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Pope has done absolutely nothing at all to further ufology in any way in terms of anything new. He simply uses his old job, as I've said, to give him a bit of cred. But in actuall terms that means bugger all in terms of what he writes ;) If he can't talk about UFOs because of the OSA, why bother mentioning his background at all - especially as it has no relevance to his rehashing of other people's ideas, with no insight whatsoever, even in vague form, to his former role.
 
According to the newest members bit of the board, Nick Pope has just joined today. Let's hope he doesn't read this thread.
 
gncxx said:
According to the newest members bit of the board, Nick Pope has just joined today. Let's hope he doesn't read this thread.

Best not bump it to the top of the UFO then ;)

Ooops :oops:
 
I spotted the member named nick_pope browsing on this Forum this afternoon. I was, of course, far too virtuous to speculate as to his identity. :oops:
 
He used to post fairly regularily to the Ufology Uk mailing list (which seems to have eithier disappeared or moved since I last tried to access it. )

Unlike many Ufologists, he was always unstintingly polite - although he was hardly the most original thinker.

I notice that his website announces that he was
the Ministry of Defence official who was responsible for researching and investigating UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles, cattle mutilations and other strange phenomena.

Now as far as I know - and I've read both of Mr Pope's books - the MOD, while taking some interest in UFO reports, has no official interest in crop circles, alien abductions, cattle mutilations, or indeed, "other strange phenomena".
 
graylien said:
He used to post fairly regularily to the Ufology Uk mailing list (which seems to have eithier disappeared or moved since I last tried to access it. )

Unlike many Ufologists, he was always unstintingly polite - although he was hardly the most original thinker.

I notice that his website announces that he was
the Ministry of Defence official who was responsible for researching and investigating UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles, cattle mutilations and other strange phenomena.

Now as far as I know - and I've read both of Mr Pope's books - the MOD, while taking some interest in UFO reports, has no official interest in crop circles, alien abductions, cattle mutilations, or indeed, "other strange phenomena".
 
graylien said:
He used to post fairly regularily to the Ufology Uk mailing list (which seems to have eithier disappeared or moved since I last tried to access it. )

Unlike many Ufologists, he was always unstintingly polite - although he was hardly the most original thinker.

I notice that his website announces that he was
the Ministry of Defence official who was responsible for researching and investigating UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles, cattle mutilations and other strange phenomena.

Now as far as I know - and I've read both of Mr Pope's books - the MOD, while taking some interest in UFO reports, has no official interest in crop circles, alien abductions, cattle mutilations, or indeed, "other strange phenomena".
Indeed, Pope’s web site proclaims; “Nick Pope used to run the British Government’s UFO project at the Ministry of Defence”.

However, as highlighted before, the truth was willingly confirmed by the MoD here:

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o240 ... D_Pope.jpg


Nick Pope, in his formative ‘coming out’ days, noting on more than one occasion:

“I found no evidence to support a cover-up in Britain. I think, without trying to sound too arrogant, that I would have gotten a few hints in three years....”.
 
Britain's own Special Agent Mulder exposes his X files
A fisherman who claimed to be abducted and then rejected by aliens for being "too old and infirm" and two policemen who spotted a spaceship hovering over a road are among a list of close encounters revealed by Britain's very own X-file investigator.
By Richard Alleyne
6:00AM BST 29 Jun 2011

[video]

Nick Pope was employed by the Ministry of Defence to investigate alien abduction and sightings as part of their now defunct UFO Project.
Over the years, he had to analyse hundreds of possible sightings and encounters to decide whether they had any merit or were a threat to Britain's "territorial integrity".

He worked alone but could call on the help of a range of other Government experts to check the voracity[sic!] of the claims, which came from a diverse number of sources including ordinary members of the public, the police and servicemen.
While none showed real proof of the existence of extra terrestrials, many remain a mystery to this day.

Now for the first time he has compiled his top 10 most creditable and bizarre stories that crossed his desk during his time deep in the heart of Whitehall.
"The vast majority of the people were mistaken," said Mr Pope, 45, who worked for the department between 1991 and 1994.
"Most of them turned out to be aircraft lights, weather balloons or meteorites. Quite a lot of times especially at night alcohol had played its part.
"Clearly other people were delusional and others even showed signs of mental illness. But some people may have seen something very interesting and as yet unexplained."

He said that during the department's operating life – from 1950 to 2008 – the most convincing sighting remains when American air force personnel spotted space craft hovering over their base at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk.
At the same time radiation levels around the aerodrome spiked.

"This was Britain's own Roswell," said Mr Pope referring to a famous incident in the USA when the air force claimed to have seized a flying saucer and which continues to cause debate among UFO experts.
"It remains totally unexplained."

Other creditable and unexplained stories include when two police officers reported seeing a "Saturn-like UFO" over in North London after being called out by a member of the public.

There were a number of sightings by commercial airline pilots who claimed to have had near misses with UFOs and a meteorological Officer who witnessed a huge, triangular-shaped craft fly slowly over RAF Shawbury, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

Other stories were more bizarre and on the surface, less creditable, said Mr Pope.
A former Army officer Alfred Burtoo, 73, claimed he was abducted in 1983 by little green men while out fishing.
He said he was taken on-board the ship, but heard a voice say "You can go. You are too old and infirm for our purpose".
He told his wife he had seen a UFO but did not mention being taken on-board, because he thought she would ban him from fishing.

In Somerset, a couple saw a UFO over a field and when they investigated they found cows standing silently in the middle of the field, facing each other in a perfect circle as "if in a meeting".

Mr Pope said some sightings by airlines pilots seemed suspiciously like missiles or prototype drones which could be "foreign powers testing our space" or top secret projects.
However, neither the MoD nor the Civil Aviation Authority ever found an explanation.

Mr Pope said that his time on the project made him less sceptical about possible aliens.
"I went in thinking that it was all rubbish but came out thinking actually some of this is quite interesting," he said.
"But when X-files television series came out I was the victim of some fairly good natured ribbing."

Mr Pope compiled his list to coincide with the release on Blu-ray and DVD of the film Battle: Los Angeles on 11 July.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... files.html
 
Anonymous said:
Well I can't say I'm surprised. Who would buy a book based on the premise "I used to man the MoD UFO desk, and it's all rubbish!"

NO NEED TO BUY A BOOK OR MAG ON UFOS NOWADAYS THE INTERNET IS FULL OF VIDEOS TAKEN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD EVERY DAY NEW FOOTAGE POSTED FREE TO VIEW ITS BETTER THAN GOING OVER OLD UFO CASES BY NEW UP COMING MONEY HUNTERS.
 
Well, Pope might not have too many fascinating facts to reveal, but to refer to him as a "new upcoming money hunter" (as you seem to be) is rather harsh.

As for "NOWADAYS THE INTERNET IS FULL OF VIDEOS TAKEN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD EVERY DAY NEW FOOTAGE POSTED FREE TO VIEW ITS BETTER THAN GOING OVER OLD UFO CASES", I doubt that many of these amazing UFO videos on the internet would get so much as a second glance - the vast majority seem to be CGI or wobbly long-distance single-pixel lights in the sky, or insects, or planes, and it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, which is something that Nick Pope, at least, tried to do.
 
As U.K. Releases UFO Files, Former UFO Project Chief Apologizes For 'Spin And Dirty Tricks' (Exclusive

As the British National Archives continues to release UFO-related documents, the former Ministry of Defense (MoD) UFO Project chief is openly admitting to being part of what he claims was a U.K. policy of ridiculing UFO reports and the people who reported them.

The U.K. made public 34 previously-classified files, totaling about 9,000 pages of documents covering the years 1985 to 2007. For three of those years, 1991 to 1994, Nick Pope was in charge of the official MoD office.

"What's abundantly clear from these files is that, while in public we were desperately pushing the line that this was of no defense interest," Pope told The Huffington Post. "We couldn't say 'There's something in our air space; pilots see them; they're tracked on radar; sometimes we scramble jets to chase these things, but we can't catch them.' This would be an admission that we'd lost control of our own air space, and such a position would be untenable..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/1 ... 27351.html
 
Happened to come across the following article, which may be of interest:

MEN IN GREY

At Britain's UFO Desk, generations of bored bureaucrats tracked "odd movements" in the skies. BY CHRIS WRIGHT

The Boston Globe
26 August, 2012

"If the MoD was interested in getting to the bottom of whether any of the UFOs represented real alien visitations, it didn't show it. Certainly, the ministry did not heap resources upon the effort. When Pope worked there, the UFO Desk amounted to just that: a desk ("It was me and an admin assistant"). The pay grade for the job was D, just above the tea lady".

Full article:

www.forteanmedia.com/2012_08_26_Boston_Globe_1.pdf

www.forteanmedia.com/2012_08_26_Boston_Globe_2.pdf
 
Happened to come across the following article, which may be of interest:

MEN IN GREY

At Britain's UFO Desk, generations of bored bureaucrats tracked "odd movements" in the skies. BY CHRIS WRIGHT

The Boston Globe
26 August, 2012

"If the MoD was interested in getting to the bottom of whether any of the UFOs represented real alien visitations, it didn't show it. Certainly, the ministry did not heap resources upon the effort. When Pope worked there, the UFO Desk amounted to just that: a desk ("It was me and an admin assistant"). The pay grade for the job was D, just above the tea lady".

Full article:

www.forteanmedia.com/2012_08_26_Boston_Globe_1.pdf

www.forteanmedia.com/2012_08_26_Boston_Globe_2.pdf
The previous occupant of Pope's desk had left to become a vicar :)

(Source: Dr David Clarke)
 
As previously evidenced, from a letter to myself:

MoD_Pope.jpg


Nick's Twitter account:

Screenshot_20220304-081129.jpg
 
Presently, from:

http://nickpope.net/wpte19/biography/

View attachment 52749

I thought the MoD"s previously evidenced letter to myself, confirmed otherwise?
Well I guess it beats working in accountancy or whatever he would have turned to on leaving the Civil Service.

During the heady days of the early-90s when Rendlesham was hot news Nick Pope seemed credible but alas sadly no more. The Calvine UFO photo is a prime example, he is on record as saying "They showed a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft. There was no fuselage, no wings, no tail, no engines and no markings of any sort"

....and yet the object clearly has conventional aircraft tail fins on its right hand side:

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/ne...g-cavine-scotland-aliens-ministry-of-defence/
 
I think describing a correspondence address and part of the time allocation of a single, non technical post as a "project" is being a bit charitable.

The Government did, of course, run "UFO projects" in the past, and when they did the paper trail is quite clear:

https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/national-archives-ufo-files-7/flying-saucer-working-party/

Incidentally the above contains details of Stan Hubbard's two sightings at Farnborough in 1950, which have to be some of the most credible I've seen. Some of these early cases from the RAF (James Salandin, Michael Swiney etc) are really quite puzzling.
 
"In 1950 Stan Hubbard was an experienced test pilot based at the Royal Air- craft Establishment at Farnborough, site of one of the aeronautical indus- try’s most important annual events, the September air show. On the morning of 15 August, a dry, clear summer’s day, Flight Lieutenant Hub- bard was walking along the airfield runway towards his quarters. He later recalled his attention was attracted by what he described as ‘a strange dis- tant humming sound’. I had the chance to interview him in 2002 and he remembered then how, turning to investigate, he saw in the direction of Basingstoke an object that looked
‘for all the world like the edge-on view of a discus, the sort of discus we used to throw at sports day in school ... and it was rocking from side to side very slightly ... but maintaining a very straight approach.That was something that has stuck in my mind very clearly, vividly, to this day.’ 17
As it approached the airfield the sound emanating from the object increased in intensity to become ‘a heavy, dominant humming with an associated sub- dued crackling-hissing ... which reminded me strongly of the noise inside a large active electrical power station.’ He continued:
‘It was light grey in colour, a bit like mother of pearl, but blurred. It was obviously reflecting light because as it rocked it looked like a pan lid as you rotate it, with segments of light rotating around. And I could see that around the edge as it went overhead, it was a different colour, it had a definite edge to it. And the whole of the edge was a mass of tiny crack- ling, sparkling lights. And associated with that, there was a real impact of a very strong ozone smell.
‘There were no windows or portholes or any other characteristics at all. It was featureless, and the remarkable thing about it was there was no sound of air movement ... as the object was coming closer and then went overhead I tried to estimate its size, altitude and speed, but with the absence of any readily identifiable feature it was difficult to gauge these factors with any confidence... I guessed that its height above ground when first seen was probably between 700 and 1000 [ft] and since it certainly seemed to maintain altitude throughout the period of my observation, I guessed that it would have to be about 100 ft in diameter. It must have been travelling very fast, perhaps as high as 500 to 900 mph.’
Hubbard immediately reported this sighting to his commanding officer and soon afterwards received a visit from members of the Ministry of Defence’s Flying Saucer Working Party, which had been established that same month to look into the UFO mystery. Chaired by G.L. Turney, head of scientific intelligence at the Admiralty, it included five intelligence officers, two of whom were scientists, the other three representing the intelligence branches of the army, navy and RAF. Hubbard recalled the questions included:
‘ “How high was it?” “How big was it?” “How fast was it?” “What was it?” ... and one question which I think reflects the tenor of the interview was: “What do you suppose the object was, and where would it have come from?” I replied simply that in my opinion it was not something that had been designed and built on this Earth. Clearly, from the effect it had on the team, it was the wrong answer.’
The working party’s visit to Farnborough would not be the last. On the afternoon of 5 September 1950, just two weeks after Hubbard’s first obser- vation, he saw what he believes was the same object again. On this occasion he was standing with five other serving RAF airmen on the watch-tower waiting for a display by the Hawker P.1081 when he spotted the object in the sky to the south of the airfield, towards Guildford. ‘I grabbed hold of the chap next to me,’ he recalled, ‘and said: “Hey, what do you think that is?” Pointing ... and he shouted “My God! Go get a camera quick! Go get some binoculars!”’
Hubbard and his colleagues then watched an incredible performance of aerobatics by what the official report describes as ‘a flat disc, light pearl in colour [ and ] about the size of a shirt button.’ Hubbard described it as
‘fluttering, as though bordering on instability, in a hovering mode, the object would swoop off in a slight dive at incredibly high speed and in quite stable flight, then stop abruptly and go into another fluttering hover
mode. This performance was repeated many times ... and it appeared that all this was taking place some eight to ten miles south of us over the Farnham area.’
The UFO was under observation for some 10 minutes during which the lit- tle crowd had swelled to more than a dozen RAF personnel. ‘They were awestruck,’ Hubbard recalls, ‘but not one of them had a camera! I remem- ber one of them saying “Sorry Stan, I didn’t believe those first stories.” It made my day.’ Within 24 hours they were all questioned by the Flying Saucer Working Party. ‘We were not given their names and we were strictly warned not to ask questions of them, nor make enquiries elsewhere in the Ministry’, Hubbard said. ‘We were also warned not to discuss the
subject later, even amongst ourselves in private.’ Despite his misgivings Hubbard believed the assur- ance given by the Air Ministry member of the team that he ‘had never had a more reliable and authentic sight- ing than ours.’ He was unaware of the outcome of this investigation until he got to see a copy of the working party’s final report after its release in 2001. In its sum-
The UFO was under observation for some 10 minutes
during which the little crowd had swelled to more than
a dozen RAF personnel.
mary of Hubbard’s initial sighting the report said there ‘They were awestruck,’
was no doubt the experienced test pilot had honestly described what he had seen,
Hubbard recalls
‘but we find it impossible to believe that a mosunconventional aircraft, of exceptional speed, could have travelled at no great altitude, in the middle of a fine summer morning, over a populous and air-minded district like Farnborough, without attracting the atten- tion of more than one observer.’ ( DEFE 44 /119 )
Accordingly, they concluded he was ‘the victim of an optical illusion, or that he observed some quite normal type of aircraft and deceived himself about its shape and speed.’The report then turned its attention to the second inci- dent, which they described as ‘an interesting example of one report influ- encing another.’ Although Hubbard believed the objects he saw on both occasions were identical, the authors felt this opinion was of little value. While they had no doubt a flying object of some sort had been seen,
‘we again find it impossible to believe that an unconventional aircraft, manoeuvring for some time over a populous area, could have failed to attract the attention of other observers.We conclude that the officers in fact saw some quite normal aircraft, manoeuvring at extreme visual range, and were led by the previous report to believe it to be something abnormal.’(DEFE 44/119)
The working party were satisfied this solution was correct because of another example of misperception reported to them by the Air Ministry member of their team, Wing Commander Myles Formby. Whilst on a rifle range near Portsmouth he spotted what he at first thought was a ‘flying saucer’ in the distance.
‘Visibility was good, there being a cloudless sky and bright sunshine. The object was located and held by a telescope and gave the appearance of being a circular shining disc moving on a regular flight path. It was only after observation had been kept for several minutes, and the altitude of the object changed so that it did not reflect the sunlight to the observer’s eye, that it was identified as being a perfectly normal aircraft.’ ( DEFE 44 /119 )"

https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/the-ufo-files-extract.pdf
 
The 15 August sighting, if accurately recalled, seems unlikely to have been a misidentified aircraft - indeed Hubbard was quite firm in speaking to Clarke that the Working Party had not accurately represented what he saw.
 
As previously evidenced, from a letter to myself:

View attachment 52703

Nick's Twitter account:

View attachment 52704

Brilliant. He's dined out on his MoD role well over the years hasn't he?? I think the tell tale sign is that there are old TV programmes where he pours scepticism on UFO phenomena. I found it quite surprising as it's a 180 from his current position... :hahazebs: Perhaps one side of the UFO debate is more profitable than the other. ;)
 
Brilliant. He's dined out on his MoD role well over the years hasn't he?? I think the tell tale sign is that there are old TV programmes where he pours scepticism on UFO phenomena. I found it quite surprising as it's a 180 from his current position... :hahazebs: Perhaps one side of the UFO debate is more profitable than the other. ;)

More profitable, maybe more enjoyable, if you can stay sane...

I think there's a bit of padding going on, though how much is down to those writing up the interviews is open to question. The article quoted upthread has Mr P choosing the 'best cases' from those that had 'crossed his desk', but Rendlesham, happening in 1980, wouldn't have 'crossed his desk' unless he was also dealing with the MoD's time travel project.
 
I suppose the disappointment of finding out that the MoD's "UFO project" consisted of a bloke sitting at a desk somewhere answering letters might be a bit tempered by the realisation that a lot of government and military stuff is, basically, a person sitting behind a desk somewhere.

David Clarke and Andy Roberts' book has a nice section on the Ministry's 'UFO desk' in the 50s, which a newspaper claimed was run out of a room in a specific London hotel. Not true, the government responded - which was technically correct, as it turned out to have been run from a room in a different hotel.
 
Part of the problem with Pope is that those who follow the more sober side of British ufology have been well aware of his credibility gap, especially since the investigations by Clarke, Roberts, Mantle et al, but there are still those for whom Pope's pontifications* form a mainstay of their own theories or belief systems (that and the hilarious "Spooky Mulder" appellation with which the tabloids still adorn him) and as such he's self-perpetuating. His blatant reverse-ferret from sceptic to believer is, as has been pointed out, far more likely linked to his mortgage repayments than any Damascene conversion.

*see what I did there?
 
"And they said, 'do you want to do UFOs for the next three years' and I said 'fine'...

"I was headhunted into it...".

 
There are people on the internet who feel UFOs will stop a nuclear war.

These people reference nuclear shut downs at RAF Woolbridge ( Charles Halt and Robert Jamison ) and Malmstrom AFB (Robert Salas).

Nick Pope claims according to the Official Secrets Act that he has to be careful what he says, but he doubts this idea has any merit.

Nick claims the UFOs did not stop Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
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