______ _______ ____ ------ / / // ____// |---------------------------------------------- U K / / // ___/ / / ' 15th April 1998 / / // / / / / N E T W O R K part 1 Issue 91 --- (_____//__/ -- (_____/------------------------------------------------ The United Kingdom UFO Network - a free electronic magazine with subscribers in over 40 countries. This issue comes in 4 parts. If any part is missing please mail: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk giving the issue number. The issue will be reposted to you. Please put the details as below in the subject section e.g. Repost {91} part 1, part 2, part 3 or part 4. In this issue: Editorial --------- Guests on UK.UFO.NW -IRC- channel Alien humour United Kingdom News ------------------- [UK 1] Alien alert as mini meteors do the light fantastic [UK 2] They're Lights, Jim, But Not As We Know Them [UK 3] Fireballs Were A Meteor Shower [UK 4] Sighting M56 near to Runcorn, Cheshire [UK 5] Abducted [UK 6] Abducted by aliens [UK 7] Private rocket nosedives after four seconds above Dartmoor World News ---------- [W 1] Firm to send clips of hair into space [W 2] UFO cult calm as God misses predicted TV appearance [W 3] Investigation into Clinton jet radar loss Alien Humour ------------ Book serialisation ------------------ A FEARFUL SYMMETRY A TRUE STORY OF ALIEN INTRUSION INTO HUMAN LIVES By D. Lynne Bishop Editorial --------- Guests on UK.UFO.NW -IRC- channel United Kingdom UFO Network has had some very interesting guests on it's IRC (internet relay channel) over the last few weeks. Ros Reynolds: UK abductee - Nick Redfern: UK ufologist, author and government conspiracy investigator - Kevin Randle: World respected ufologist and Roswell expert. Text transcripts of these meeting can be found on the below web sites: http://www.holodeck.demon.co.uk/ http://www.crowman.demon.co.uk/ AND we are not stopping there. Future guests include: Saturday 25th April 98 Philippe Piet van Putten live from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Director of the Brazilian Academy of Parasciences (ABP) and National Director for Picard UFO Research International (PUFORI). Editor of the bimonthly bulletin Aerospatial Phenomena (entering its 4th year of publication). Saturday 2nd May 1998 James Bond Johnson James was the photographer who took the famous 1947 Roswell UFO crash wreckage in the office of General Ramey in Fort Worth, Texas. Confirmed UK.UFO.NW -IRC- guests (dates to be organised) Nick Pope - UK MoD and former head of Sec (Air Staff) 2a at the MoD. John Carpenter (USA) Full connection details to the UK.UFO.NW -IRC- channel can be found at the foot of this e-zine. -- Alien humour Folks please send us whatever Alien, UFO jokes you have or come across. Our address as usual is: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk United Kingdom News =================== [UK 1]****** Source: Daily Mail newspaper (UK) Publish date: Tuesday 17th March 1998 Alien alert as mini meteors do the light fantastic By David Derbyshire Science Correspondent A spectacular meteor shower sent hundreds of anxious onlookers scurrying to phone the emergency services, convinced aliens were about to land. Police and coastguards were inundated with calls when the skies above Southern Britain lit up with stunning flashes and smoke trails and echoed to rumbling explosions. Many mistook the shooting stars for distress flares from a ship in trouble, while others believed they were seeing UFOs. Infact, the light show signalled the return of a group of meteoroids called Virginids, which reach the Earth every Spring. Experts say they will be around for weeks. Sunday night's display was particularly spectacular because of the nearly full moon and crystal-clear skies. Emergency services across the South and West said yesterday they had taken hundreds of calls. Police were also alerted, but soon learned the lights were shooting stars after checking with weather experts. The Brixham Coastguard in South Devon said it took up to 30 calls reporting red distress flares in an area from Exmouth to beyond Plymouth. "It was obviously quite a severe meteorite shower," a spokesman said. "We actually saw one over our own coastguard station. There was a bright flash of white light with a bang and some smoke. It was like a very big, very high firework. Meteorologist Dr Richard Porter, from Kingsbridge, South Devon, told how he saw a trail of light across the sky. "It was like a rocket which broke up into five or six pieces and disappeared but there was a smoke cloud which remained for ten minutes. I also heard bangs and rumblings for two or three minutes. "I believe it was a meteor a foot or so across at about 18 to 30 miles up in the sky. This is comparatively low in our atmosphere and the lowest I have seen. It may have been a piece of space debris and not a true meteorite." Gerald White, secretary of the Norman Lockyer Observatory in Sidmouth, Devon, said the meteors varied from the size of sand to a pea or even a cricket ball. Tens of thousands of these lumps of rock and iron head towards Earth every year, but only 100 or so are large enough to survive their fiery descent and reach the ground. When they float through space they are known as meteoroids. When they burn up in the atmosphere they become meteors and if they crash into the ground they are meteorites. Meteoroids hit the atmosphere at up to 45 miles a second. Friction with the air turns them white hot and they appear as streaks of bright light. Mr White said reports of smoke were explained by vapour. Most are the size of grains of sand and disintegrate at least 50 miles up. But larger meteoroids, travelling at five times the speed of sound, can produce sonic booms as they approach the ground. They are created when asteroids collide in space, although some are debris from comets. Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through orbiting clusters of rocks. Some return annually, others every few decades. [UK 2]****** Source: The South Wales Argus, Monday March 16 1998 Publish date: Monday 16th March 1998 From: Lloyd Bayliss - lloyd@gwent-tertiary.ac.uk They're Lights, Jim, But Not As We Know Them By Helen Morgan Gwent police were enjoying a quiet Sunday evening. Until 7pm last night, that is, when their switchboard was suddenly jammed with callers reporting flashing lights in the sky. Dozens of people from accross the southh of the county put forward various explanations for the spectacle. A plane crashing was the favourite, but there were also theories that the much publicised 2028 asteroid was making a premature appearance. Inspector Ian Morgan, who was on duty at HQ in Cwmbran, said he checked with Cardiff Airport to make sure no aeroplane was in trouble. "They assured us that everything they had in the air was still in the air," he said. But a quick call to the Cardiff Weather Centre solved the mystery. Forecaster John Moreton confirmed there had been a metorite shower. He explained that when a meteorite hits the atmosphere at an angle, rather than straight-on, the results are often spectacular as it burns up. "It is actually quite common. If you stand outside for long enough you would see one most nights," he said. Mr Moreton put the intensity of interest in the shower down to it happening on a cloudless night and relatively early in the evening. "If it had been clear over the whole country, it would have been seen right accross Wales," he said. [UK 3]****** Source: Free Press (Wales) Publish Date: March 1998 (exact date not known) From: Lloyd Bayliss - lloyd@gwent-tertiary.ac.uk Fireballs Were A Meteor Shower Gwent police were put on alien alert on Sunday evening when they received reports from all over the country and beyond of fireballs falling from the she sky. Callers from as far apart as Pontypool, Chepstow, Merthyr and Bargoed claimed they had seen alien landings in the Ebbw Vale / Bargoed area. A police spokesman said that officers were despatched to investigate but a search turned up no evidence of alien beings. However, the matter was soon cleared up after a call to the experts at the weather centre. They told police the alien invasion was just a meteor shower. [UK 4]****** Source: Alien Encounters magazine Publish Date: April 1998 Merseyside, UK On the evening of 16th January 1998 the two occupants of a car travelling along the M56 near to Runcorn, Cheshire, were startled by a large dark triangular shape, which appeared to be tracking about 150 feet above their vehicle. In the reflection from the motorway lights it was possible to make out a central fan construction on the underside of the aircraft, which itself only carried three small peripheral navigation lights. The objects speed was about 50-70 mph. A few nights later, on the 19th January 1998, police on Merseyside received a number of calls about a strange disc like object which was seen hovering over Liverpool. The craft seemed to have a soft glow and gave the impression that it was slowly rotating. I received two calls myself about the sighting, which seemed to be causing some concern. Looking out across the river Mersey I was able to determine that what had caused the stir was infact the airship TV camera platform covering Liverpool FC's home match! Sitting barely into a thin cloud layer, at about 250 feet, the airship did indeed give the impression of a rotating saucer and was a good example of how easy it is to mistakingly identify unfamiliar aircraft. [UK 5]****** uk.ufo.nw says: The below reports appeared in The Sun newspaper over a period of four days. Following this report is another about the same family but by a different journalist and viewpoint. --- Source: The Sun newspaper (UK) Publish date: Monday 16th March 1998 Abducted The book that proves the truth is out there. Jason Andrews looks like an ordinary 14 year old. His bright blue eyes, fringed with dark eyelashes, are set in a round intelligent face. He is average at school but gets bad marks for forgetting to do homework. He's cheeky when he can get away with it, terrific on the computer, hangs out with his friends and thinks money grows on trees. A normal boy - except that those blue eyes hide a terrible secret. For Jason has been abducted by aliens. Today, The Sun reveals his gripping story - the most extraordinary tale of alien abduction ever. In the past, such stories have often been dismissed as the fantasies of cranks. But the mind blowing events you will read about, happened to this very ordinary family from Kent. They are not weirdo's. They are not fantasists. Jason's Mum Ann and Dad Paul, both 41, run a 10-acre smallholding next to Ministry of Defence training site near the village of Crouch. In the evenings Paul drives a taxi to make ends meet. Ann felt compelled to draw this image of an alien, right [typical greys head], after her family's experiences. And now they have told their incredible tale in a new book, Abducted. This week The Sun's Mike Ridley adapts their story. Read it...then make up your mind. The astonishing story of alien abduction in rural Britain. Jason Andrews fell into a deep sleep on the sofa after his first proper birthday party. He was four years old, stuffed full of birthday cake and shattered after running around the house with his friends. Jason's Mum Ann, relieved everything had gone well, settled down for a quiet cup of coffee with her husband Paul and her Mother Vi. A loud banging at the door of their cottage in Slade Green, Kent, interrupted their chat. It was 10 o'clock at night, too late for casual callers. The noise was urgent and insistent. Louder than a fist, it was more like a heavy boot being thrust against the door with huge force. Paul flung the heavy oak door wide. The banging stopped the moment he touched the door. There was no one there. He peered up and down the lane that led to the cottage. It was empty. As Paul stepped back into the living room there was a loud crack of thunder. The storm woke seven year old Daniel, the older son, who had been asleep in the bedroom. He climbed onto his Grandmothers lap. Jason slept on. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightening, so fierce that even Paul, a big, unflappable man, jumped. Jason sat bolt upright. His eyes open, staring, but oblivious to the room and the people around him. He started to talk, pouring out an incredible stream of numbers, as if he'd hit the jackpot on some weird, mental fruit machine. Fantastic numbers, huge numbers, strange algebraic configurations, mathematical terms like 'pi' and 'binary codes', all spewed out of the mouth of a boy - not yet at school - who normally struggled to count to ten in his picture books. The loud banging at the door began again. It seemed to come from the windows and the doors at the same time. The whole cottage seemed to shake. Paul grabbed the phone to dial 999 [UK emergency services]. Nothing happened. He had a dialling tone but the numbers did not register. Jason stopped talking. At exactly the same moment, the banging ceased. Then Jason slid from the settee and, still in a trance, started to walk towards the door. Paul put his hands on his small son's shoulders, gently restraining him. The child looked up at his Father and replied in a strange emotionless voice: "They're waiting for me, I have to go." As he spoke the knocking began again. This time his Father grasped him firmly. Jason struggled and Paul, in desperation, shook him violently to snap him out of it. Jason fought harder. Then the banging receded, dying out completely as Jason looked at Paul and asked innocently if he could watch TV. Paul picked up the phone again and this time was able to get through to the Police. When two officers arrived he went through what had happened, without mentioning Jason's part in it. They went outside but could find no signs of damage. All four members of the Andrews family claim to have had X Files experiences. Strange things have surrounded Jason from the moment he was born. Ann would put him into a cot in his bedroom and find him later lying under the cot. Twice she found him under a chair. One terrifying night she could not find him at all. Her screams brought an answering wail from behind the door, where Jason was lying on the floor. She thought Daniel, then four, was the culprit. But Daniel, now 18, remembers that, as a youngster, aliens visited his bedroom too. When he was four they turned to Jason. He says he is paralysed in bed on the nights Jason is abducted. Ann has witnessed aliens on the family's smallholding. She says she too has been abducted but, unlike Jason, does not remember everything that happens. And Paul, the most skeptical of the lot, once witnesses a bright orange circular object darting upwards towards the sky at enormous speed. After Jason's fourth birthday, electrical equipment in the house developed a life of it's own - the TV or hi-fi would come on in the middle of the day or night. One night Ann was drifting off to sleep when the house was bathed in a bright blue light. The lane and farm buildings were lit, brighter than daylight. A terrified scream came from Jason's room. "They're back, they're back!" he shouted in hysterics. The screams subsided to sobs and the intense light went off suddenly. Paul refused to admit a connection between Jason's screams and the light. But over the next weeks Jason changed. Bedtimes were a battleground. He was only really settled if he slept on the floor next to his Mother's side of the bed. He became anxious and fractious. He would not even go to the toilet alone. As Jason grew older he still suffered disturbed nights. Ann would wake him for school and sometimes he would get up with muddy streaks down his legs and arms, yet she knew he had bathed the night before. Sometimes his pyjamas would be caked with mud and his feet and hands scratched. At first the couple tried to dismiss it as sleep walking. But early one morning Paul poked his head into Jason's bedroom. He had disappeared. Panic stricken, they checked the shed in the back garden. Ann strained at the heavy bolts. The door opened and they found him sound asleep. If Jason had been sleepwalking he would have needed all his strength to open the bolts. Even if he had, how could he close them again? There were physical problems, too. He complained frequently of stomach pains but Doctors found nothing. When Jason was ten he had tests in Maidstone hospital. On the final day, doctors asked Ann why Jason had a six-inch scar on his right side. She had never seen the scar before and had no idea. A week later Jason was suddenly struck with acute stomach pains. He was readmitted to hospital. There was no scar on his right side, but there were several red fresh-looking scars on his stomach. It was another two years before Paul and Ann discovered a possible cause. At first it was an explanation they could not accept. It was so far-fetched, so incredible. In 1995 the family were watching a TV show about hypnosis, when a man in his 40s explained how he had been driving his normal route home from work one evening. A journey that normally took 35 minutes lasted over three hours. He could not explain what had happened in the extra two and three quarter hours. But since the mysterious time loss he had suffered mood swings, depression and an irrational fear of the dark. Without warning, Jason leapt to his feet, picked up a china dog and hurled it at the TV. The boy turned to face his parents and, tears coursing down his cheeks, he sobbed: "That man there is stupid. He should be glad he can't remember. He should leave it like that. "Because I remember. I remember everything. I'm scared. They wont leave me alone. Why can't they leave me alone?". He fled the room. Ann and Paul looked at each other in shocked silence. Daniel, by then aged 16, spoke first: "Do you still not understand? This guy on telly was abducted by aliens. Don't you both get it yet?" Ann's mind was racing. The behaviour the man on TV had described was just like Jason's. Ann had seen stories in newspapers about people who claimed to be in contact with aliens, but she scarcely bothered to read them. As for Paul - if Paul couldn't touch it, it didn't exist. Daniel told his parents: "I get weird stuff happening, too. Last night I was woken by a bright light, and when I sat up I felt I had been hit by something all over. Almost like something had entered me. "I felt something hot running through me, but I was paralysed. The next second I was asleep, and I didn't remember anything till this morning. "I know the aliens wont hurt Jason, but he needs help Mum. He can't cope with it. It's really screwing him up." Jason was in the kitchen, his face buried in his arms. Gulping back sobs, he told his parents: "It's always the light that comes first. "It wakes me up. Then I see the tall one rise at the foot of the bed. Suddenly there's lots of little ones everywhere. "They're fuzzy and indistinct, and they move very fast. "I can't move or speak, but I'm awake and I can see and hear and feel. I want to scream run, but the sound doesn't come and my body can't move. "Sometimes I am screaming but it never wakes you, you never come to help me. I hate them. I hate them. I hate you for not coming when I need you." Jason sat up and stared accusingly at his parents: "Why do you let them take me? "I have to go to hospital with them. They take me to an operating theatre. It's all white. Sometimes it's a circular room with a metal floor. "It's always cold. I want to go home, I hate it. They're there. The big one touches me but I don't feel it, as if I've had an anaesthetic. I hate it, I hate it. "But you don't believe me. You think I'm a stupid kid making it all up." Ann said: "I believe you. I'll help you sort it out." Did she believe him? Ann knew instinctively Jason was telling the truth as he saw it. She felt there must be another explanation, but she knew Jason was not pretending. The events were real to him. Paul was even more reluctant to believe what Jason had told them. But he accepted it was their duty as parents to help. What they learned took the family on a journey in the realms of science fiction. The Ministry of Defence says there have been no secret operations at the Mereworth MoD site, which backs on to the Andrews smallholding. They say it is used for training part time Territorial Army soldiers. But the Andrews are convinced their son IS still being abducted by aliens. They would love to be proved wrong. But so far no one has been able to. 1998 Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Extracted from Abducted, The true story of Alien Abduction in Rural England by Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Published by Headline in hardback at 16 pounds and 99 pence and available in all bookshops. Cynic to believer Journalist Jean Ritchie, who tells the Andrews family's story in Abducted, was converted from total cynic to believer as she started to investigate their story. Jean, a journalist for more than 30 years, says: "I became convinced they were telling the truth. "They are not fantasists. I quickly realised that Ann was not lying, exaggerating or being manipulated. "I set out to disprove their story - I couldn't. There are so many unexplainable things that have happened to them. "When I went to see Jason, I expected to meet a withdrawn, nervous, loner of a child - a nerd even. He's not. "Jason is like any likable, 14-year old. He's outgoing and likes talking about Arsenal and the Spice Girls. "I started as so many outsiders do, desperately looking for material proof- I wanted to touch an alien, take a photograph. Such proof is elusive, but perhaps this kind of evidence contradicts the nature of abduction. "If we are dealing with higher levels of intelligence than our own, why should they leave fingerprints and clumsy evidence of an event they choose to shroud in mystery. "Abductions almost always happen under cover of darkness with all potential witnesses rendered unconscious. "What the Andrews family provide is a different kind of proof - a proof that cannot be dissected under laboratory conditions but is no less valid. "Similar stories can be traced back to the beginning of civilisation, crossing all cultural, social and racial backgrounds. It is a sheer volume of evidence that cannot be ignored or dismissed." --- Source: The Sun newspaper (UK) Publish date: Tuesday 17th March 1998 Ann saw a face staring in the window...but it wasn't human. Ann and Paul Andrews are an ordinary couple with two sons, Daniel and Jason. They run a 10-acre smallholding, called Hawksnest Farm, near the village of Crouch in Kent. Their home lies next to a Ministry of Defence training site. Paranormal activity has surrounded the family since Jason, 14, was born. But it took 12 years for the couple, both 41, to discover the cause: Jason is regularly abducted by aliens. Neither Paul or Ann wanted to believe it and fought hard to find more logical explanations. Now Ann has told their story in a gripping new book, Abducted, which you can read here first. Today, Mike Ridley reveals Ann's diary of unexplained events. Many weird things have happened to Jason Andrews, but among the most inexplicable are the strange marks that appear on his body. Jason and his parents are convinced the wounds and scratches are caused when he is abducted by aliens in the night. Here is part of his Mother Ann's diary for 1995: Sept 20: Jason complained of a pain in his side this morning. Showed me a red triangular-shaped mark on his rib cage. Later there was no sign of it. Sept 23: Jason limped slightly. Showed me a mark at the top of his leg, as if the flesh had been scooped out. But there was no cut. Later I tried to show Paul, but it had gone. October 1: Jason has the dice mark on his left knee. (The dice mark was a square of dots, a quarter of an inch in diameter.) On another occasion, Jason gashed his hand at a school fete. A St Johns ambulance first-aider placed five "butterfly" stitches on the wound and warned Jason he might have to go to hospital. The next morning when Paul went to wake Jason, the bandage and dressing were on a bedside table. His parents examined his hand. There was no sign of a cut or a scar. Just after Christmas 1996, Jason woke up when the weather was below freezing outside. His skin was red, like he had been sunbathing. By the end of the day he had returned to his normal winter pallor. In June that year, Jason was seen by the family GP [Doctor], Dr Karen Parks. In a letter, she said: "Jason has shown me marks on his left side, stating this is where the 'creatures' cut into him. "I do not know what to make of them. I haven't seen anything like this before." Jason was examined by school psychologist Dr Pauline Stevenson who was satisfied that the youngster was not mentally ill. FACE IN THE WINDOW: In November 1996, Jason had become so depressed Ann took him and three pals on holiday to a mobile home at Allhallows in Kent. Ann was relieved to see Jason smiling again. But on the Wednesday night she was woken by his screaming. She rushed to the room he shared with his best friend Mark. Jason was standing by the bed. The screaming stopped as Jason realised that she was there. He said: "Don't touch me, you mustn't touch me," In tears, Ann turned to leave the room. Jason spoke softly: "Mum, they're making me feel and see what they feel and see. I'll be all right." Later Jason behaved as though nothing had happened. Early next morning, sounds in the living room woke Ann at 3am. She wondered nervously into the living room. Things had been moved. Suddenly a chill swept over her. There on the glass window pane was an image of what appeared to be a face. The features were well defined. It was a face - but not a human one. Ann copied the image as accurately as possible. The picture she drew is above [printed in the newspaper]. Later Jason said: "I didn't think they'd find me here. Not here on holiday. WATCHERS IN THE WOODS: Since Tuesday, September 12, 1995, Ann and Paul have been convinced they have been under surveillance. Their smallholding backs on to thick overgrown woods, owned by an Arab consortium. Behind that is a Ministry of Defence base. On May 8 last year Ann had a terrifying experience. She was walking across a field when she saw a "head" peep out from behind a tree and disappear again. It reappeared and ducked back. It was only four feet off the ground. The head was white and with such indistinct features that Ann could not make them out. She called Paul but, as he approached, a figure fled from behind the tree and crashed noisily into the thick, bramble undergrowth. Paul put it down to vandals, but their escape route did not make sense - their skin would be ripped to shreds. Ann knows what she saw was NOT human. She says: The face was so pale, almost luminous. The head seemed hairless and too big for a human. "The movement was really odd, a gliding motion that was smooth. It was as if it was hovering just inches above the ground." CATTLE: In 1989 every one of Paul's herd of 22 calves and seven sheep died from a rare strain of salmonella which baffled their vet. The Ministry of Agriculture told Paul to dispose of the bodies by incinerating them. Later he received a call from a man claiming to be a Ministry official who told Paul to keep the carcasses. Soon after a black transit van pulled up and a tall thin man dressed in a white coverall suit, complete with hood, leapt out. He told Paul: "We're from the Ministry." He and five more "spacemen" in white suits loaded the carcasses into another lorry which lumbered into the yard. The two vehicles drove off along the dirt track. At that moment Jason and his brother Daniel returned from school. They had been dropped at the bottom of the lane - but had seen no van. Five years later Paul was told the Ministry of Agriculture did not have a flying task force of vans and men. The normal procedure after a salmonella outbreak is still to burn the carcasses on the farm. HORSES: Paul discovered his horse, Shannon, had had a large flap cut in his shoulder. There was only a small amount of blood. The vet said it was a deliberate incision and that layers of tissue below the skin had been removed. Strangely, Shannon stood still and showed no sign of pain while the vet stitched the wound. It seemed to Ann that the horse had already been anaesthetised. At the time, the family knew nothing of a strange spate of animal mutilations which appear to have some connection with alien activity. Ann noted in her diary for February 14 that all six horses, including the foal, were limping on the nearside back leg. Every animal had an identical bloodless wound in the same place on the rear leg. The wounds healed quickly. COWS: In spring 1996 Paul bought four pregnant cows - three Charolais heifers and an older Jersey cow. The farmer who sold them said all four would calve around September. During the summer Ann and Paul watched the cows swell and felt their carves kicking. But September came and went without any births. In fact, all four looked thinner. In November, when Ann arrived at the smallholding she found deep cow hoofprints in the mud OUTSIDE the gate as if the cattle had been moving around in a circle. But there were no prints leading to or from the place, even though mud was everywhere. Then Ann pointed to a boot print. There was only one - Paul estimated it to be a size 15. They raced to the barn. The cattle were there, but clearly disturbed. The vet latter announced that only two of the cows were pregnant but the calves would not be born until the following spring - six months overdue. ANIMAL DEATHS: In 1995, the farm cat was found dead in the barn. There was a neat hole in her head but no blood. Paul and Ann blamed vandals. But Ann felt uneasy. To her the cat looked as if it had been stretched out on a medical slab. The precision of the bore hole did not have the mark of vandalism. A few months later they found a fox with the same strange injury. On Friday, August 26th 1996, Jason went to the farm with his parents - and recoiled in horror. Four dead mice were laid out in a line near the gate. Each one had a small hole, not much bigger than a pin prick in the forehead, the left eye missing, and the rectum cut out. One had lost part of its stomach, another had its jawbone exposed and one had its left paw cut off. PREMONITIONS: Jason began to have premonitions. One incident has been confirmed by all involved. Paul was grazing two pregnant mares on land belonging to neighbours Billy and Sue Rutland. On May 1, 1996, one of the mares, Honey, gave birth to a foal. The mare was in perfect health. But at 3.3+am, the family was woken by Jason screaming. He sobbed he knew Honey was dead, repeating: "They didn't know she was ours." Paul believed Jason had had a nightmare. But at 7am the Rutlands daughter Laura phoned. She mumbled: "Honey's dead. Please come." The mare's stomach appeared to have exploded. An investigation concluded that the animal's stomach was in such a mess it was impossible to give a cause of death. 1998 Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Extracted from Abducted, The true story of Alien Abduction in Rural England by Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Published by Headline in hardback at 16 pounds and 99 pence and available in all bookshops. --- Source: The Sun newspaper (UK) Publish date: Wednesday 18th March 1998 The aliens are sharing my body...and my mind Ann Andrews felt ridiculous as she explained to a stranger over the phone that she thought her 12 year old son was being abducted by aliens. She expected a derisory laugh or perhaps a suggestion she should see a psychiatrist. Instead the well spoken man on the other end of the line was calm and reassuring. He did not ridicule her, or humour her. Astonishingly, he reacted as if everything she said was perfectly familiar. Ex-cop and UFO investigator Tony Dodd was to become the person who believed in them. He has helped the family cope since they realised son Jason, now 14, was being regularly abducted. Strange and apparently inexplicable things have surrounded the boy almost since birth. He has vanished in the night, only to reappear covered in mud and wounds which vanish within hours. Ann, in her book Abducted, tells of seeing "aliens" around the families ten-acre smallholding, which backs on to a Ministry of Defence site near Crouch in Kent. Their animals have been surgically mutilated and many died in mysterious circumstances. Ann, and her husband Paul, both 41 - who have another son Daniel, now 18 - promised Jason they would search out the truth. She met Tony after phoning Quest, a British based UFO investigative organisation. The hard bitten former police sergeant had, with two colleagues, once witnessed a UFO over the North Yorkshire Moors. He has researched UFOs for the last 20 years and is one of the world's leading authorities. Tony Dodd does not care whether you believe him. He knows what happened to him and what has happened to thousands of others. The majority of calls he receives will have a perfectly logical explanation. Only around two cases in every 100 contain enough unexplained evidence for him to investigate. The call from Ann Andrews fell into this category. He quizzed her gently and sympathetically. Tony says: "Ann's answers rang true. I'm very suspicious of people who state they, or someone in their family, are being abducted. "Ann put it forward as a possibility. She wanted help. "I got a strong feeling, as I do in genuine cases, that she sincerely wished it would all go away." Jason spent hours on the phone talking to Tony Dodd, recalling his early memories of aliens haunting the house where the family then lived in Slade Green, Kent. He told Tony: "The first memory I have is hands. I was crying for some reason and I can see long fingers - twice as long as Mum's with large knuckles - reaching into the cot and picking me up." As he gets older the memories of being taken in the night by a 5ft 4in alien and half a dozen smaller creatures became clearer. Jason gets a tingling feeling in his head when he is about to be abducted. He says: "It always happens at 3am. I see the creatures in my bedroom. I never remember what happens immediately next. "Sometimes I wake up and I'm lying on something smooth and cold. I can't move or speak. I can see the big alien. Its head is large with big black eyes on a slant and a small nose and mouth. "I can see it touching me, but I never feel it. I'm always terrified." Jason remembers another night when he found himself at his parent's smallholding, Hawksnest Farm, three miles from his present home in Borough Green, Kent. The next thing he knew he was being chased by a big brown animal. He ran for a hole in the hedge which he knew was there. He say: "It scratched me but I got through the hedge. "I felt as if the aliens were with me, experiencing what I was feeling. I felt, for the first time, they were protecting me." When he woke up in bed at home, Jason was splattered with mud, deep scratches covered his body. Tony Dodd is convinced Jason is telling the truth. He says: "If children are making up stories it is usually very easy to trip them up." One Sunday, as Jason was riding his favourite horse Patch, he became aware THEY were there. Unseen, the aliens were with him experiencing the exhilaration of the ride. Jason knows that sometimes they share his feelings. The ride ended badly. Another horse spooked Patch, who fell. Jason expected to experience immediate pain. There was none. For weeks afterwards his bruised arm bore a hoof mark where the other horse had trodden on him. It was as though his uninvited guests had absorbed all the agony. Jason has refused to ride a horse since. He blames the aliens. He says: "They don't enjoy it and don't want to get hurt again." Ann was horrified. She called Tony Dodd: "You have got to do something. He's somehow letting them share his own body, his mind. They're experiencing things - and he's letting them." Tony calmly explained this was not unusual. He shies away from the word "alien." He calls them extra-terrestrial biological entities. Tony told Ann that, according to research, the EBEs were apparently incapable of feeling emotions but are interested in human experience of them. To do that, they need a human host. One night Ann and Paul were woken by Jason who told them: "Look out that window, you will see them." At first they could see nothing. Then Ann spotted a bright light becoming bigger and brighter. The last thing they remembered was their bedroom being flooded with white light. The next morning, Jason said in disgust: "You went to sleep, I had to go with them again." He described being taken into an enormous room with hundreds of other people. On a giant screen was a picture of Earth. Paul was listening attentively but Ann clutched Jason's arm urgently. She knew exactly what he was going to say. She whispered: "It blew up, didn't it? Then there was a low whistling sound, a desolate sound, like a strange wind." Jason nodded and smiled with relief. He whispered softly: "I knew you were there. I saw you there." Paul was in shock. He had resigned himself to his son's strange life...but his wife too? 1998 Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Extracted from Abducted, The true story of Alien Abduction in Rural England by Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Published by Headline in hardback at 16 pounds and 99 pence and available in all bookshops. Check if you have been abducted UFO investigator Tony Dodd has compiled a list of occurrences experienced by people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. 1. Noises in the ears. 2. Nose bleeds. 3. Increased psychic abilities. 4. Strange unexplained marks appearing on the body overnight. They usually disappear quickly. 5. Waking to find odd things have happened in the night - nightclothes removed or inside out and waking in the wrong bed or wrong room. In one case Tony investigated, an abductee woke wearing clothes that he had never seen before. 6. Fear of the dark. 7. Strange lights appearing around the home. 8. Animals behaving strangely, like dogs barking at unseen objects. --- Source: The Sun newspaper (UK) Publish date: Thursday 19th March 1998 How do you fight something that can paralyse you, levitate you and then float you out of the house through the walls? Abducted - the book that proves the truth is out there Adaption by Mike Ridley Ann Andrews woke in the middle of the night as her bedroom filled with a mysterious light. The next instant, she claims, she was standing in a field on the family's smallholding three miles away, still in her night clothes. In an exclusive Sun serialisation this week of new book Abduction, Ann has revealed how her 14 year old son Jason is repeatedly snatched by aliens. In today's final extract, she reveals how she came to realise that she too, was being abducted. Ann explains: "A second after the light began, without any sensation of moving, I was in a clearing in the woods. There were large spotlights around the edge of the clearing and half a dozen men in navy blue or black overalls were working. One of the men smiled and took me by the hand and led me to the centre of the clearing where a makeshift animal pen had been built. "Lying in the pen was our stallion, Cardi. I thought he was dead yet I felt strangely emotionless. Then two of the men went inside and knelt down. "I could not make out what they were doing but Cardi woke up and staggered to his feet. He wobbled as if he was coming round from an anaesthetic. "I was aware I ought to feel relief he was alive, but again I felt detached. "One of the men opened the gate and Cardi wandered slowly out and disappeared into the woods." It might sound like a dream. But the next morning Ann and husband Paul went straight to their smallholding - Hawknest Farm, near Couch, Kent. As they drove up the lane to the farm they met a girl who works at the local stables leading Cardi. The groom had been riding when she found the stallion wandering in the woods. Ann drove on while Paul walked the horse home. When Ann reached the farm the animals were clearly disturbed. When Paul returned he said the stallion seemed "half-doped" but there was no sign of injury. That made Ann realise that, like her son Jason, she was being abducted by aliens. Ann, 41, believes she has been abducted all her life, but it is only now that memories are coming back. Asked what the future holds, Jason shrugs his shoulders and says he does not see it ever getting better. Nor does he seen himself ever learning to accept it. Chillingly, he reveals how he had seriously contemplated suicide, even going as far as to take a rope into the woods. He talks about it with apparent indifference. Then suddenly the reserve breaks and tears come to his eyes as he shouts angrily at "Them," the strangers who have robbed him of his youth. It was a sad moment, the sort many UFO sceptics ignore. They demand proof and use the lack of it to dismiss the whole subject as cranky. But for Jason, and many thousands of people like him across the world, the quest for proof is not important. What matters is the search for a way of life. Ex-cop and UFO investigator Tony Dodd says: "I wish I could promise Jason it will stop but it is unlikely. Having been selected for multiple abductions, I feel the aliens will follow him for many years, probably all of his life." In learning to live with it, Jason and his family have already taken the first step. Coping with abduction entirely alone makes victims miserable and some question their own sanity. Tony pulled no punches, explaining to Jason that there was "no cure." But by being open about his own experiences, he has helped Jason come to terms with what is happening. He described his own abduction to the boy and admitted: "We are all scared, not just you. "I travel the world but I'm too afraid to entered a darkened room on my own. "They still come for me and, although I now accept they mean me no harm, it still scares the hell out of me. "It's easy to be calm and rational in the cold light of day, but when night comes, so does the fear. "Having seen their craft and awesome power, I know we can never stop them. How the hell do you fight something that can not only paralyse you, but can also levitate you and float you out of the house through the walls?" It was a speech that brought great comfort to Jason. If a grown man could admit he was scared, then he had nothing to be ashamed of. When Jason confided in a school friend about his abduction within days he was being laughed at in the playground and dubbed Spaceboy and E.T. It was unsettling but Jason is resilient and survived with his "street cred" intact. At times, when a burst of paranormal activity is at its height, he appears to be electrically charged. Touch him and you get a mild shock. Ann was burned by him badly enough to leave a scar. Unfazed, Jason charges 10p a time to give them an electric shock. Paul and Ann eventually plucked up the courage to tell other members of their family how their son was suffering. The reaction was mixed. Paul's mother Shirley was unwilling to believe in aliens. She could not agree to accept everything he said but promised to be understanding and willing to listen to Jason. Ann's two brothers reacted differently. Stephen believes and accepts his nephew's story. David refuses to credit the alien story. At first Stephen and his wife, Anita, had been unsure about the alien story. On a holiday in Greece they became friendly with a family from Birmingham and after a few days the father confided they were on holiday to rest and bring normality to their lives. He told them he was an abductee. It took courage to confess it and at first Stephen reacted by treating it as a joke. It was only when he heard the full story that he was struck by the similarity to the stories his sister told about Jason. When he returned home, Stephen rang Ann to apologise for not taking her seriously. Looking at everything that has happened to him in his short life, Jason says: "Perhaps I have been chosen, perhaps I am special, maybe one day I will understand. "But now I'd just like it to stop. I want them to leave me alone. I want them to let me be ordinary." 1998 Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Extracted from Abducted, The true story of Alien Abduction in Rural England by Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie. Published by Headline in hardback at 16 pounds and 99 pence and available in all bookshops. Victims 'telling truth' John Mack - professor of psychiatry at America's highly respected Harvard Medical School - turned down a request to examine a man who claimed that he was being abducted. His reaction was that the man, Budd Hopkins, was "crazy." Later, Mack agreed to see Hopkins because he was confident he would find a psychological cause for people to "imagine" they were being abducted. Mack found nothing wrong with Hopkins. He went on to study 100 abductees. Their age, sex and family circumstances threw up no common patterns. He concluded that, apart from the stress caused by the abduction, they are normal, sane people with no psychiatric problem. He now believes that abductees are telling the truth. [UK 6]****** Source: Daily Mail newspaper Publish date: Saturday 21st March 1998 Abducted by aliens (or was this young boy carried away by the UFO lobby, a distinguished writer and publishing hype?) by James Dalrymple JASON ANDREWS looks you in the eye when he speaks. He is eager to do well, and although he mumbles and shrugs a lot, he tries hard to stick to the basic facts of his story. On the surface, there seem to be but two possibilities. At Just 14 years old he is either a born liar capable of playing the leading role in an elaborate hoax. Or is he speaking the truth when he tells his extraordinary story of being taken from his bed in the night by creatures from beyond the Earth? Experts have been throwing questions at Jason for several years. Doctors, social workers, psychiatrists, investigative journalists - they have all had a crack at him. His medical and education records could fill a filing cabinet. His family have been examined down to the smallest detail - and exonerated. The boy is not psychotic. He has not been the victim of abuse. Nor has he been coerced into a conspiracy. His family may be impoverished, but every expert has concluded that it is a close and loving one. So how can we explain his complex and eerie tale? His skinny body shows no evidence that it has been sliced open by long, gleaming fingers using strange instruments. Yet his parents say they have seen large scars on his side and his stomach. Scars that disappeared within hours. And his school record makes it unlikely he could reel off complex mathematical equations, with numbers running into the billions, or speak fluently in strange, crooning languages. Yet his family say they have seen and heard him doing precisely that, in a trance-like state, in a voice sometimes deep and harsh, sometimes soft and melodic. These events and many others, we are being asked to believe, have all happened to this ordinary boy from Hawksnest Farm in rural Kent. In a new book, Jason and his family reveal the story of a long series of visitations by aliens who have targeted him (and sometimes his mother) for their experiments into the minds, hearts and bodies of earthlings. Since Jason was four, the Andrews claim, they have been subjected to every type of extraterrestrial invasion. Small creatures, tall creatures, kind ones, sinister ones, some with huge round eyes, some in hoods and with dark features, others fair-skinned and ethereal, have all appeared in the various homes they have lived in. SOMETIMES they appear flooded in brilliant light and merely move about the rooms, sometimes they transport Jason to another place and lay him on a smooth, cold slab and conduct experiments on him. In the morning Jason often has long scars on his body, but by tea time they have disappeared. His father, Paul, says he has seen one such scar vanishing before his eyes. The boy says the aliens can communicate to him through thought. He believes they have implanted devices inside him. They can blank out tape recorders and make cameras inoperable. They can induce coma- like sleep on the rest of the family, instantly silence barking dogs and 'freeze' farmyard birds and animals into immobile statues. They can produce visions of the Earth blowing up on vast TV screens and present these images to Jason and his mother simultaneously. Mostly, such visitations are benign. But once, claims his mother, Ann, they came to her in the night and painlessly induced a miscarriage, implanting a voice in her mind that told her: 'It's all for the best.' There is much more in the same vein. Their story, told in a compelling book by a respected and talented British journalist, author of 13 books and an expert in the field of the paranormal, could well be a best- seller. Such accounts have already made fortunes in America, where alien abductions have become a media sensation and have involved mainstream scientists. Already, TV and film companies are said to be interested. All of this has been highly profitable. The Andrews family have been mostly broke for years, sometimes living on less than 15 pounds a week. The only asset they have ever owned is the scrubby little ten- acre smallholding, near the village of Borough Green, which they bought nine years ago for 25,000 pounds. They live in a nearby council house. But every day the family move up to their much-loved scrap of land and tend to their livestock - a few ponies and a flock of geese. Now all that has changed. The money will soon be rolling in. They are already guaranteed some 60,000 pounds from the book, including money from The Sun, who serialised it this week. They have their own agent and the celebrity chat show circuit beckons. 'I'd be a hypocrite if I said the money wasn't nice,' said Ann. 'But we never wanted to go public, and I never saw it as an opportunity to make money. WE THOUGHT long and hard about doing the book, and it was only after big family discussions that we were persuaded it would help others. The book's author, Jean Ritchie, is also quick to point out that if she had never stumbled on the story in a copy of a magazine about UFOs, the Andrews family would have remained in obscurity. 'I thought it would make a good magazine piece,' she said. 'But when I met Ann and read her diary I saw that it was far more important than that. I began as a total sceptic, but now I have an open mind. 'I feel they are telling the truth. I checked everything they told me, including the medical records. I have the names of all the doctors who were involved and there is no doubt they were mystified by what the boy was telling them. 'There is no doubt Jason was suffering from strange injuries and illnesses at the times when he claims he was abducted. There is clear evidence of scarring and strange marks on his body. And throughout it all Jason was consistent. 'One thing I am sure of: Ann and Paul Andrews are not liars out to make money.' There are two things to remember with alien abduction stories. One is that they are almost comically derivative. If you have read one you have read them all. All aliens look the same. They all have saucer eyes, pointed heads and are inherently benign. If they were monsters no one would ever get back to their beds. Nothing new in the literature has appeared in half a century, since the first B- movies of the Forties and Fifties. Second, the victims of abductions cannot lose. It is impossible to disprove a paranormal invention. All they have to do is get their story right and stick to it. If witnesses say you never left the house that night, you simply devise a scenario when every one else in the house was zapped into frozen immobility for several hours. Why didn't the video camera and the tape recorder set up to capture the aliens see the bright lights and hear the noises? Because they knock out all electronic equipment. And so on. For each reasonable question there is an unreasonable but complete answer. The aliens have all power. So are the Andrews just liars and fantasists trying to earn a little media money? The answers to these questions are fascinating and complex. AND the answers, in turn, pose intriguing questions about so much of the burgeoning UFO industry. There is no doubt Jason was a disturbed little boy. He suffered from bad dreams and he sleep-walked. Both he and his older brother, Daniel, told their mother they had seen things in the night. Jason's schooling was a disaster. He began to be disruptive and was threatened with expulsion. He was forced to undergo psychiatric counselling. Up until that point neither of his parents made any claims of alien intervention. Then Paul got some books from the library. And they began to immerse themselves in the cult of alien visitation and abduction. The possibilities of this childlike rubbish are endless. Every dream, every small family crisis, every strange sound, every odd piece of behaviour by their pets, even a lightbulb blowing, becomes a sign of alien intervention. The Andrews family became instant converts. 'Suddenly, it all made sense,' said Ann. 'We knew we had found the answer.' What she had found was an elaborate potpourri of pseudo- scientific mumbo-jumbo, invented by largely harmless obsessives, that has become a flourishing industry in the Western world. They contacted one of the leading British 'authorities' on this phenomenon, an agency called Quest, and were eagerly welcomed to the fold by Tony Dodd, a retired Yorkshire policeman who styles himself Director of Investigations. For Dodd the Andrews family were the find of a lifetime. He became their guru and protector. Using the gaudy terminology of the genre, he explained each of Jason's symptoms and instructed them what to look out for. Above all, he told them they were special, chosen people. Nobody had ever done that before with the Andrews. It was like the opening of floodgates. Ann, who had never felt any connection to all this, suddenly began to remember childish visions, which eventually led to a whole slew of 'recovered memories', including the miscarriage induced by aliens. The family attended UFO conferences and soaked up the lore of it all. Ann began to see the faces of the aliens herself, drew pictures of them, and began a diary of invasion. By the time Ritchie stumbled upon the story the entire family were already well- read in every facet of alienism. They became convinced that Government scientists were removing their dead animals, that the council was conspiring against them and that strange military activity was taking place in a nearby Territorial Army base. They began to produce endless anecdotal evidence that their isolated farm was surrounded by strange forces which had the power to immobilise their animals and geese into living statues. After this came a series of mutilations to their horses. ONE horse was discovered to have a large flap of skin hanging loose. But there was no blood or damage to the tissue and the animal wasin no discomfort. 'The vet said he had never seen anything like it,' said Paul Andrews. 'And he was able to stitch the flap back without sedating the animal' At another time they noticed that all their horses had become lame in the same back leg. 'There were little round boles that seemed to have been punched into the flesh,' said Ann. 'Again the horses didn't seem to be suffering.' The Quest investigators loved all this. Animal mutilation is a major issue for them. It proves, for them, that aliens are testing for toxins in living creatures. One day the family found four dead mice laid out in a neat row near the gate to the farm, each one with a tiny hole in it's skull. This, ironically is the only hard piece of evidence the family have ever produced. And they are very proud or the snapshot of the dead mice. Ritchie could find no chink in it- because there was none. An entire family was by now immersed in what the psychologists call passive group hysteria, and the fact that they could produce not a single tape recording, photograph of the 'visitors', or physical injury was explained away by the common response: the aliens were so far advanced in technology that they could do anything. Ritchie did try to contact the medical and school authorities, but got nowhere. She talks of Jason's medical records, but she didn't actually see them; she only saw the notes which his mother had made from them. After months practically living with the family, Ritchie produced her 80,000-word blockbuster. She, too, is now part of their world her next book will be into other aspects of alien intervention. It may be impossible to expose an illusion-but it is easy enough to see the essential silliness that lies at the heart of it. All you have to do is spend some time with the boy himself sitting in the tiny wooden shed at the farm where some of these strange events happened, I put him through his paces and the whole charade began to collapse. In two hours of questioning he rarely gave a full answer. Within moments of our interview beginning both his mother and Jean Ritchie were jumping in. When I quoted specific incidents In the book, in which he talks in great detail, he faltered repeatedly, and each time the two women moved in with answers: 'Don't you remember, Jason, that was the time you saw the one you called the Monk,' says his mum. 'The one with the hood.' 'You saw the Instruments in his hands, didn't you Jason?' suggests Ritchie. Again and again, under prompting, he tried his best. 'Yeah. uh, like I remember seeing the Monk, with a sorts hood thing. I sensed he was wise, you now ... oh could see something in his hand.' Again and again he missed his cue. Did you feel any pain when you woke with the scars in your body? He looked blank for a moment, then finally decided to ignore the question. We looked at each other in silence. I felt sorry for him. Eventually he began to run out of answers of any detail at all. From then on his only reply to any of my questions was: 'I, uh, don't remember things too clearly. That's why I always run into my Mum's room and tell her to write it all down. She knows it all.' And he looked at her pleadingly. Did you hear them speaking? 'You think you hear things. Sometimes I hear some funny voices ... coming from somewhere ... like, uh, I'm thinking things in my head ...' Jean Ritchie breaks in, reminding him that they use telepathy. This was allegedly the same boy who, in the book, can give this kind of descriptive detail. 'There is a pattern to the bad nights, the nights when things happen to me ... 'I've got a very good alarm clock, a state-of-the- digital one, and it always stops at 3am. That's the time it happens... I always try to go back to sleep, in the hope that nothing will happen, but then I see something almost out of the corner of my eye. 'It rises up through the floor. It's a big one. There's only ever one a big one. It's about 5ft 4in tall, just a bit shorter than me. THE head is large, with big black eyes on a slant which go round the side of the head, and a very small nose and mouth 'It's thin, and it has the long, dark fingers that I remember from my baby days ... I'm aware of the little ones. I never see where they come from, they're Just there ... They scuttle around. busy, busy, busy, they never stay still. 'Sometimes they bring some other creatures with them. I call them koalas because they are small and furry like bears ...' When he began to look at the floor in silence, I had had enough. Leaving the dilapidated little farm, I was rather glad that the family were coming into their small fortune. They are nice people and they almost certainly believe by now that they are telling the truth. But I had a bad feeling about Jason. He is now locked forever into his role as Britain's most famous alien abductee. Each day he will have to face derision and hostility at a school where he once suffered pain and rejection. And already, inside his extended family, there is agrowlng anger at the publicity. Jean Ritchie is central to all, of this. She is a talented writer with the ability to give the stamp of authenticity to any story. Whether she really believes this spider's web of nonsense or not is something that only she knows. But it is entirely due to her that two things will happen. A hard-up and likeable family will become moderately rich and be feted briefly on the celebrity circuit before being spat out and forgotten. And a rather lonely young boy, who has shown evidence of emotional and behavioural problems, will become a kind of freak show. ABDUCTED, by Ann Andrews and Jean Ritchie, is published by Headline Book Publishing Ltd at 16 pounds 99 pence. [UK 7]****** Source: Daily Mail newspaper Publish date: Saturday 21st March 1998 Private rocket nosedives after four seconds above Dartmoor By Nick Constable A PLUME of thick smoke over Dartmoor bore testimony yesterday to the short flight of Starchaser III. Amateur rocket scientist Steve Bennett had seen his dream of launching a British space mission end in only four seconds. His rocket managed a mere 200fh before a major malfunction. Instead of soaring 15,000ft into the skies, the 4401b-rocket veered crazily into the side of a heather-clad valley on a military firing range. The 2Oft-long craft - the result of two years' work and 70,000 pound in sponsorship - bounced twice before exploding. It scattered flaming debris and rocket fuel across a wide area of tinder-dry grass. Fanned by a stiff breeze, flames spread across several miles of moorland. Mr Bennett, 33- year-old director of the Space Technology Lab at Salford University, led students who attempted to damp down the flames before the fire brigade arrived. Soldiers from the nearby military camp at Okehampton were brought in to help fight the fire. All civilians were moved away from the crash area because of fears - that artillery shells buried on the firing range might explode. The occasional bang could be heard as live ammunition caught fire. By last night fire officers, who could not venture off the roads for fear of explosion, had decided, to let the fire burn itself out. With hindsight, Mr Bennett said it would have probably been a good idea to have had the fire brigade standing by. He said his party did have a couple of fire extinguishers. Police said they were 'very surrised' that the fire brigade had not been alerted beforehand and talked about Mr Bennett 'footing the bill' for the fire-fighting operation. Some of Mr Bennett's students looked close to tears as they surveyed the wreckage of a craft described as 'the most sophisticated private civilian rocket'. Little more than Starchaser's tall fin survived intact. Mr Bennett, a former tester in a tooth paste factory, said: 'We had a bit of a problem. I was trying to light seven motors together, but a couple ignited before the others and it hit the side of the hill about three or four hundred yards away. 'One has these ups and downs.' He pledged to go back to the drawing board and also raise the necessary 40,000 pound to build Starchaser 3A and continue the quest for the 6 million pound prize offered by an American company for the first private rocket in space. 'We will fire it and it will be successful.' Just before the launch, Mr Bennett spoke eagerly of blasting himself into space some time after the Millennium. His success with his Starchaser II rocket in 1996, made in the garage of his house at Dukinfleld, allowed him to give up his factory job and concentrate on his dream with a team at Salford University. He insisted yesterday that his attempt to put a satellite into low earth orbit - opening up cheap satellite launches for private UK companies - would continue. A spokesman for the University of Salford said: 'Everyone is terribly disappointed. But Steve is a committed professional. He will learn from this.' World News ========== [W 1]****** Source: The Sun newspaper (UK) Publish date: Wednesday 18th March 1998-03-18 Firm to send clips of hair into space A U.S. firm will send clips of hair into space for 30 pounds, saying aliens could use the DNA to make a clone. Their rocket goes up in 2001. [W 2]****** uk.ufo.nw says: This is a follow up from the last issues [W 12] article. Source: CNN Date: 25th March 1998 From: Doug Roberts "My predictions...can be considered nonsense" Teacher Chen UFO cult calm as God misses predicted TV appearance GARLAND, Texas (CNN) -- Members of God's Salvation Church gathered at a member's house Tuesday night, waiting for a sign. Chen Heng-Ming, known to his followers as "Teacher Chen," had said that God would appear on television channel 18 worldwide at 12:01 a.m. CST, and in person via flying saucer on March 31. When the hour arrived, the set showed nothing but static. "Because we did not see God's message on television tonight, my predictions of March 31 can be considered nonsense," Chen said through an interpreter. Chen's followers gathered at a cult member's house to watch for God's appearance. "I hope that everybody can still have the true belief in God, in the existence of God. Even though the image doesn't show on the television, I don't have any reason to doubt the existence of the supreme being, God." Chen, who said he would offer himself for stoning or crucifixion if his prophecies did not come to pass, says he will stay in Garland "to continue studying and researching." He insists that his followers are free to go their own way, and have always been. Chen, who claims he fathered Jesus 2,000 years ago and now talks to God through a ring on his finger, brought his followers from Taiwan to the Dallas suburbs to await God's appearance. The 150 members, who dress all in white, from their sneakers to their cowboy hats, sold everything back home moved to Garland because, they say, it sounds like "God's land." The 'ship' The group also built what they called a spaceship out of radial tires and plywood, and stocked a shrine with fruit, cola and crackers for God's arrival. Police cordoned off a 165-house area where the group lives, fearing the group might resort to suicide if God did not appear. Chen insisted that there was no threat of a mass suicide like that of the Heaven's Gate cult a year ago, almost to the day. "They've been model citizens," said Garland police Lt. Don Martin Tuesday night.. But, he said, "We would be remiss in our duties if we didn't consider that option." Religious experts say the Salvation Church, whose members include doctors, engineers and teachers, is typical of the kind of religious groups that spring up at the end of a century. "They are comfortable with technology as a means through which spiritual powers can work," said Lonnie Kliever, a professor at Southern Methodist University. A neighbor says she does not mind having the sect next door. "They are not loud. They keep up their places nice. We could use more neighbors like them," said Bonnie Nichols. [W 3]****** uk.ufo.nw says: We would like to hear from anyone who has further information or articles on the below reports - or just your thoughts on the matter. Send you mail to: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk with: CLINTONS JET as the subject. Source: ITN News (UK major news network) Date: Wednesday 11th March 1998 From: "Lloyd Bayliss" Investigation into Clinton jet radar loss The Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating a report that an air traffic control radar screen had briefly lost President Bill Clinton's aircraft. New York television station WNBC-TV and the newspaper Newsday reported that Air Force One disappeared from the radar screen in the regional control center on Long Island for over 20 seconds as Clinton flew to Connecticut on Tuesday morning. Radio contact was never lost with the plane, the reports said. FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the radar tapes were being reviewed to determine what actually happened. "We can't say one way or another what happened because we're still reviewing the tapes," he said. Alien Humour ------------ How many aliens does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Only two, but they have to be very very small to fit in the lightbulb. -- "We're too late! It's already been here." "Mulder, I hope you know what you're doing." "Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care." "You really think someone's been here?" "Someone, or something." "Mulder, over here--it's a fruitcake." "Don't touch it! Those things can be lethal." "It's O.K. There's a note attached: 'Gonna find out who's naughty and nice.'" "It's judging them, Scully. It's making a list." "Who? What are you talking about?" "Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once a year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite." "But that's legend, Mulder--a story told by parents to frighten children. Surely you don't believe it?" "Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive--and in a hurry." "It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely drained." "It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse." "But why would they leave it milk and cookies?" "Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding." "But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were locked. There's no sign of forced entry." "Unless I miss my guess, it came through the fireplace." "Wait a minute, Mulder. If you're saying some huge creature landed on the roof and came down this chimney, you're crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get down there. "But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions at once?" "You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?" "Exactly. Scully, I've never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white shanks of fur surrounding its ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I'll never forget the horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial features of my father." "Impossible." "I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr.Potato Head, Scully. It knew that I wanted a Mr. Potato Head!" "I'm sorry, Mulder, but you're asking me to disregard the laws of physics. You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you're saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they'll close the X-files." "Scully, listen to me: It knows when you're sleeping. It knows when you're awake." "But we have no proof." "Last year, on this exact date, SETI radio telescopes detected bogeys in the airspace over twenty-seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red." "But that was a meteor shower." "Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Nobody--not even the zookeeper--was told about it. The government doesn't want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing is proved to exist the public will stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy. Retail markets will collapse. Scully, they cannot let the world believe this creature lives. There's too much at stake. They'll do whatever it takes to insure another silent night." "Mulder," "Sh-h-h. Do you hear what I hear?" "On the roof. It sounds like ... a clatter." "The truth is up there. Let's see what's the matter." --- A FEARFUL SYMMETRY A TRUE STORY OF ALIEN INTRUSION INTO HUMAN LIVES By D. Lynne Bishop A FEARFUL SYMMETRY Copyright 1995 by D. Lynne Bishop All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages. First Printing September 1995 Printed in the United States of America BOOKFINDER PUBLISHING http://bookfinder.simplenet.com/ Lynne Bishop's home page http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3862/ --- CHAPTER 13 I was withdrawn and moody at work that day, and spoke with Linda, my friend and co-worker, about the abduction. To my surprise, she asked what time it had occurred, and looked a bit shocked when I told her it had begun about 1:09 A.M., and ended at 2:37 A.M. She told me she was awake at 1:00, because her husband (a policeman) had just come in from patrol. She had glanced out their backdoor, and saw a brilliant white light flying quickly toward the town where I lived. It had no strobes and no other colors, and didn't move quite like any aircraft they'd been used to seeing. Circumstantial evidence at best, this information still put a chill in me. The days crept by following the encounter, and I met each day with an icy numbness, as I accepted and integrated the memories from December 1. My husband and I puzzled over several aspects of the experience, and saw the faint origins of a pattern showing in the abductions. The two conscious events had occurred roughly two months apart. If this indicated a set time-frame, it would be possible to try some experimentation. Also, if the abductions were going to happen consistently, I could be better prepared to handle the situation and control my reactions. Intrigued by the idea of further experimentation, we decided to borrow my mother's voice-activated tape recorder. It became a nightly ritual: turning on the recorder and speaking into it to make sure it was working. On replay each morning, the various night sounds ran to marker twelve or fourteen, but nothing interesting was showing up. Still, we continued with the experiment, hoping we would capture something unusual on tape. On December 7, my brother telephoned to ask if he could look at the transcripts from my sessions. He was unaware of my encounter on December 1, and I thought this would be an opportunity to tell him I had just had another conscious abduction. I kept hoping the strange experiences I was having would persuade him of the validity of the phenomenon--but I had been unable to convince him of a physical reality to the alien abduction scenario. Still, it was worth another try, so my husband and I bundled up the numerous pages and drove to my brother's house. Arriving at his home, we carted the massive amounts of paper inside, and placed them on his dining room table. My brother glanced at them briefly, and then said he had something to tell me. "Let me tell you my tale of woe," my brother stated. I looked at him with curiosity. The tone of his voice was unusual, and I could tell something was bothering him. He proceeded to elaborate. His older daughter, a Licensed Practical Nurse, had arrived at the hospital she worked at early on December 1. Her supervisor had seemed preoccupied, and after several minutes passed, had called my brother's daughter aside, telling her she needed to tell her something, but didn't want anyone else to overhear the conversation. She said she had been enroute to work that morning, and around 5:00 or 5:30 A.M., had looked up into the still dark sky as she drove her vehicle. To her surprise, she saw a triangular-shaped craft of some kind, with lights in a triangular pattern. It shocked her, and she decided to pull off the road to get a better look. As she did so, a truck behind her pulled off, also, and the driver, (a man), got out. Both of them stared skyward, watching the object as it traversed the sky in front of them. They spoke to each other, to verify that both were seeing the same thing. After agreeing that they were, indeed, seeing a craft of some kind, they watched in awe as a blue beam of light was emitted from the craft. The beam flashed toward the ground below, and both of them ran toward their vehicles. Neither waited to see what would happen; the incident had taken on such a high strangeness they could no longer watch. The supervisor hadn't asked the man's name, so there was no way to get verification of her story, but she was positive she'd seen something not made or controlled by any human agency. Hoping for further details, my brother had asked to speak with her, but she had refused any interview. When my brother finished his summary, he noticed I had become quiet. He asked what was wrong, and I replied, "I had another conscious encounter on December 1." We both sat there in a daze for a moment, as the implications registered in our minds. Circumstantial evidence was accruing at a formidable pace. If only I could get hard proof--something unimpeachable. That proof, though, was remaining elusive. The weeks continued to pass without indication of any alien interaction. We kept the tape recorder by our bed, and faithfully checked it each evening and morning. The marker still ran to twelve or fourteen before ending, and nothing of interest showed up. My husband and I had realized the abduction on December 1 occurred only days before we planned to try videotaping, and this made us more determined to keep pushing for substantial evidence. Jack and Mary still reported nothing on their video, but we all refused to give up. The new year arrived, and we welcomed it with eagerness. Almost a year had passed since the day I first decided to discover what had happened in my life, and I was no longer the terrified person I had been. The alien encounters had become a conscious part of my life, and I had begun to take charge of my reactions to the phenomenon. It had become extremely important to me to communicate with these alien life-forms, whatever they were--to meet with them on equal footing, and somehow force them to acknowledge me as a member of an intelligent species. Perhaps, I thought, I could attempt to ask them for something, in return for whatever I was supplying them. My husband and I discussed this possibility, and determined that I should try to concentrate on a question to ask the creatures when the abductions occurred. I had been curious about an aspect of the abductions: it seemed that very few persons ever recalled the actual entry into the ship, as if an amnesia were induced at that point. I decided to keep that question foremost in my mind. Since the entities by all accounts were telepathic, I reasoned they should be able to pick up any thought that was vivid in my mind. This thought about seeing the entry into a ship became a mantra, always close to the surface of my consciousness. My nights had become relatively free of dreams that I recalled with any clarity, although in the past I had always seemed to remember my dreams on an almost daily basis. I assumed my frequent awakenings during the night had altered my dreaming schedule, so I was quite surprised to have a vivid dream on January 13. In this dream, I found myself in a different land. There was a teacher or mentor with me, whom I didn't see, but was aware he was giving me a three-part quest to fulfill. The first part of this quest involved going through a waterway to reach another location. This conduit was constricted, with very narrow walls. Concerned, I realized I could not negotiate the underwater path as a human; I was too large. My mentor dove into the water, and taking a "leap of faith," I dove in after him. To my surprise, I became a fish and easily navigated the canal. My mentor and I exited the water onto a shore, and I regained human form. The shoreline was a mountain of detritus--littered with huge mounds of machinery and junk. My mentor informed me I would have to fly a particular machine to the next site of the quest, which was located over the massive metal graveyard. Walking toward this piece of past technology, I discovered it was the engine of an airplane. It didn't fly too ably, but somehow I managed to barely skim the junk heaps and landed in a field area beyond. This third locale was still machine-filled, but was less choked with steel. In the distance I could barely see an expanse of grassy fields. My mentor again appeared and told me I had to repair another machine, and if successful, it would enable me to complete the journey. I walked to the equipment he indicated, and laughed. It was a riding lawn mower! I fiddled with the spark plug on it, and was amazed when the engine actually worked. Sitting on the mower, I very slowly rode off into the sunset--and the waiting grassy fields beyond. I told my husband about the dream the following morning, and laughed with him about the heavily laden symbology in it. No doubt containing many psychological levels of meaning, the dream also seemed to represent three of the four natural elements: water, air, and, earth. I wondered why the fourth element, fire, hadn't been present. The following evening, I got my answer. Several hours after falling asleep, I had another lucid dream. I found myself in a combat zone. The locale was a jungle, heavily forested and humid. Military personnel were scrambling from small huts, and air raid klaxons were shrieking an alarm of incoming aircraft. Heavy artillery bursts could be seen and heard constantly, in every direction. As the troops ran, I noticed several of the men were wearing loafers, instead of combat boots. I was very concerned, and yelled at one man, asking why he didn't have on boots. He replied that the loafers were the latest style. I was struck by how ludicrous this was--and how dangerous. The dream ended at that point, and I awoke. As I lay in bed thinking about the dream, I realized one possible representation of it was being "under fire." Somehow, my mind had supplied the fourth element I'd been searching for. On January 18, after several quiet nights, I had what I considered a flashback memory, rather than just a dream. I had tossed and turned most of the night, and after finally slipping into a light sleep, saw myself on a table, paralyzed, with my hands raised over my head. The scene shifted, and looking past my feet, I saw a doorway. Moving past my feet was one of the gray aliens. In his hand was what appeared to be a squeeze-tube with some thick white goop in it. The entity applied the contents of this tube on my body, and then turned to leave the room. He returned shortly, with another tube in his hand. He gazed deeply into my eyes, and telepathically imparted the information that I could apply this one myself--or he would do so. Handing the tube to me, he stepped back. Had I been able, I would have flung it at him--but that was not one of the options. I chose the lesser of two evils; I did not want him near me. Following these dreams and possible flashback memory, I became edgy. It seemed they were a prelude to something--and I was terribly afraid that "something" was another encounter. One small part of me anticipated an occurrence; the larger part of me hoped nothing would happen. Then, January 25, 1993 arrived--and so did the alien entities. --------------------------------------------------------------------- UNITED KINGDOM UFO NETWORK STATEMENT uk.ufo.nw statement: The articles or text appearing within these pages are not necessarily the views or opinions of United Kingdom UFO Network. REPORTS Please forward all reports to: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk WWW Visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.holodeck.demon.co.uk/ BACK ISSUES & FILES For information on receiving back issues and other files send mail with REQUEST INFO in the subject area to: ufo@holodeck.demon.co.uk IRC - (INTERNET RELAY CHAT) Our meetings take place at 11pm (2300hrs) each and every Saturday night. Times will vary depending on your location in the world. 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