Wait- what? Are you saying that what he saw had physical reality? Does that include the memories recovered by hypnosis or not? Or just the initial impression that Godfrey had (which he initially thought was a bus?)
And exactly which witnesses 'backed up' his story? The policemen who saw a 'flash in the sky?' That would be a meteor, almost certainly. There is a world of difference between something that looks like a bus ( or a plastic UFO building) on (or near) the ground, and a flash in the sky.
Concerning the 'man from the ministry' - that might have been just some random UFO enthusiast. But assuming it was a man from the ministry, this visit does seem to be entirely consistent with a commendable interest in unidentified aircraft on the part of the government. I would be more worried if they were not interested, to be honest.
The fact that this mysterious investigator seems to have left no record of his visit in the files might just be a consequence of the fact that this case really has little or no useful data associated with it.
No, it does not include the memories under hypnosis. I was not involved in those sessions (though I met and interviewed both doctors) because I do not believe regression helps resolve UFO cases, as I make clear in the part of Who or What Were They? that is specifically credited to me. In fact I was instrumental in stopping it being used by BUFORA in the early 1980s when we developed a voluntary code of practice for protecting witnesses.
Alan, too, has never argued for the actual reality of the 'memory'. Only the event he witnessed on the road and the physical effects it created - interfering with his two radio kits, the car engine, the physical effects on the road and the flash of light (also witnessed by another resident as the book reveals). He also had possibly related physical effects - marks on his foot and damage to his police boot.
So there were multiple physical effects that were integral to this case and far more important than the alien saga that is all most people talk about despite being by far the least credible part of the case and the one thing the witness himself has said from the off he does not know how real it was.
Indeed he volunteered negative data about himself over and over in this case - something you get to realise as an investigator is not consistent with a hoaxer who is not going to flag up the things you will recognise and seize upon as possible routes to solutions.
Of the missing time/on board stuff Alan has always said from two minutes after he first remembered it (as I was sat next to him when he did in late 1981).
He said it could have just been a 'dream' based on the fact that he has freely admitted he read a book about regression and alien images coming out if it immediately prior to the regression (the book was about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction).
Alan has always made clear two things - that his first assumption was it was the works bus that he saw often on those early turns. I documented him saying that in 1981 before the hypnosis. It was pretty much the only traffic out there at that hour as it picked up other drivers to take them to the Tod depot to drive the first buses of the day out.
So again HE put us onto that theory from the get go. Tricksters do not do that.
However, I also documented in 1981 him saying he saw that bus in Tod before he left to drive onto Burnley Road. Something he quickly realised after at first thinking that is what he was seeing and driving closer to see that the object was spanning the width of the road. So if it was a bus then it was slewed across the road and Alan also would subsequently have to have driven THROUGH it to the point beyond where it was that he 'came to'.
There is much new information in the book you might not know on this matter. Because we have spent years looking into and eliminating possible IFO causes - including the Futuro house, aircraft and a bus. One option does remain but it is simply a hypothesis and certainly not proven. That is to do with the weather at the time.
The bus theory has been dismantled for two key reasons. Firstly, Alan used to be a bus driver and drove the very bus he would have mistaken. This is why it was in his mind. But also why he was one of the least likely people to mistake it.
More crucially I have interviewed the driver of that bus - the only possible bus Alan could have seen. Not only are the timings of his run entirely consistent with Alan seeing him returning to the depot with the driver of the first service bus - just as Alan has always said - and in fact cannot be made to fit with his bus being on Burnley Road during Alan's sighting as I have tried to make that work. But also the driver of that bus saw something at the spot where Alan minutes later had his close encounter. He did not see the UFO. But he did see the same pattern left on the road swirled into the highway. And, crucially, felt a strange updraft suction effect going up into the air above the road as he held his hand out of the cab. He is adamant is was no ordinary wind.
Alan also drove a police officer back with him who he picked up in the centre of Tod and that officer saw the effects on the road at the spot.
Yes, there was also another witness (not a policeman but a school caretaker) who saw something spiral up off the road and move away around the same time. And a third witness who called in to the police station next day to describe seeing a UFO from Cliviger just along Burnley Road. But he never came forward subsequently.
I will cover your point about the 'man from the ministry' separately below.
