UFOs
In July 2004, when I was browsing a secondhand bookshop in Bangkok, looking for a copy of "Fanny and the Regent of Siam", nothing was further from my mind than UFOs. Having found my book, which is a biography about the eldest daughter of a 19th century British Consul-General to Siam, Sir Thomas Knox, I browsed another section of various book being offered at 50% discount. Imagine my surprise when I came across a book called "More UFOs over Warminster", by Arthur Shuttlewood. Bangkok is over 6,000 miles from Warminster, and as far as I know, is not a hotbed for UFO sightings.
Now I should say that the name Arthur Shuttlewood was already known to me, on account of the fact that in 1969, while still at school, I had read another one of his works entitled "Warnings from Flying Friends".
Apart from containing reports of sightings and some rather ambiguous black and white photographs of UFOs, from my distant recollection the book's most powerful revelation was that Shuttlewood had not only seen some lights in the sky, but had actually received a phone call from an alien, who he had then subsequently met up with. Based on his conversations with the alien, Shuttlewood then staked his journalistic reputation on the fact that by the end of 1971 (I think), that there would be so many aliens arriving, that no one would have any doubts about their existence. The fact that "More UFOs over Warminster" was published in 1979, suggests that I was not the only person on the planet, to have missed out on witnessing an alien spacecraft landing, by the time of the promised deadline.
However my curiosity was aroused and while living in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1972, made a number of visits to Cradle Hill, Warminster to witness the UFOs myself at first hand. I was usually accompanied by 2 or 3 companions and we usually headed for the hill after the pubs closed on Saturday nights.
Usually there would be several cars and more than a dozen other people, who we didn't know also on the hill watching out for UFOs. Many had also consumed a few beverages at a pub before starting their vigil, and quite a number were also smoking substances which were not purely tobacco.
It was pretty clear that there was a mixture of firm believers and also skeptics (of whom I was one), but also that even the skeptics, wanted to have their minds changed by inexplicable sightings.
Now it so happens that Warminster is located very close to military training ranges and also not far from the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down. So some of the first things a skeptic has to ask of any UFO sighting at Warminster is, Was it a shooting star? Was it a satellite? Was it an army flare? Was an experimental munition? Was it a conventional or experimental aircraft?
My first disappointment was to see inverted pyramids of light in the sky, which closely resembled a UFO photograph in "Warnings from Flying Friends". The disappointment stemmed from the fact that the "inverted pyramids" quickly revealed their true nature, when a pair of car headlights appeared on the crest of a neighbouring hill, at the spot from which the pyramids had been emanating. So cars driving up the other side of the steep hill were the source of this category of UFO. Part of the disappointment was also the fact that once you'd witnessed this, you could not believe anyone would bother to publish photographs of these inverted pyramids of light and claim them to be UFOs.
On another evening a group of us spotted a blue light lower on the hill. We decided to investigate. As we walked down the road toward the mysterious light, one of our wacky backy smoking companions said he could feel a force drawing him downwards. When I pointed out that in most text book, this force was usually referred to as "gravity", several of the weed smokers decided they did not want me to stay with their group, since I was obviously a negative force, who would ruin their chance of meeting aliens. However as we approached the blue light, their animosity towards me was quickly forgotten, and we investigated. Well it turned out that the blue light was just that, it was a blue light bulb in a pig sty and seemed to be being used to keep some baby pigs warm. As we turned around to make our way back, we saw a light flashing what appeared to be a signal, from near the top of the hill. The consensus of our group was that this must be from an alien making contact. When I questioned this, the most stoned people, told me that they could feel "alien vibes", coming from the source of the flashing light. They now flashed a light back and got a response. We then ran up the hill toward where the flashing light had been. Part way there we met another group of people, rushing down the hill, hoping to meet the alien who had responded to the light they had been flashing.
As usual we saw several lights make their way through the sky. To the believers these were definitely UFOs (I guess if you've traveled a couple of hundred miles and it is your first visit to Warminster, you desire to see a UFO is quite strong) any suggestions to the contrary were brushed off with the "I can feel the vibes", argument that our stoned companions had used earlier.
One drizzly evening out on the hill, it reached 5:00am and because of the overcast weather conditions, we had not seen a thing. A woman who was in the group suggested that since it was unlikely now that we would see anything that night, we were all welcome to come back to her nearby house for a cup of tea. We agreed and drove, following her car through the dark Wiltshire lanes. We eventually ended up in a village called Sutton Veney. We were welcomed into her house, and were shown to some seats laid out in rows, in what I assume was her living room. It seemed that in return for the promised cup of tea, we were required to sit through a lecture she wanted to give us.
First she told us that Arthur Shuttlewood was a terribly nice man, but was very gullible. As she rightly pointed out, he claimed to have met an alien, which clearly stretched the boundries of credibility. This seemed quite reasonable, but I started to wonder about her own gullibility, when she then told us that she herself had met the re-incarnation of Joseph of Arimathea while out walking in the vicinity of Glastonbury.
Next she told us her name was Mollie Carey, then she started a slide show about the stones at Stonehenge. These she claimed had reverse carvings on them. Because they were reverse carvings, you could only see them, when a light fell on them in a certain way. She pointed out an image of a Red Indian Chief on one stone. It seemed to me rather unlikely that the ancient Britons, supposedly responsible for these carvings, would have ever come across a Red Indian Chief (maybe I misunderstood, perhaps aliens did it). As our eyes became accustomed to picking out pictures among the stones, we started to see other images. However it seemed that we were mistaken, since only the images Mollie herself had picked out, were true reverse carvings. In the end it seemed it was a bit like looking at clouds and seeing images in them. Interestingly years later it has been claimed that there are reverse carvings on Stonehenge, but I'm not sure if they are of the same images that Mollie saw. Eventually I got home to Salisbury at about 9:00am. I was so tired that I didn't make it from the door to my bed, but collapsed on the floor where I fell asleep. I awoke at midday and dragged myself to the bed, for a longer and more comfortable additional sleep.
So do I believe in UFOs? Based on several visits to Warminster I only saw one phenomenon, which I couldn't explain. It was not nearly as exciting as having a saucer hover over me, causing my watch to stop etc. It was simply a small light, no brighter than an average star, which started off looking like a shooting star, moving rapidly in a straight line across the sky. Suddenly it changed direction and performed various zizags, even going back on itself and traversing it's original path. Then it resumed it's original course, in straight line until it disappeared from sight. The whole sighting must have taken less than 30 seconds, and when it did it's directional changes, they lasted just a second or two before changing direction again. I have no idea if it was a large object far away, or a small object close by. Instinct said it was large and far away, probably because all the other lights in the sky at the time, were stars and it appeared just like one of them, except it was moving. But I'm not sure. All I can say is that every other sighting that I have seen could be easily explained, this was the only one that I couldn't explain. Whether it was a saucer full of little green men or not, I don't know. I think that given the infinity of our universe, the chances of there not being other life out there are slim. On the other hand, the chances of them visiting us, during our life times, is also probably slim. There certainly seems to be a woeful lack of solid evidence, that we have been visited. Suggestions that the authorities cover these things up, to prevent panic in the population also seem unlikely. If the aliens want us to see them, why don't they just land on the pitch during a world cup final?