIRITUAL FRUITS, NOT RELGIOUS NUTS” and “TODAY IS A GIFT, THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED ‘THE PRESENT’”. I was walking past a bookshop and saw this book in the window display that caught my eye: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eye-Fire-Graham-Phillips/dp/0586200444 . It seemed to be calling to me: “Buy me! Buy me!” So I did. It was just a little paperback, but it cost £20 because it’s a “rare book” according to the man behind the counter. As you can see from the price list at Amazon, it was a bargain! I’ll let you know what it’s like when I’ve read it.

I walked to my campsite, which was just out of town. It can be reached easily from the main road, but I took a back route over the hills along narrow country lanes, and I’m so glad I did! I followed a tiny little lane up by the Tor and got the most magnificent views over the Isle of Avalon. I arrived at the campsite and was greeted by two magnificent old oak trees called Gog and Magog. They were once the first two trees of a Druid avenue that led into Glastonbury. Christian missionaries destroyed the avenue in the 9th century, but Gog and Magog were spared. If they were mature oaks at that time then it means that today they are well over 1000 years old! They look very knarled and ancient. Gog looks like he’s dead now, but Magog is still sprouting fresh branches and leaves. Some people had tied pagan prayer ribbons to the trees’ twigs. I’d just pitched my tent when the rain started; it was a downpour that unfortunately was to last most of the weekend, causing many problems for me. But that’s the nature of camping in England: you have to take a gamble on the weather.

I returned to Glastonbury in the afternoon and arrived for the first session of the conference: a live location broadcast of Now That’s Weird, including the first shoot for the new TV show. First I had a pint in the George and Pilgrim, one of the loveliest pubs I’ve ever seen. While I was in there I saw some of the speakers and had a nice conversation with them; Malcolm Robinson, Annie Machon and Nick Pope. Nick’s girlfriend, Tab, was also there and she’s a UFOlogist too; here’s her site: http://www.roswell.org.uk/ Then we went to the venue for the event. I was delighted to meet Brian Allan there, along with his wife Ann. He’s an old Probe-buddy and his research is fascinating. I also saw Paola Harris, Ian Crane, other speakers I first saw at Probe, and Ralph Ellis who spoke at Beyond Knowledge (see here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/beyond-knowledge-conference-2008.html ). We were under studio conditions for the three hour event and couldn’t leave the room. I took the battery out of my mobile phone because I didn’t trust it to behave! The speakers were interviewed in groups of three and the crew moved around the room with the various cameras and microphones. I got back to the campsite very late and totally exhausted, but I slept fitfully and uncomfortably with the drum-roll of rain on the tent around me.

The next day I walked into the town again I noticed a strange structure in a field just opposite the Tor. It was a buried bunker-like building, about 30 feet square, with some superstructures on top that looked like electric switch cabs. There was also an antenna sticking out above it; the whole thing was surrounded by barbed wire. It’s probably just a substation or something, but I keep an eye on these things and took some photos of it (see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/06/glastonbury-tor-structure.html ). I had a drink from the Chalice Well and White Spring, two sources of natural water. I was very thirsty, but only a little handful of the water totally refreshed me! That’s because it’s natural. It’s far better than the chlorinated, fluoridated water that comes out of the taps! In the evening a band called Blackheart held a concert at the venue. They were very good, but I was too tired to stay till the end. I was pleased to meet Ann and Paul Andrews there. They are the couple who live in the haunted house I stayed at last year (See here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-trip-to-haunted-house.html ).

My Sunday morning began with a UFO sighting! I got out of my tent and saw a huge bright, golden orb about 20 degrees above the eastern horizon… then I realized it was the sun! I’d forgotten what it looked like. My walk into town that morning was the only time I got to enjoy it under a blue sky. On Sunday I was faced with a difficult choice: what to buy from all the stalls and shelves in the merchandise area. I could have had my aura photographed, my Tarot cards read, bought books or DVD’s or crystals. In the end I chose to buy Ann’s new DVD, Ian Crane’s Totnes conference one and a piece of Orgonite (see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-orgonite.html ). At the end we all went over to the pub to celebrate the end of the event. Ross was delighted with it and justly proud of himself. I went back to the campsite and had a good, but short night’s sleep. I struck the tent at 4.30 AM and caught the early bus out of Glastonbury and home. One thing that I’ve noticed about this conference is that I’ve not been afflicted with the equivalent of “post-Probe blues”. I feel very content and satisfied without any pining or regret at the conference being over. I even felt quite happy when I went back to work this morning without having acclimatized, just a day after coming home.

The speakers at this conference were an impressive and interesting line-up. I’ve reproduced my interpretation of what they said to the best of my understanding, based on notes I took during their speeches. If any of them are reading this, or anybody else better-informed, and I’ve made some mistakes then I apologize:

(Saturday the 21st of June)
Alan Foster
Alan Foster is a writer and researcher on UFO’s, crop circles and spirituality. His journey began in 1983 when he saw a UFO on the way home from church where he’d just received his Confirmation! He has come to the belief that interactions with extraterrestrial life comes in three stages: contact, preparation and awakening. He claims that we are already through the contact stage and are onto the preparation. The chief sign of this is the emergence of the crop circle phenomenon (Background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/plankers.html ). Alan informs us that, contrary to popular belief, a lot of scientific research has been done on crop circles, and some has concluded positively that they are not all man-made hoaxes. The Leavengood study has shown us that the methods used by the known human hoaxers are not how many of the formations are created. They are actually created by focused energy beams into the growth nodes of the plants causing them to bend over. Autopsies of plants in crop circle lay show burning and expansion bubbles in the stalks at those growth nodes. Non-human made crop circles also contain magnetic anomalies. Compasses go wild in them and birds, which use the Earth’s magnetism to navigate, refuse to over-fly them. Sometimes crop circles appear in daylight, like the Stonehenge Julia Set which appeared in a 30 minute period in daytime, witnessed by two Stonehenge security guards and a pilot flying past (The pilot, Busty Taylor, went on to become a croppie himself!). A disturbing aspect to this phenomenon is that the authorities seem to be engaged in a campaign of harassment of crop circle visitors. Many people who’ve been to research, or even just to sit and meditate, in the formations, have been chased away by military helicopters. He himself was buzzed by one. It flew low over him repeatedly in a threatening manner. This suggests that the government must know more about crop circles than they’re revealing and want to keep away from them, for whatever reason. He spoke at some length about a series of crop formations that emerged near the Chilbolten radio telescope in Hampshire. This could be because Chilbolten was once part of the SETI network, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. One image was of an alien face, another was a copy of the Arecibo transmission. In 1974 this coded radio message was broadcast at a nearby star: http://www.seti.org/seti/seti-background/arecibo.php . It contains images and information about the Earth and its inhabitants. Amazingly, the crop circle facsimile of it was accompanied by another similar transmission, but with several important differences: http://claudescommentary.com/special/chilbolton/ . The human figure is replaced by a “grey”, the planets are different and so is its DNA depiction. Crop circles are usually abstract, but sometimes they are of religious symbols or recognizable images. Some can be seen as 3D pictures, some of which I only noticed when Alan pointed it out. Many people ask: “Why do aliens communicate like this? Why not just speak or write in human language?” and “Why don’t they just approach our world leaders? Why bother with ordinary people”. This is a case of anthropomorphizing; we cannot speculate on how an extraterrestrial or other dimensional intelligence would communicate with us. We can’t assume they think in the same way we do. But one thing that is hinted at is that their message is essential spiritual. The leaving of the Arecibo reply in the field beside the SETI telescope could be a statement saying: “We’re not going to reply to you in the way you want us to. We’re going to do it our own way. We’re sending this to all people to make of as they wish, not just your governmental organizations who decide for them.” Thanks, guys!

Andrew Collins
http://www.andrewcollins.com/
Andrew Collins is a prolific author who has written many titles of his own, and is mentioned in the book I bought from the shop on Friday. He worked with the two authors on their ill-fated investigation. The bulk of his presentation concerned a strange “car-stop” abduction case and he brought the subject of it, John Day, onto the stage as a surprise speaker (one of two at the conference). In Avely, Essex in 1974 John was driving along with his family in the early evening when he saw a blue light in the sky. His car then drove into a short bank of green mist and came out half a mile down the road. The mist and craft had vanished and everything was normal. The family continued its journey home and when they got in John put on the TV. It was blank. He was nonplussed at first, but then looked at the clock and saw that it was 1.30AM! He’d lost 3 hours of time! He went on to experience the classic symptoms of post-abduction syndrome: disturbed sleep and nightmares, personality changes, odd illnesses and injuries. He was hypnotized to regain his memory and reported being taken on board a UFO and examined by two species of creature, a “dwarf-like” being and “Nordics”. Andrew worked with Jenny Randles and Berry King to psychically contact the aliens called “The Watchers”. During the course of his research, Andrew has come to reject the ETH, Extra-terrestrial hypothesis regarding UFO’s. The ETH states that UFO’s are solid objects, nuts-and-bolts craft that fly from other planets in our universe in much the same way as we fly to places in the Space Shuttle. He doesn’t think this explanation is satisfactory. In fact aliens and UFO’s behave much the same way as fairies, elves and other mythical beings from long ago. Abductions by fairies resemble the modern stories of alien abduction exactly. This includes missing time, like in the story of Rip van Winkle. Andrew told us that the author of that story, Irving Washington, came from Orkney and based the tale on genuine reports of islanders being spirited away by fairies. UFO’s might not be made of normal matter, but of plasma. A common feature of encounters with UFO’s is that neither the craft’s hull nor its occupants feel to the touch like anything the witness has ever felt before. This is what Jim Penniston said about his encounter in Rendlesham Forest: (see here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/rendlesham-forest-incident.html ). Carlos Diaz encountered an object in 1981 that he said was not made of solid substance, but some kind of ectoplasm or liquid crystal. It could be that the powerful electromagnetic forces in plasma cause the mind to tune to the frequency state where it can pick up communication from aliens. Lightning is a form of plasma and maybe this is why UFO’s are more likely to appear in thunderstorms. Also the proportion of abductees who’ve been struck by lightning is far higher than that in the general population.

Malcolm Robinson
I remember seeing Malcolm Robinson on TV a few months ago, on this rather tongue-in-cheek TV farce; he’s the man being interviewed on the London Eye: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKFKKzIf42M . He has had a life-long fixation on the paranormal. As a child in Scotland he always wanted his parents to take him to Loch Ness to go Nessie-spotting. He founded his own research group: the SPI and spent a lot of time at the Loch. His patience was rewarded in the end when he saw the head and long neck of the monster rise out of the water; and he had a corroborating witness: a Benedictine monk! Films like Close Encounters and The Exorcist had a huge effect on him. He’s managed to find out that both those movies are based on true stories! In the case of The Exorcist that’s scary! In fact it may be for this reason that Malcolm urges caution. The paranormal is not to be trifled with. He warns us against using the Ouija board. Scotland is the most mysterious country in the world. For its size, there are more paranormal events, of all kinds, reported there than anywhere else, so Malcolm was living in the right place to find rich-pickings for his interest. One of the best examples soon came to his attention: In 1979 a forester called Bob Taylor was walking through Livingston Woods near Edinburgh when he came across a hemispherical metallic object sitting on the ground. Two smaller objects emerged from the craft. They were balls with spikes protruding from them like burrs or old-fashioned naval mines. They rolled up to Bob and seized his trousers. Bob fled, ripping them and ran home. He called the police and they investigated and found tracks on the forest floor that could have been made by the objects Bob saw. Malcolm has Bob’s ripped trousers to this day. Through the 80’s and 90’s Malcolm researched poltergeist activity and hauntings. He did many a night-time stake-out in people’s houses. So many that one day he was assaulted by a man who accused him of having an affair with his wife. Why else would Malcolm be in her house at night when her husband was out and not leaving till morning. Malcolm explained to the man that he was merely ghost-hunting, but the man didn’t believe him!

Adrian Gilbert
http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/index.htm
Adrian Gilbert came onto stage casually-dressed, in a pale shirt and trousers, as if he’d just come back from one of his expeditions abroad. He was very softly-spoken and intellectual. He didn’t initially impress me because he began his address by saying that his favourite TV show was Stargate SG1! However when he explained I understood why. He believes that stargates may well be real and that ancient cultures all over the world knew about them. This was the hypothesis of the book he wrote with Robert Bauval: The Orion Mystery. The book showed that the structures built on the ground by the ancient Egyptians were meant to be a symbolic representation of the night’s sky. The centre of the Egyptian’s night sky was the constellation of Orion. The Great Pyramid contains shafts that point at Orion. This is where they believed Osiris lived. Adrian eventually moved on from Egypt to other parts of the world and saw a similar thing: a drive to reproduce the sky on the ground through astrological symbolism. Adrian risked his life by entering the war-torn Turkish Kurdistan to visit an ancient city in Anatolia. He discovered a stone relief depicting a lion with stars all over it in the same places as they lie in the constellation of Leo. This wouldn’t be very significant if it wasn’t for two other discoveries Adrian made nearby. A picture of the city’s king, dressed as a lion, shaking hands with Hercules. Now Hercules is associated with Orion, in the same way that Osiris is. So we have Leo shaking hands with Orion. Just beside that Adrian found a shaft sunk into the side of a mountain pointing at a particular point in the sky. The sun shines down to the bottom of the shaft only at one particular time. When the sun is in a certain position: exactly between the star that marks the left hand of Orion, Gamma Orionis or Bellatrix, and Regulus, a star in Leo that is usually depicted over the lion’s paw. So this is effectively the recreation in the sky of exactly what happens in the picture, the lion and Hercules shaking hands! The legend is that on this day a “gate opens in the stars”, a stargate! A similar effect is also present across the Atlantic in Teotihuacan where there is the same kind of celestial line-up, this time involving the constellation of the “Snake’s Rattle” what we call the Pleiades. Teotihuacan was suddenly abandoned by its entire population in 725 AD. So far the reason for this is a mystery; the people left no records to explain their actions. It was as if they all just got up one morning and walked out. The civilization was very successful and had everything going for it. The people had worked hard to create their magnificent city; why give all that up? Adrian thinks he’s found the answer: He has discovered that 725 AD coincides with a time when the astrological line-up occurred. The Teotihuacan’s own version of the Anatolian “gate in the stars” opened up. Did they walk into a real stargate? There is more symbolism in the Popol Vuh, the one Mayan text that survived the Conquistador’s genocide in the 16th century. It has a story of a Jaguar god who comes down to Earth and fathers a child with a human woman. This child then shoots a bird dead with a blowpipe. Today the sun is getting close to this line-up again. What will happen? Will the Jaguar God come down from the sky again? Adrian finishes his presentation with the question.

JJ and Desiree Hurtak
http://www.ufocongressstore.com/servlet/the-692/Dr.-J.J.-Hurtak-&/Detail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j715EL5IWz0
This enigmatic couple had a double slot in the conference, a two hour show instead of the usual one. JJ is a striking sight with a big beard and a beret on his head. He resembles the actor Topol. The couple are clearly skilled and practiced at doing a double-act and spoke in turns, rarely interrupting each other. Although I was amused to see that Desiree occasionally guided JJ to stand in the right place with a gentle nudge of her hand. This was a multimedia presentation with music and visuals, very effectively done. The music is written by the Hurtaks or their students. Much of it was truly beautiful and stirring. At the end JJ recites a poem with an abstract animated visual of diverging colours. Their speech was somewhat abstract too and I had trouble following it all. They are effectively calling for a “new cosmology”, a new way of looking at the universe. It’s been announced in New Scientist that the Milky Way is engulfing and destroying another galaxy called Sagittarii. At the same time liquid water is being found on Mars and some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. So you see, the universe is not what we thought it was. The sun is in the galactic arm of Orion and they’re discovering new chambers in the pyramid at Giza. One has inscriptions that say it is “the Tomb of Osiris”, which is linked to Orion (As Adrian Gilbert said). Also, this coincides with NASA naming its new moon rocket “Orion”, which is due to send a manned mission to the moon by 2016. Apparently the Apollo 11 astronauts saw UFO’s and aliens on the moon, and took photos of them which NASA covered up. JJ says he has a copy of those photos! (Shame he didn’t bring them!) They talk about something called “Ultraterrestrials” which they distinguish from Extraterrestrials although I didn’t grasp how exactly. But the Ultraterrestrials (UT’s) are currently trying to free the Earth from its “biochemical testing zone”. They say that the novel The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon (which I read a long time ago) is full of hidden meaning, thanks to one of its consultants Gordon Cooper, the astronaut who became a UFO enthusiast after seeing “bogeys” in space. The Hurtaks have addressed the United Nations and US Presidents in an attempt to stop “Star Wars”. They say that the weaponization of space is an act of hostility to aliens like the UT’s. JJ says that in 1977 he managed to persuade the President of Mexico not to attack a UFO that landed at an ancient pyramid for 14 hours. They claim that the “Vrillion broadcast”, that took place the next day, was real (Background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/03/vrillon-broadcast.html ) He can prove it because it coincided with mass radio and communications disruption across the world, not just in the area of England where the broadcast was heard. Not all aliens are good though; maybe this is what they mean by “UT’s” as opposed to ET’s. They’ve worked with David Icke’s friend in South Africa Credo Mutwa (more on him later). Earth’s magnetosphere is weakening and the sea level is rising. The moon becomes electrically charged when it is full, in the lee of the solar wind. This was a charming and very moving performance. As I said, the Hurtaks used son-et-lumiere effects to accompany their words. As for their information? I don’t know. Some of it sounded very ultraworldy even by my standards! I’ll have to look into it a bit more.

Nick Pope
http://www.nickpope.net/
I met Nick Pope in the pub on the Friday afternoon and got to talk to him. He looks every bit like the government official he used to be, very dapper with glasses and with neat hair, dressed in a shirt and tie. He waived the projector and spoke in a logical and scientific tone; what a contrast to the Hurtaks whom he succeeded on stage! He has become famous for being “Britain’s Fox Mulder”. When he was in the Civil Service he was head of Secretariat AS-2 at the Ministry of Defence, the official UFO investigator for the government, one of only a tiny few people in the entire world to hold such position since the closure of Project Blue Book. Today he’s freelance, but is still employed as a pundit whenever a UFO story comes out in the news. In fact the very day I met him, last Friday, he informed me that he’d just done a TV interview regarding the police helicopter incident in Wales: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/06/ufo-over-cardiff.html . This made my jaw drop because the story was released for the first time that day! What an apt scoop for the conference! Despite his guardedly official and authorized mien, he seemed quite at home in the George and Pilgrim. He let his hair down easily enough and is manifestly affectionate to his girlfriend Tab. He had an interesting debate with Ian Crane over 9/11 which I couldn’t resist eavesdropping on! Afterwards he spoke of his doubts about a 9/11 conspiracy to me. I could have answered him but decided not to; if Ian and Annie Machon couldn’t change his mind then I had no chance! He has a knack for choosing good titles. His book is called Open Skies- Closed Minds while his presentation was called Spinning the Saucers. This was because he concentrated on how the media treats UFO reports, and this really sparked my inertest, because regular HPANWO-readers will know how much I’m interested in the media. He rejects any kind of conspiracy or cover-up, but he’s sure that the media spin-doctors “downplay” UFO stories. I think that’s an understatement! See here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-british-ufo-files-released.html . Nick has analyzed the kind of language used in news reports on UFO’s and has noticed the constant use of euphemisms and loaded words. For instance, people enthusiastic about the subject are often called “UFO-spotters”; this conjures up an image in the mind of anoraks and bobble hats. It matters not that some “UFO spotters” are army generals, policemen and airline pilots! (Besides, even the so-called “most gullible members of society” have turned out to be much better witnesses that the Skeptics claim they are. A few years ago, some engineers built a fake UFO out of a model plane and flew it over Avebury, a gathering place for mystics and pagans. This was a “Carlos”, the intention being to fool them and therefore show them up for being dupes, but in a way the plan backfired. The hippies at Avebury did indeed report seeing a UFO, but they reported pretty much what they saw, describing the craft accurately. There were none of the embellishments and exaggerations the hoaxers were banking on.) He has also noticed in the modern media a return to the old 1940’s term “flying saucer” substituting the post-Blue Book “Unidentified Flying Object”. This is because the older term sounds more benign and also slightly mystical and quirky whereas “UFO” has connotations of official recognition, concern and sinister unknowns. Edward L Bernays is alive and well! He also noticed the same thing I do regarding the absurdity of debunkers (EG: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/rendlesham-forest-incident.html . The better the story the crazier the debunker!). The Ray Bowyer sighting is one. Bowyer is an airline pilot who saw bright yellow ovoid UFO near the Channel Islands last year. Nick commends his brave decision to come forward and be counted by going on TV (“Let’s hope those Welsh policemen do the same” he said). The debunkers say he merely saw an airship. But he’s a pilot! He’d not only recognize it, but be able to judge its size correctly. The object Bowyer saw was a mile long. The world’s biggest airship, the Hindenburg, was only 805 feet long. Not to mention the trifling matter of it having crashed over 70 years ago and that all modern airships are much smaller! Nick then commented on the release of the MoD’s UFO files: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/12/british-ufo-files-declassified.html . It was apparently a controversial decision. Some officials were in favour, others against. The purpose was to dispel conspiracy theories, but Nick says “this showed a lack of understanding of the psychology of conspiracy theorists”. Of course we’d only go on to claim that the release was a smokescreen! The reason the release is taking all these years is not because they have things to hide behind national security exemptions, says Nick, but because of data-protection laws. Every file must be checked for witnesses’ personal information before being released and this takes a long time. Nick supports this disclosure “with a small d!” because it frees up the staff from the workload of having to shuffle files during FOIA requests. Now they can just say “Go to the National Archives” and that’s the end of it. Unfortunately the rude jokes about witnesses scrawled in the margins by MoD desk staff are not exempt and Nick says that there’s going to be a bit of embarrassment to come! I was fascinated by Nick’s research (although he told me not to read his book because it’s out of date) But, I question whether by using word “downplay”, he is unknowingly employing his own spin. We have seen the absolutely blatant signs of cover-ups in other countries, especially the USA, with whom the UK shares a lot of its policy. Nick is seen by much of the UFO skeptics in government as an outspoken maverick for saying that UFO’s “might actually be real...!?” He riles against the dismissive attitude taken towards them by his colleagues and believes that they are an obviously clear and present danger to national security and air transport safety. Seeing as these objects can fly at 40,000 knots and penetrate nuclear installations with impunity I can hardly disagree with him! In the UFO community he is seen in an almost opposite way: An overly-cautious Skeptic, even a paid disinformer; much to his chagrin. I don’t think he’s a disinformer. I think he’s saying what he believes to be true, even if he’s not correct on everything. Personally if I was in government and I knew we had a crashed UFO and alien bodies in the sub basement of Porton Down Nick Pope, the country’s official UFO spokesman, would be the last person I’d tell! Maybe this is why there are some areas he will not go. After Ian Crane’s address I joked to him: “Hey, Nick. When the aliens invade in 2012 they’ll want you to go on the news and tell the viewers why the Ministry never informed them!” He grimaced thinly at me and turned away.

(Sunday 22nd of June)
George Lockett
http://www.healergeorge.com/
The next session was almost an interlude to everything had been going on before. Healer George sat on a chair on stage and encouraged us to close our eyes and meditate. This was going to be a healing session! I sat in the Za-Zen chair position, closed my eyes and followed along with George. He encouraged us to visualize all the cells in our body smiling and told us to thank them for all the hard work they’re doing. Then we went down into our atoms and stood on one of the electrons orbiting one of their nuclei. We went through our chakras, opening them and letting the differently coloured rainbow light flow around our auras. Interspersed with this, George told us a bit about his background. He’d learned spirituality during a trip to Switzerland where he studied under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who was the guru of the Beatles. He told us not to fear aliens because they’re part of us. He then spoke of the five elements, Earth, Air Fire Water and Life and how you find them in all aspects of the universe in different proportions. The body is the same, made up of different levels of the five elements. The “dosha” is your body type and it’s important to eat food that helps keep your balance in the face of your dosha. For instance if you have a large oily body then don’t eat too much oily food. And if you have a skinny body then be sure to eat more oily food. He repeated what the Hurtaks had said about the moon putting on an electrical charge at full moon, when it goes into the lee of the solar wind. This George equates with certain emotional states that he notices in his patients. I was suffering from an aching hip from a muscle strain I’d received while walking up the hill to the campsite and also painful feet from the wet conditions in the tent, so I was interested to see if George’s healing worked. It hasn’t at the time of writing, (although my feet got better when they dried out) but I certainly felt more relaxed and alert and less drowsy for the rest of the day.

Paola Harris
http://www.paolaharris.com/home.htm
In my recent Rendlesham Forest article I discussed the great women in UFOlogy, and Paola Harris is definitely another member of that Hall of Fame. I first met her last year at Probe and bought her books. I found her fascinating and (I assert the right to speak frankly on my own blog) stunningly voluptuous. I have to confess that her beauty disarms me considerably. I could look at her and listen to her voice all day; she could read out the FTSE 100 Share Index and I’d be on the edge of my seat! A cynic would say that this is the secret of her success, but that would be totally unfair. She’s far more than just a pretty face! The secret of her success is her merit as a journalist and researcher. She’s intelligent, charismatic, dedicated and is probably the most passionate UFOlogist I’ve ever heard of. She calls aliens “our cosmic brothers and sisters”. Paola makes little income from her research and has a day job as a teacher. But despite all this she managed to organize several major international events in Rome, paying for such greats as Jesse Marcel Junior and Michael Salla to attend. She’s one of these people who’ve “moved on” from studying UFO’s to accepting their presence and embracing the challenge of what to do about them; in other words: Exopolitics. She’s interviewed everyone who’s anyone on the circuit and became especially close to Colonel Philip Corso, the Pentagon insider who spoke out about Roswell; in fact he virtually adopted her before his death in 1998. She’s now writing a new book that should be published by October. She works on Disclosure (with a capital D, Mr Pope!) and spoke about Orbs. In fact one of her books is subtitled: How do You Speak to a Ball of Light? She’s been on TV in Ireland with Ellis and has become close friends of the Andrews family. She delivered her lecture quickly, squeezing as much in as possible into her allotted hour. She did some of the same stuff she did at Probe, explaining how much the film Close Encounters affected her and inspired her, as it has many. She has some major news though, to do with the Peckman film http://www.paolaharris.com/peckmanletterman.htm . This is a recent video of an alien that was broadcast with much publicity in Denver, Colorado a couple of months ago. It was scorned as an obvious fake, but Paola said that this is not the original film! It’s a copy hashed up by some media spin-doctor to ridicule the whole thing; you can almost see the strings on it! But Paola told us that the original is in safety deposit and the cameraman, whom she is in contact with, is willing to release it in a separate event if enough money can be raised for a proper documentary. This is very exciting news. There have been some setbacks though. Shirley McClaine blew Dennis Kuchinich’s presidential hopes when she went public that she’d seen a UFO and aliens on his ranch. He was made a laughing-stock. Paola also mentions a new phenomenon: crop circle-like symbols appearing on the walls of derelict buildings. This is news to me and I’ll look into it. She also goes into more detail over something that she touched on at Probe: A colony of aliens living in Italy. She showed pictures of them. They look a bit odd, but are barely distinguishable from humans. I wouldn’t look twice if I passed one in the street. Some of the pictures look a bit photoshopped to me, but others seem very genuine; who knows? Paola believes that infighting in UFOlogy plays into the government’s hands. She warn against space weapons, like the Hurtaks did, and told us of an event where a UFO got shot down over Long Island. This is virtually an act of war and it could be the government’s intention to start a war with ET’s to justify more arms spending and “Star Wars” technology that could be used against us or the aliens. At the end of her speech, Paola brought her friend Ann Andrews up onto the stage to briefly tell her own story (Background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-trip-to-haunted-house.html ).

Ralph Ellis
http://freespace.virgin.net/kena.edfu/
I met Ralph Ellis at the Beyond Knowledge conference last month: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/05/beyond-knowledge-conference-2008.html and got to speak to him then, without knowing who he was, in the most unusual of circumstances. We were both in the toilet and went hunting for toilet paper! Ralph is an imposing and charismatic-looking historian. He is very tall and wears a waistcoat and leather sunhat. He’s just published as book called King Jesus which tells a never-before aspect of the Christian story. He builds it on the back of his other works that show how the stories of the Old Testament are not original; they are actually plagiaries of ancient Egyptian myths. They are supposedly the history of the Jewish people, from their beginnings at the dawn of time, through disaster and rebirth through Noah’s Ark, from slavery and escape to freedom, to the founding of Israel, the “promised land”. But every one of these tales is also found in Egyptian myth that is much older, in some cases more than a millennium older! They are copies, and Abraham, Moses, David and all the other heroes of the bible are just Egyptian heroes with new names. The same goes for Jesus. Jesus, as we know him through the Christian churches, is a character based on older mythology. His whole life is a walkthrough of astrological symbolism; the recurring theme of fish connects to Pisces and the twelve Apostles represent the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The whole story was concocted by one man who is thought of as two people St Paul and the historian Josephus Flavius. The similarities in their lives are too strong to have been separate; they were the same person. But the source for Jesus himself was a real man, Jesus of Gramala, a very powerful prince who lived in the First Century and fought in the Roman-Jewish war. He was not a carpenter and definitely not poor! This is a mistranslation; “carpenter” should really be “architect”. The source of his power was his incredible pedigree. He is better connected then probably anybody ever born before or since. He comes out of the house of Orania, a city-state based in Palmyra, in the east of modern Syria. His grandparents were all rulers. One was the daughter of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, another was Phrates, Emperor of Persia (This is why three Magi, the “wise men” visit him when he’s a baby. This is a Persian tradition for a new prince), another was Jubba II, King of all Libya (North Africa). So all Jesus’ ancestors were rulers of the world’s four superpowers, Egypt, Rome, North Africa and Persia. This effectively made him heir to all those thrones. So we’re talking about the only person in history who had the right to call himself King of the World. I wonder, was it an early attempt by the Illuminati to establish the New World Order? If so it failed, but will they try to do the same thing today in a similar fashion? There’s more to the story, and this connects with the legend of King Arthur! This is why the subtitle of Ralph’s new book is From Kam to Camelot (Kam is a very ancient name for Egypt). Jesus of Gramala was crucified after the Roman victory in the war. He was put on the cross with two other leaders of the Jewish rebels. Those two other men died, but St Paul/Josephus Flavius, rescued Jesus in time to save his life. This is clearly where the Crucifixion and Resurrection story comes from. He was however not pardoned. The Roman authorities decided to exile him as far a way as possible to prevent him from doing any more harm. This is similar to what was done 1800 years later to Napoleon. He was at first exiled to his home of Corsica, but escaped to reap more havoc so they sent him to the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena. In Jesus’ case, he was sent to Britain, the remotest backwater of the Roman Empire. He was held secretly in comfortable quarters in Fort Dewa in Chester. The site of this fort was excavated by archaeologists a few years ago and it was a big mystery because it is the biggest Roman fort ever constructed. It was also made of stone, not wood, so much have cost a packet! Why was such a huge castle built in a very quiet and unimportant place? It was like building the Pentagon on an island in Alaska! Well maybe it was built specially to house the exiled Jesus. The archeologists discovered that there was a sealed section of the fort. This must have been a restricted area and nobody outside it could have found out what was really going on inside. But obviously there must have been speculation, in the same way that Area 51 causes speculation today, and legends emerged of somebody called “Arturi”; which is another name for Egypt. The dimensions of the secret annexe were the same as the Jerusalem temple and one of the rooms was built in the shape of a Vesica Piscis. This once again connects to Jesus’ story through fish symbolism. Unfortunately the archeologists could not complete their work because the site was destroyed to make that recurring bane of archaeology: the shopping centre! But could the legend of the mysterious exile: Arturi have inspired the legends of King Arthur? The story of the Fisher King; fish once again. The Fisher King was also the “maimed king” who is healed by the Holy Grail. This could refer to circumcision or castration. Many dangerous exiles were castrated to prevent them fathering any children to cause more trouble in the future. The way Arthur marries Morgeana, but has Gwynyfyr on the side is also Egyptian in origin and maybe Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of Mary symbolizes Gwynyfyr. Ralph amazed the whole audience; few of them, including myself, had ever heard of any of this before. We all knew the Holy Blood-Holy Grail story, but Ralph’s discoveries deepen and complicate the story enormously. It just goes to show that we’re looking at the past through a distorted Kaleidoscope lens and it takes a lot of work to make sense of the confusing images. The past is lost, sometimes through deliberate suppression, but also through accidental distortion. But knowing our own past gives us a grip on who we are today. I was very impressed by Ralph’s address. Ralph’s new book will soon be on sale in the UK.

Brian Allan
Brian is an old Probe-buddy and it was great to see him at this conference, along with his wife Ann. He got into this kind of life in much the same way Malcolm Robinson did; and he’s worked with Malcolm a lot. They used to live close together in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. He’s in that same pathetic TV show with Malcolm (See Malcolm’s segment). He’s one of the Rosslyn Chapel investigators that the producers take the piss out of. Brian, quite rightly, complained to OffComm about that. I bought his book Rosslyn- Between Two Worlds at Probe in 2006. It so enthralled me that as soon as I read it I contacted Brian and asked to purchase the other two: Hole in the Sky and The Barriers of Belief. He sent me signed copies by return of post. Brian has many innovative views and has made some unexpected discoveries. Like Andrew Collins, he has rejected the ETH and understood the links between UFO’s and faeries etc. He’s worked closely with mediums and remote viewers and the focus of his work now is to understand how the fabric of reality affects our universe and perception. He says that he has found out that there are certain places on Earth where the structure of the 3D/linear time universe we can perceive is unusually weak and this accounts for the clustering of paranormal activity in certain places. One of these weaknesses he is convinced is in Rosslyn Chapel. He thinks that the place may be home to a stargate, like the ones Adrian Gilbert and other speakers mention. The chapel itself is not completely in this universe and is actually on a “bridge” between this universe and another, hence the book’s title. The existence of this stargate and maybe even the key to unlocking it, could well have been known by the chapel’s architect, Sir William Sinclair, First Earl of Caithness. He was himself buried in the crypt in 1484, the last time that Rosslyn’s enigmatic and expansive catacombs were opened. Sinclair was a Knight Templar and therefore privy to much occult knowledge which has always been the domain of the Elite secret societies, known collectively as the Illuminati. Brian thinks he has discovered Sinclair’s secret. Rosslyn’s interior decoration is some of the most grotesque and outlandish in the world. There are cuboid pendants carved into the ceiling with strange patterns on them. But these patterns are not random, they are Chladni images. Ernst Chladni was an 18th century master of acoustics who discovered that if you run a violin bow on a metal plate it makes a musical note and the sound waves of this note can be seen by sprinkling sand on the plate. The sand forms a pattern. Different notes form different patterns. Well the Chladni patterns match the shapes on the Rosslyn cubes. It’s a musical score written in stone! But what does the music do? Brain urges caution and says we shouldn’t meddle casually with these kinds of things. Opening a stargate could be extremely dangerous. We don’t know what other universes are like, what could happen if they meet ours or what features in the other universe could get into ours. (This is a concern of mine too. See here: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/03/large-hadron-collider.html ) I was reminded of this very chillingly when I watched the movie The Mist: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884328/ . The film is about a small village which has a secret government laboratory nearby, an experiment at the laboratory goes wrong, a stargate is opened and the village is engulfed in mist. The mist turns out to contain a wide array of terrifying predatory monsters sucked through the stargate from another universe. The film is a frightening horror movie, but it contains a thought-provoking message and I thought of Brian’s ideas as I watched it. Of course the scenario in the movie is an extreme example, but Brian has linked the appearance of the Rendlesham Forest UFO’s to the time a secret radar experiment was going on at the Orford Ness test site. The same could have happened in Varginha, only this time the stargate was opened by the worst thunderstorm ever to hit the region. The Point Pleasant Mothman is another example of one of these interdimensional sojourners (I wondered what the entities in those other dimensions think of us!). Brian gets very angry when it comes to the subject of debunkers. He says that conventional science has a built-in immune system to defend itself. He lays into Skeptical organizations like CSICOP. He is intensely frustrated by their closed-mind, dogmatic obsession with preserving everything that is “normal” and pouring scorn on anything that exposes it. Brian has a new book coming out soon called View from the Abyss. It’s definitely on my list. Brian couldn’t squeeze his entire address into his allotted hour and had to cut it short. But this probably helped his book sales because he unintentionally left the audience teasers!

Annie Machon
http://www.anniemachon.com/
Annie Machon is an elegant, sophisticated woman; very well-spoken and clearly educated. She therefore blows the stereotype of the “conspiracy nut” clean out of the water! She was recruited to MI5 in 1991 and served for 6 years. She went to the job interview not expecting to be accepted, because she answered the questions honestly! But her boss told her that the secret services were trying to clean up their image and recruit a “new type” of officer. After the scandals of the Cambridge Spies and concerns of the agency’s lack of public accountability the spy-services have been “rebranded”. Almost at once she began to feel uncomfortable in her duties. Along with monitoring extremist groups like the National Front and Militant, she found out that MI5 also keep an eye of perfectly legitimate protest organizations like CND and Greenpeace. It got worse! She was transferred to the Irish branch where she had to carry out surveillance on IRA suspects, only to find that many of that terrorist group’s atrocities could have been prevented if it wasn’t for the service’s culpable neglect. The final straw came when she found out that the bombing of the Israeli embassy in London, where many innocent people died, was not the work of the Palestinians, but Mossad, an organization that makes even the hardest, toughest spy’s flesh crawl. Patsies were quickly convicted for the attack and are in jail to this day! The Intelligence Services know they are innocent, but won’t say anything! She also heard from a contact in the foreign human intelligence network, MI6, that they were funding anti-government extremists in Libya to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi. The attack went ahead and Gaddafi survived, but once again, innocent civilians were caught up in the crossfire… and all funded by the British taxpayer! She complained to her boss, but was told not to rock the boat and just get on with her job. Speaking out would breach her secrecy oath. She was luckily not alone. Another officer called David Shayler shared her concerns and the two of them left MI5 in disgust. But this was not enough for David. He wanted to expose them. He approached a newspaper with his story and ended up in terrible trouble. He had to flee to France and Annie, his girlfriend at that time, went with him. While they were in France Special Branch officers raided David’s flat and virtually demolished the joint; they found nothing incriminating. After some months on the run in France David and Annie decided to come home and face the music, demand a public trial and let the government put up or shut up. It was a very naïve move. David was tried in a kangaroo court (something that is happening more and more often these days) and none of the information that he wanted to expose could be tabled as evidence. The press crucified him and he was jailed. This experience has changed Annie’s life, and I can see the pain and anger she feels when she was speaking. She’s not giving up though. She’s working with the 9/11 Truth Movement to expose 9/11 and other false-flag conspiracies and is fighting to stop the emerging police state that we’re heading for. I’m doing the same and I admire her a lot! She feels optimistic but predicts that there will further atrocities to come. The US plan to invade Iran and dispose Ahmedinajad and this will happen before the end of Bush’s presidency in November. If “something” happens, like a terrorist attack in the West, before the invasion then we should be more than suspicious; especially if the government then point to Iran as the culprits!

Dr Liz Williams and Trevor Jones
http://www.witchcraftshop.co.uk/
The conference’s second double-act were a pair of Glastonbury pagans. Dr Liz Williams is a successful sci-fi author while her husband Trevor Jones runs three shops in the town on esoteric and occult subjects. She is a Druid and he is a Wiccan. They dispelled a lot of the popular myths about Pagans. Firstly Paganism is really “Neopaganism”. It’s a recreation rather than a continuation, although I’m sure there are psychic links to the indigenous pagans of the pre-Christian Celtic and Anglo-Saxon world. What we know about modern Druidry comes from a few Roman historians and scant fragments of knowledge that were preserved through the Middle Ages in Welsh and Irish texts. Also Witches and Druids don’t go around casting spells all the time! Liz said that most people are surprised how scanty the average witch’s use of magic is, when magic’s popular image has so much potential! “Why go out and buy a bottle of wine when you can make it out of water?” etc. Magic does work, but it doesn’t always work in the way you think it’s going to. For instance a witch might put a spell on a man she desires to make him reciprocate her feelings, but then discover that when you get to know him he’s a creep! And then she needs another spell to get rid of him! The old proverb: “Beware what you wish for… in case you get it!” is very appropriate to Pagan magic. Liz said that generally the younger the witch is the more magic she will do. Teenagers cast spells all the time while a more a more mature one will hardly ever do so. Most older Wiccans and Druids are fairly nondescript too. They usually wear ordinary clothes and behave like everyone else. Liz often doesn’t even wear a pentacle pendant. Another myth is that witches put curses on people. In fact they hardly ever do this. Nearly all magic is either benevolent or neutral. Pagans believe in a Karmic-like force called “Once out thrice back”. It means that whatever spell you cast on another you’ll get back three times as powerfully. Pagan beliefs are also incredibly plural, diverse and eclectic, almost as much so as Hinduism. There are very few organizing structures and Trevor describes their futile efforts to produce a coherent creed as “like trying to herd cats”! Some Pagans are animists, others worship animal and plant Devas, others worship ancient Gods and Goddesses; there are no rules and it’s pretty much a spiritual free-for-all. I like that! I was particularly interested in the hand-fasting ceremony. This is a Pagan wedding. The happy couple have to have a separate registration because unfortunately Anglo-Welsh marriage law doesn’t yet stretch to have joint wedding-registrations in Pagan ceremonies (Scottish law does though because I once saw a film of a Pagan wedding at the Findhorn Foundation). However Glastonbury is the home to one Druid who is also a registrar and he uses some loophole to do registrations at hand-fastings. The ceremony can be held anywhere, even outdoors in good weather. It begins with the drawing of a circle on the ground. The bride and groom enter from the East and step over a broomstick into the circle. They then hold hands and the celebrant ties their hands together. They exchange vows, read from Pagan and Shamanic rites and then there’s a blessing ceremony where the local spirits wish the new married couple good luck. Then they exit the circle and jump over the broomstick. Ross and Penny were married at a hand-fasting and Trevor told me that he was their celebrant! I was really interested in Trevor and Liz’ introduction to Paganism. I always like to see myself as non-religious, but I think if I am in any way religious then I am a Pagan myself.

Ian Crane
http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk/
http://www.foolmeonce.co.uk/

Ian Crane was in great form as always. His address is one I’ve seen before, but this time he’s changed the intro music to Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who. I hope he’s right! He used to be an oil company executive and went on to be chairman of the UK 9/11 Truth Movement. They must have regarded him as something of a pariah! I’ve worked with the 9/11 Truthers myself and they hate to be linked with “conspiracy nuts” and do everything they can to avoid the label. Ian is very worried by chemtrails saying that there’s no way they could possibly be natural phenomena. He said that he complained to Sir Anthony Stein, his MP in Devon and Stein was very keen to investigate, but then suddenly lost interest. Was he warned off? Other issues that Ian tackled were the new Codex Alimentarius laws which will destroy the alternative health industry if allowed to go unchallenged. They also severely increase the control authorities have over food production, effectively forcing us to eat GM crops, eliminating organic faming and reducing the amount of vitamins and essential nutrients we get. It also means an end to food labeling so we will be ingesting GMO’s and chemicals like Aspartame without knowing it. So we get ill quicker and more often and the official healthcare system has a total monopoly over our treatment! How convenient! He also says that Peak Oil is a myth. The Americans are actually paying Middle Eastern countries leave the oil in the ground. One of the reasons Iraq was invaded was they began trading oil in Euros instead of US dollars. The Elite he talks about believe they are the lost biblical tribe of Ephraim and that it is their destiny to create the New World Order, turning London into the New Jerusalem mentioned at the end of the Book of Revelations. They’ve used US forces in Iraq to destroy the antiquities that reveal their true origins. The London Olympics in 2012 is going to be a massive ritual for them and the Olympic logo, designed by the former British athlete and Zionist, Sebastian Coe, can be redrawn to spell the word “ZION”. The year 2012 is mentioned in many prophesies and predictions as a year of change and revolution. Could the Illuminati try to pull off something major in that year? The Report from Iron Mountain revealed that they are planning to fake an alien invasion, Independence Day-style. This was confirmed by Dr Carol Rosin of the Disclosure Project when she interviewed Werner von Braun in 1977. Will 2012 be the year they decide to do it? Ian ended his speech by playing The Power of Love by Frankie goes to Hollywood, with his own illustrations; I found it very moving; it brought a tear to my eyes and you’ve got to see it to understand. Ian is a magnificent speaker. His optimism is infectious and uplifting. He really makes me feel joyful and hopeful, even more so than David Icke, and listening to him really makes me believe we can get out of this mess.

Larry Warren
http://www.leftateastgate.com/

Larry was one of the people I met on Friday evening (He was the replacement speaker for Chris Everard who is once more exiled in France like a rebel prince!). It was a bit embarrassing because I had to confess to having bought his book Left at East Gate two months ago and not yet read it! He wasn’t bothered though. He seems very easy going about most things. He’s a very amiable and funny man, a real Jack-the-lad New Yorker who could probably have had a career as a stand-up comic if he hadn’t become a whistle-blower. When he heard I was camping in the rain he kindly offered to let me sleep in his hotel room on a spare bed. I declined because it wouldn’t be fair. Larry has never heard me snore! Larry was one of the airmen at Rendlesham Forest who witnessed the UFO landing at Christmas 1980 (Background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/06/rendlesham-forest-incident.html ). He tells a very different story though. He says while Lt. Col. Halt and the others were in one part of the wood chasing red lights and making the audio recording, he was in another watching a craft land and alien beings near it communicating with senior USAF officers! He’d been assigned to deliver “light-alls”, big floodlights with built in generators, to the various places in the woods where the airmen were searching, but the electrics failed, a common occurrence with UFO encounters. The stories he tells about his debriefing are weird and frightening. He was interrogated by people who were not in the OSI, as was previously assumed; they were in the NSA, the US signals intelligence agency, a bit like Britain’s GCHQ. The spooks threatened them, saying to one of the witnesses “bullets are cheap”. Tragically afterwards one of the witnesses fell into depression and shot himself. At one point Larry claims he was given drugs or subjected to hypnosis because his memories are fuzzy. He managed to find out that a film had been made of the aliens and it was flown in a secure satchel to the Supreme Allied Command centre in Germany. Larry was discharged from the USAF and went back to the States where he went psychologically downhill himself. He decided in the end to write a book about what happened with his friend Peter Robbins. He was instrumental in getting the Halt memo released because Jenny Randle’s American contact was one of Larry’s too. The other witnesses, Halt, Penniston etc, dispute Larry’s testimony. Some people have even claimed that Larry made the whole thing up, but recently Ross himself has been in touch with one of Larry’s fellow servicemen at Bentwaters-Woodbridge who has backed up his story. Now I’ve met Larry and heard him speak I really should read his book!