Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Ex-Files Re-Upholstered

Sun X-Files
By Dr David Clarke
drdavidclarke.blogspot.com
1-31-10

Dr David Clarke     The UFO and conspiracy industry suffered a double-whammy this week. At the Royal Society conference on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence scientists dismissed the UFO “evidence” as unconvincing. Gordon Brown's government isn’t convinced either, as shown by the MoD's recent decision to close its UFO desk and the public hotline on the grounds they are an “inappropriate use of defence resources”. But all is not lost, thanks to the nation's best-selling tabloid.

This was an opportunity The Sun could not allow to pass by. The paper that likes to believe it has a direct link to the public mood stepped in to fill the void by establishing its own X-files bureau. The Sun has a long history of inventing its own content. Back in 1985 the tabloid, then edited by the legendary Kelvin Mackenzie, told its readers that a popular print of a tearful street urchin known as the Crying Boy was cursed after running a story about a series of house fires where it had survived unscathed. When hundreds of people threw out their prints Mackenzie knew he had hit the jackpot, telling the punters: "Send them to us and we'll burn them for you."

Like the crying boy legend, the UFO bureau has "got legs" as Mackenzie would say. And who best to act as The Sun's “UFO expert” than Nick Pope, who is happy to take Murdoch's cash in return for regular endorsement of every submitted fuzzy photo showing everything from seagulls to Chinese lanterns as proof that aliens are buzzing us.

Pope described his former employer’s decision to close the real X-files as “bizarre” because of “massive public interest in the issue.” If there's something unusual in our skies, he says, then "we need to know or we could be leaving ourselves open to terrorist attack" (Sun, 22 January). But he failed to appreciate the delicious irony hidden in his own words which leads me to suspect this is all part of what Baldrick would call "a cunning plan."

What created the massive public interest that Pope speaks of? The final set of UFO sighting statistics released by the MoD revealed they received 634 UFO reports in 2009, triple the numbers logged over the previous two years. The vast majority of these "UFOs" are reports of lights in the sky sent in by members of the public who have seen Chinese lanterns, aircraft, bright stars and other common IFOs. This is precisely the sort of tedious and uncorroborated reports the MoD know are of no interest to them. To spend scarce public funds following these up, as Nick Pope believes they should, is a mad way to squander resources at a time when soldiers are dying in Afghanistan.

Which leads me to ponder further on who or what is behind the tripling of UFO reports received by the MoD over the past two years. Who has been encouraging people to interpret what they are seeing not as lanterns sent up for fun but as alien spacecraft? Who is it that has been running a relentless UFO campaign aimed at keeping the subject firmly in the public domain and any contrary voice out of a paper that claims to tell its readers the truth? Why that must be The Sun!

Now, how about this for a conspiracy theory: Nick Pope finds himself out of a job and then the MoD pulls the plug on its own X-files, which until now have provided his bread and butter. So he then steps in to help a tabloid newspaper invent a phony UFO invasion to create a new job for himself. You couldn't make it up.

3 comments :

  1. Anonymous11:32 PM

    the important people to listen to are the astronauts,pilots,policeman,scientists that will not stick their heads in the sand and fear their reality isn't really what it seems,like(the non believers.),and by the way-Nobody reports seagulls and chinese lanterns included in their sightings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Working in government, I understand when a decision is being made whether or not to can a specific project, that those involved with that project are consulted with first.

    In other words, I sit here and can actually visualize David Clarke prompting such an action, making him somewhat responsible for the MoD closing their files on UFOs.

    I say this based on many actions of David Clarke's over the past few years and especially his more recent comment in his own blog where he states the following, "Learned astronomers told the Royal Society that evidence of life elsewhere in the universe is likely to be found during the 21st century – but the idea that aliens were already here flying around in UFOs was laughed out of court."

    He failed to state who it was that made that last last statement. I would like to see him to finish that quote with a name.

    Then, he has the gall to make an appearance here concerning the Sun's more recent decision to take over where the MoD left off. Sure they're not capable of such but just the same I only sense jealousy in David Clarke.

    He deserves such because I find that he abandoned his job and more than likely was influential on the MoD closing the files on UFOs.

    It's funny in a way, but even though the Sun is nothing more than a garbage newsstand rag, I find it appropriate that it will be picking up where David Clarke left off.

    Oh how apropos is that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr. David Clarke writes in:

    I needed a good laugh this afternoon.

    I've been accused of many things, but being directly responsible for the MoD closing down its UFO desk takes the biscuit!

    The person who wrote this missive is clearly a confused individual who appears to be looking down the wrong end of his telescope. The point I was making was exactly the opposite of what "Aliencasebook" appears to be suggesting:

    I'm saying the MoD shut down their UFO desk because they were inundated with low quality reports - such as people seeing Chinese lanterns - that was costing him valuable time and resources just to log and respond to. That's why they decided to pull the plug.

    Nick Pope and The Sun are responsible for this, as they have been responsible for creating a phony UFO invasion, which encouraged people to report their "sightings" of Chinese lanterns to the MoD.

    I thought I had made that clear, but obviously not. How ironic that I should get the blame for a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with me, but that is the wibbly wobbly upside down world that UFOlogy has become.

    Dave Clarke

    ReplyDelete

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