‘As seen from the chair’

I’m going to start by sticking my neck on the block and suggest that if the recent excitement generated by such things as the “Texas lights” represents the extent to which ufology has sunk, then let’s all pack it in and go chasing after the Loch Ness monster instead!

YouTube (from where this recent celebration of all things anomalous apparently originated) fascinates me, particularly - and not surprisingly perhaps - via its dedicated UFO section. Here we find vestiges of the halcyon days of the subject, living cretafological (a combination of Cretaceous and ufology) fossils embodying all that the halcyon period represented. These are the belief-driven and gullible global massive (massive, a large body of like-minded individuals) who are willing to believe and accept anything and everything containing the most nebulous or tentative links to UFOs and aliens. YouTube has become the place to show your footage and generally strut your ufological stuff, and a good place for wannabee image-manipulation freaks to showcase their talents at the expense of the gullible. The YouTube ufology section has, in my personal opinion, effectively become the home base of the naïve and the needy, and consequently the prime hunting ground for those willing to exploit them with alacrity.

It has been drawn to my attention recently that a former BUFORA Director of Investigations has chosen to voice his apparent disappointment - via the pages of  ‘UFO Data’ magazine - over our failure to respond to an enquiry from a witness.

The fact is that when you are dealing with a constant and ongoing flow of enquiries, sighting reports and countless other required communications, it stands to reason that the occasional report or request will slip through the net somewhere along the way (a fact that the witness has since acknowledged and understood when contacted in order to offer our apologies). What annoyed me wasn’t the fact that the witness expressed disappointment with us via the pages of a magazine, so much as the ‘righteous’ comments added afterwards by Philip Mantle. What I find particularly ironic is the fact that these comments were made by a man who was (I am reliably informed by many who served on the council at the same time) quite possibly one of the most inept and generally ineffective individuals to hold the post of Director of Investigations. His most significant contribution was to drag BUFORA into lasting controversy due to his ill-advised and enthusiastic involvement with Ray Santilli and the ‘alien autopsy’ film hoax. He then went on to distinguish himself further by directly contravening BUFORA’s Code of Practice via the act of furnishing a free-lance writer with witnesses’ confidential details, without their knowledge or consent. Following a reprimand for this grossly irresponsible act, Philip Mantle elected to resign from the organisation shortly thereafter. The moral of this little niggle - never try throwing pseudo-righteous stones from the precarious position of inside a glasshouse.

While I’m in a rare mood to engage in ufological politics, let’s touch fleetingly upon the latest round of time-wasting rubbish to impose itself upon our subject, the alleged U.N. debate on UFO disclosure. Basically, if there’s at least an element of truth within the material so far released, then it will ultimately begin to manifest itself and we’ll contact Nick Redfern for advice on how best to handle attention from the Secret Service! If not, it’ll simply become yet another moment of bizarre silliness in the annals of ufology, and we’ll proceed, as we do, irrespective.

And finally, for those wondering why it has taken so long to update our Christmas based page, the fact is that an inordinate amount of career and personal issues have taken precedence for the majority of the team of late, which meant, as most of you will no doubt understand, that ufology in general (apart from making time to responding to witness enquiries that is) had to be placed on the back burner for a while, unfortunately.

Robert Rosamond