Caused by electromagnetic fields in seismic activity areas "Organised religion was in decline but when worried or concerned it is comforting to feel there is a greater power looking after us. It is quite nice to think there is another civilisation that has been able to overcome the things destroying our civilisation." The UFO phenomenon is also linked with the modern reliance on conspiracy theories, a mixture of a need to believe in something more than the mundane in an increasingly rational world and an all-pervading distrust of authority.
As the Fortean Times, which this month dedicates an entire issue to the UFO anniversary, puts it: "UFOs fill a niche in the human spirit that thrives on wondrous ideas." Earlier generations had also seen UFOs but without the term flying saucer in existence, they were labelled as other things. UFO students say there are peaks and troughs in sightings that are probably based on cultural, social and political trends.
Golden age Expert Paul Devereux says a new golden age during the 1990s, particularly after the broadcast of the cult television series the X-Files, has given way to a current wave of indifference. Mr Clarke concurs, suggesting: "It could be the case that post-9/11 people are more concerned about the threat from terrorism or the environment." Mr Devereux has drawn on the work of controversial Canadian academic Michael Persinger and believes many unresolved UFO sightings can be explained by "earthlights", clouds of plasma being charged by strong electromagnetic fields occurring in areas of seismic activity.
Having witnessed a UFO that could not initially be explained, Mr Devereux has dedicated his life to research. "It bugged the hell out of me, almost gave me a mental breakdown. I couldn't make it fit into the everyday mundane world view.
" Pilot Ray Bowyer was the principal witness to the most recent publicised UFO sighting in the UK. Flying a commercial plane from Southampton to Alderney in the Channel Islands in April this year, Mr Bowyer saw two objects up to a mile across in the sky over Guernsey. "I saw a bright yellow object, a light in the sky some miles ahead.
I could see this specific shape of a flattened disc, like a CD on its edge, slightly tilted." Many UFO enthusiasts believe governments hide the truth He says some of his passengers, as well as another pilot, saw the objects and he has been told they were picked up on radar. Mr Bowyer's sighting may be a prime candidate for the "earthlights" theory, coming just days before the Dover earthquake.
He accepts this as a possible explanation. It would be a fairly perverse universe if we were the only inhabitants." Despite the drop-off in interest in UFOs, the ufologists and their acolytes carry on their work, and the UFO-loving public continues to believe in conspiracies.
"No matter how much material the authorities produce and release the people who want to believe a conspiracy to hide aliens will never be satisfied," Mr Clarke says. "It is such an emotional thing. They are convinced they are here, that they are walking among us.
" Send us your comments using the form below. Mobile phones are near-useless for snapping UFOs on account of their wide angle lens, tiny CCD sensors and poor resolution. The point about satellites warding off UFOs is a good one, though.
.. Two mile-wide UFOs are seen by pilots near Guernsey.
I really do think it's time for the authorities to own up about what they know or don't know. The objects were on radar for nearly an hour. I hope the story does not get the usual treatment.
About 10 years ago, I was woken by my father (I was at home during university vacation) telling me to look out of my bedroom window. He was already at the window, filming with hs video camera. What we saw can only be described as large, white, the shape of a teardrop on its side, and flying very fast.
At that time, we lived in southwest Cornwall, and watched as it flew behind St Michael's Mount, and reappeared the other side after a second or so. My father got all of this on video, and had it analysed by several experts shortly after. The results were inconclusive, but we were advised categorically that it was not a cloud, and that it was, indeed, very large, some way in the distance, and travelling at great speed.
As it happens, we weren't the only witnesses to this, and a large feature appeared a week later in the local paper. Certainly changed me from a die-hard disbeliever into your common or garden sceptic! I note the Roswell 'Cover Up' quoted that the debris contained indestructable, light as a feather material.
If it was so light and indestuctable how come it crashed into the ground leaving debris?? It should still have been perfectly formed if it was indestructable!
! I have actually seen the electromagnetic discharge about 5 minutes before the earthquake that was centred around Clun in Shropshire struck in the early nineties and it didn't look like no UFO. It just looked like all the air surrounding me just lit up.
I walked for one building to the other , heard a rumble, looked out of the window and the ground just looked like a series of waves running towards me then the building shook. I saw a huge black triangle over a Roman town called Vienne in France. Using crude estimations with a tv aerial as point of reference, I guess it was perhaps 3-400 metres across.
It was silent, moved very slowly and blocked the stars out as it passed over. It was very chilling indeed I find it strange that the UFO over Singapore in the 1970s never gets a mention in lists of sightings. It was around for days and thousands of people must have seen it, so why are the reports supressed?
I personally doubt that we've been visited, because even if there is a possibility of other life in the universe, you have to reduce that possibility to life existing within a reasonable distance of earth, say 500 light years. On the other hand, a recend drying up of sightings could be due to an increase in the number of satellites that look down, ie. observe the skies and ground beneath them.
This might cause an investigating visitor keep to a distance higher than satellite orbits, which would have a knock-on effect of reducing accidental naked-eye observations. Pretty much all sightings are explainable, which leaves some which are "unidentified flying objects". Just because they're unidentified it doesn't mean they're alien spaceships - by definition they're unexplained.
They could be spaceships but there's no way of knowing. If you want a real conspiracy theory try this one: the furore around government cover-ups of UFOs to make us think they're from another world is to divert us away from what they're really up to - and heaven alone knows what thet might be!.
Yesterday evening at exactly 18.06:06 hrs I was walking on the Great Orme in Llandudno when to my amazement I saw a very strange object in the skies over the Irish sea. The object was shaped similar in configuration to a crucifix, as if you were looking at it side on but with a slight tilt, it also appeared to have a green symbol/shape on the side of it.
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