Don’t forget the Y-Files
JENNY RANDLES worries that a new generation doesn’t understand the real purpose of UFO research
Like many people, I’ve had more time on my hands than expected over the past year and have noticed how the multiplication of TV channels has created a surge of UFO documentaries no pandemic can stop.
I avoided interviews for years due to my inability to travel, but today more because people want to ask about my identity politics rather than UFOs. Oddly, this puts me in the position countless UFO witnesses must have found themselves in over the years: trying to explain a suddenly changed reality that transformed their life, but which they cannot really share with others whose reality is unaltered.
Given the 40th anniversary of two of Britain’s best-known cases last winter, I did relax my rule for a couple of ‘chats’; and this focused my mind on something else – perhaps caused by advancing age. The questions I am expected to answer made me ponder what people think the purpose of investigating sightings is. I get asked: What do you hope to prove? My answer, to those who see UFO investigation as an epic quest, is not what they expect. For me, the point of investigating is not to expose a global conspiracy – real life is not The X-Files – nor is it to prove aliens are here (as they may or may not be). It is to solve riddles and help witnesses understand what happened. Finding answers, not fostering speculation, is the ufologist’s goal.
The blank expressions that greeted me when saying this made me realise I was not stating the obvious, and that a generational change has occurred in what UFO research is perceived to be. Hence all those multichannel exposés, retrofitting every incident in human history: aliens caused Pompeii to be destroyed and abducted Leonardo da Vinci to inspire his genius. Except, no, the first was caused by a volcano; and Leonardo just was a genius. Aliens are not a necessary plot device.
When a witness approaches a UFO investigator about something odd they saw, they hope you can tell them what it was – or at least reassure them about what it was not. That’s why I helped create a code of practice for UFO investigators that prioritises and respects the witness and offers any help they need. We have a duty of care.
Of course, we want to learn things about the UFO phenomenon and are suspicious that the government are up to something, as they usually are – but I doubt they keep tabs on the Little Piddling UFO Society because they think you have cracked an intergalactic conspiracy (though they might suspect you are intruding unawares into some military intelligence op and keep tabs to ensure you do think little green men were behind it rather than grumpy grey men in suits who would rather you ‘keep watching the skies’).
When a person needs help and thinks you have special knowledge, then you owe them some attention. If all you really care about is finding the ‘big one’ and are disappointed because you believe this witness simply saw someone sending up a firework to celebrate the end of lockdown number nine, then you are in the wrong job – because that ‘big one’ likely will never come, and you’ve made the phenomenon all about you. The truth is that a UFO sighting is about the witness, and by asking them to tell you their story you have an obligation: to listen, investigate and try to find out what really happened.
Many times, I have felt the relief that witnesses reveal when you help them work through a sighting. Take the woman at the supermarket whose son could not sleep at night because a UFO landed behind their home; she was terrified by a misguided but understandable fear that it might come back to abduct that child. This was a real trauma and identifying the truth (it was a crop-spraying helicopter suffering a brief malfunction) saved years of potential nightmares. Or working on a video taken by security staff at a shopping mall who filmed a late-night UFO buzzing the car park. They had to work there, alone in the dark at night; this was enough to spook anybody. To establish, with expert help, that the explanation was an insect and unusual optics was a strike-out UFO-wise, but put minds at ease.
These cases are the norm – not the exception – as 99 per cent of UFOs are not remarkable other than to those who see them. Resolution can be easy or hard, and take minutes or years. Yet they stay UFO cases in any reasonable sense: solving them is no failure. The X-Files was fun as fiction, but instead of pretending to live that dream ufologists should consider their cases as ‘The Y-Files’. Because explaining why someone saw what they did gives them a neat story to tell the folks and erases ongoing trauma – a job well done, surely?
Of course, there are cases that defy even the best efforts. I will end on one without a resolution; perhaps a wider audience will offer up some answers at last.
It happened on a fine day in August 1989 where the witness was enjoying a walk in a nature reserve between Wolverhampton and Dudley. The wind was easterly at 20mph (32km/h). When exercising his dog, he saw a tennis-ball-sized “soap bubble” in the near distance that seemed to have a white feathery mass inside; it was following a leisurely path about 12ft (3.6m) off the ground. Not unduly concerned, as the origin seemed obvious, the witness looked around to see who had blown the bubble, but nobody was there. He climbed a stile for a better look as it drifted into a field containing a few horses. No obvious source appeared, yet it was visible even at some distance, suggesting he had underestimated the bubble’s initial size, as it now passed from horse to horse – all seemingly unphased by the event. The witness was still just idly curious when the object changed direction and moved into the strong wind and straight toward him.
Now baffled and concerned, in the middle of nowhere with this oddity coming straight for him, he felt like the target. What was now a ‘UFO’ climbed over the wire mesh fence and in moments was just inches away, seemingly ‘surveying’ him.
“It was looking at me – there’s no two ways about it,” he insisted in the investigation. Of course, his conviction that it was a soap bubble ‘popped’ and he frantically looked around to see if someone was controlling a strange model (no drones back then). At close quarters, he could see the surface had an oily look with a dark patch that he later realised was his own reflection. But no controls. As he reported: “I could have leant forward and ‘burst’ the bubble, but was too scared.”
The incident ended quickly. At the instant he thought about ‘popping’ the bubble, it visibly “kicked into gear” and sped off eastwards, covering about 30ft (9m) in a second, and was soon out of view.
The witness chose to wait a year to report this event, wisely thinking it must be some new remote-control device that he would doubtless read about. But it remained a puzzle. We never were able to come up with an answer for him beyond guesswork, and it has always bugged me: it was a singular failure to resolve a curious episode – to me, the essence of the term ‘UFO’. Perhaps a reader can solve the riddle and finally bring resolution to this witness. Never say never is a pretty good watchword for the diligent ufologist with a bunch of ‘Y-Files’.