Alien nation
In this UFO Week we examine if there really is anyone out there
IN a survey published this week, Arnold Schwarzenegger was voted the person we would most like to be our leader in the event of an alien invasion — and, quite brilliantly, the Terminator star responded to the accolade on Twitter. “I want to thank the people for putting their faith in me. I am ready to serve.”
We know we’ll be in good hands, then.
The poll, which investigates our attitudes to UFOS and aliens, could scarcely be more topical. On Monday, John Ratcliffe, the former US Director of National Intelligence, suggested that the American government has evidence of UFOS breaching the sound barrier without a sonic boom and carrying out manoeuvres beyond the reach of known technology.
Ahead of an official report due on June 1 outlining what the US government knows about extraterrestrial forces, Ratcliffe also indicated that there have been more UFO sightings than have been publicly disclosed. Is the truth out there? And are we about to discover it?
The survey, which involved 2,000 people and was carried out by Onepoll last month, has been commissioned by the TV channel Blaze to mark their “UFO Week”.
It shows that we do not think the idea of UFOS is a load of old space junk. Rather, it reveals several startling conclusions about our beliefs in alien life.
For instance, it shows that 11% of the UK public believe they have seen a UFO, 15% of us think aliens could dominate Earth in the next 20 years and 33% of Britons believe they could already be among us.
In addition, the survey says that more than half of us think intelligent life exists beyond our planet, with more than a quarter believing in aliens.
Philip Mantle is one of the UK’S leading UFO investigators. The former director of investigations at the British UFO Research Association and UK representative at the UFO Interactive Network, he presents Alien Autopsy: The Search for Answers on Blaze.
In the documentary, Mantle travels to New Mexico to complete his lifelong investigation into the greatest UFO paranormal mystery of them all: the 1947 crash in Roswell and the subsequent highly controversial “alien autopsy” film.
Mantle, who runs the felicitously named Flying Disk Press and has written several books on UFOS, believes that we would be swiftly dispatched by an alien invasion force.
“I saw on the news last week that our own UK military defence is said to be wanting. In
a conventional conflict with whatever adversaries around the globe, we would probably lose, because our tanks and armoured vehicles are not up to scratch. So, if you were confronted by an advanced civilisation with advanced weaponry, I think the best thing to do would be to wave the white flag.
“If our tanks can’t face some of the tinpot dictators we’ve got around the globe now, what chances have we got against very sophisticated aliens?
“But I’ve never really believed
that aliens would travel all those light years just looking for a fight. I think what we should look for is not necessarily any weaponry, but threats of a bacterial nature. Those might do more damage.”
It is Mantle’s opinion that, while intelligent life is out there, we may not have the sophistication to pick up its signals. “The second most intelligent species here on Earth is the dolphin. It is largely accepted by scientists that dolphins have a rudimentary language of their own, and yet we can’t understand a word of it. We can make them jump up and catch a fish. But we can’t converse with them: ‘Hello, Flipper. How are you feeling today?’
“So, perhaps we’re the intergalactic dolphins. If there is somebody out there trying to contact us, they’re so far advanced that not only could we not understand it, but also we would not recognise it in the first instance.”
One striking finding in the survey is that 11% of Britons think they have seen a UFO. “That’s a lot of people,” adds Mantle. “We are talking several million people just in the UK alone. And if you expand that to the rest of the world, it’s enormous.
“We never had a figure that we could put our finger on before. But it’s reassuring for those of us involved in this subject that there are millions of our fellow citizens who potentially believe that the UFO phenomenon is real.
“I’ve always argued that, at any social gathering in a restaurant, or down the pub, wherever you bring the subject up, sooner or later somebody will say, ‘Well, yeah, I know a bit about that.’ And it’s often the most unlikely person who pipes up.”
Mantle claims that one clear night in 1980 he saw a gigantic UFO — “A huge spinning wheel of lights hanging in the sky, almost like the London Eye” — on Calton Moor in Yorkshire. So, what would he say to UFO sceptics?
“I would say, ‘I agree with you.’ I’m fairly sceptical myself. But what I will say to you is that, if you just keep an open mind, I think we can prove that the UFO phenomenon exists. Even the Ministry of Defence would admit that there are things reported and they don’t know what they are.”
What do the experts hope that audiences will take away from UFO Week then?
“I hope they see that anybody can get involved in this subject,” Mantle replies. “I was expected to follow in my dad’s footsteps and go down the mines. I have no academic training, nothing. I’ve got a City and Guilds in something or other — I can’t remember quite what. I’m selftaught in everything I’ve done.
“But this subject has taken me around the world. I’ve visited some extraordinary places and met some fascinating people. Some people don’t have an escape route like I did. I feel very fortunate for that.
“I also hope people come away from it realising that there is something to this phenomenon — and they should go away and make up their own minds about what that is. It’s not a silly-season subject. It’s not hogwash. We have this marvellous tool now called the internet. You can get a lot of nonsense from it, but there are a lot of gems there as well. It’s just a question of sorting the wheat from the chaff.”
‘Even the MOD would admit that there are things and they don’t know what they are’