Candida’s detector

I was interested to read the correspondence about ghost detectors [ FT350:72]. It brought to mind the intriguing description of another similar device and its triumphant, if alarming, efficacy – namely Candida Lycett Green’s UFO detector, which she describes in her marvellous autobiography Over the Hills and Far Away (Black Swan 2002). She writes:

“I had bought the device through an advert in the Flying Saucer Review, which I took in the 1960s because my friend John Michell took it too. He is a world authority on ancient science.

“He made me realise that it was arrogant not to believe in almost everything. All official reports of UFOs, usually from pilots, described the presence of a strong magnetic field resulting in the pointers on their control panels going haywire.”

Her UFO detector apparently looked similar to a mobile phone charger. The instructions that came with it went as follows:

“Before plugging the power pack into the mains insert black plug on the mains power pack into the respective socket on the detector.

“The device is a sensitive magnetic flux detector capable of resolving down to field strengths of 15 cersteds, pulsing or moving from infinitely fast to one centimetre per second. The magnetic pick-up coil requires only one pulse at the above figures to lock up the relay, thus sounding the buzzer. Amplifier gain is approx. 40 decibels.

“Important. Whenever the buzzer sounds – i.e. when an unknown magnetic field is present – repeat the above steps to reset the device. If, however, resetting is ineffective a very strong magnetic field is acting on the pick-up coil. Check the sky immediately. If resetting is effective, the UFO is probably still some way off, and you have more time to prepare a camera, etc.

“Note: it is not yet known whether all UFOs have a magnetic field; thus, if you observe a UFO and the detector does not operate, please report the occurrence to the appropriate UFO society.” Candida writes: “I determinedly plugged my detector into the mains and after a while forgot all about it, because the buzzer never went off.

“About three years later I went to see a film with a friend, leaving Rupert [her husband], who had some work to do, at home. When we returned he was white as a sheet. He had heard this violent buzzing sound and had finally tracked it down to the magneticfield detector. A thorough sceptic about UFOs, he had nonetheless thought he had better check the sky. He walked on to our balcony and there, straight ahead, was a large light moving horizontally and slowly across the sky. It took 10 minutes to cross his line of vision. Converted to total belief in UFOs, he rang the Daily Telegraph, which published his story.

“Two years later the buzzer went off again, at three in the morning, when I was alone. I was

so terrified that I didn’t dare look out of the window. I turned the machine off and drew the blankets over my head. I felt safe like that in the still, dark night in the solitary bedroom.”

I wonder if more of these devices still exist, and if their owners find them similarly useful. Merrily Harpur Cattistock, Dorset