David Clarke and Nick Pope - For heaven's sake make up!

I see that there's been an exchange of fire between two of Britain's 'UFO experts' recently, especially coming on the heels of the final release of the MOD's UFO Files.

The Huffington Post article by Lee Speigel gives a good summary so far of these two having come to blows.

Whilst, I tend to favour Pope's view - and those of others such as Timothy Good - that these are not all the files that the relevant UK authorities possess concerning UFOs (note I'm not specifically concerned with just MOD's files here), I do wish these two would try and settle their differences.

One of the most recent salvos in this exchange was by Pope seemingly and indirectly referring to Clarke as a 'useful idiot' (which was in both the Reuters and UFOs and Nukes articles I referred to in my last post), which I thought was unkind given Clarke's work to have the MOD files released. Pope now appears to have offered an apology for his remark. It also doesn't help matters that - if certain claims being made about him are true - Pope might not have been the UFO sceptic he maintained he was before working for the MOD (the HuffPost article by Lee Speigel gives details).

As Lee says in his article:-

"If there are any losers here, it must be the public, for the confusion this has brought up. After tens of thousands of pages of UFO files have been released by the U.K., who are we supposed to believe about how significant (or not) those documents really are?"

The two protagonists - like many others in the UFO community - seem more concerned with attacking each other (and perhaps protecting their own reputations) than making a collective effort to continue to search for answers.

Despite the arguments put forward by both supporters and sceptics generally, the phenomenon of UFOs and UAP persists. Of those cases that come to light, there are still a significant number that cannot be put down to chinese lanterns, balloons, experimental aircraft, drones, meteorological or astronomical phenomena, the mental state of observers etc.

The observable universe apparently stubbonly refuses to fit into the neat world-view of either hardened sceptics or avid supporters. In addition, whilst I favour 'cock-up' or 'WYSIWYG' (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) rather than 'conspiracy' to explain much Government activity, it would be foolish to think that any Government is entirely 'open' or 'transparent' on a topic such as this.

Still both Clarke and Pope - whatever flaws they might be considered by some to have (including each other) - are well-known and dare I say, respected names in the field and are bolder than I (and many like me), by publicly having just such an association with the UFO phenomenon, whilst I - through necessity - must remain anonymous.

That is why I think it is important that they acknowledge their differences in a mature, gentlemanly fashion and just try to get along.

2012 - A retrospective

So - here's my short retrospective of 2012, mostly centred on the phenomenon of UFOs or UAP.

I really hadn't planned on starting 2013 with a post about my broadband problems but such is life.

At least I had planned on starting 2013 period.

The 2012 phenomenon

Many doom-mongers - and arguably those perhaps with a cabbage short of an allotment - didn't plan on starting 2013 at all because of ...yes you guessed it ... the supposed Mayan apocalypse.

No - the world didn't end on 21 December 2012 and there are likely to be many - bizarrely - crestfallen or hang-dog faced people out there who were disappointed that it didn't!
There wasn't even a world-wide spiritual awakening or 'rapture' as suggested by ranks of religious or new age nut-cases.

I remember that when the question about the world ending on 21 December 2012 did crop up at the BUFORA 50th anniversary conference, one of the BUFORA representatives said (and I'm paraphrasing) 'We'll get back to you on 22 December', which was a reasonable response in my view.

One thing is clear however. Hollywood did well out of it, as did many authors, cranks and posters on Youtube - and the net was flooded with nonsense on it for at least two years in the run-up to the infamous date.

But I digress, the following - with links to the relevant blog articles - are what I consider to be some of the key moments of 2012 followed by the damp squibs.

BUFORA's 50th Anniversary conference

The UFO panel at the National Atomic Testing Museum

The public release of the final set of (the UK's) M.O.D. files

Questions to the White House concerning the UFO phenomenon (the first petition being late 2011 running into 2012, the latter early 2012 - no link)

I mention these because - although both petitions 1 and 2 were unsuccessful - in that insufficient numbers of signatures were received to meet the required threshold (quickly raised incidentally from the original 5000 to 25000 shortly after launch and now again to 100,000 this year) - it was another milestone in engaging the U.S. Government on the subject. Continued pressure may force the U.S. Government to be more responsive - if not proactive - on this issue (but don't hold your breath) and that's provided 100,000 US citizens can be found to sign up...

And the damp squibs were:-

The 2012 Olympics alleged UFO sighting
Still a 'blimp' in my view

The Baltic undersea objects 
Concrete something-or-others. Who is not past caring?

The 'Anonymous to leak secret UFO data?' story
No such luck.

Life confirmed on Mars
Water? Is that the best NASA can do after the Moon Landings over forty years ago?
 

In addition, the downright embarassing were the alleged discovery of a faster-than-light particle (which proved not to be the case) and the dreadful TV debacle that was
Conspiracy Road Trip: UFOs.

Otherwise, a personal high for me in 2012 was having a brief email exchange with Douglas Trumbull - Hollywood visual effects expert - about his (still sadly shelved) UFOTOG project.

SO - All in all, 2012 was still a busy - and significant - year in terms of UFOs/UAP - and don't let the doubters or the media tell you otherwise. The UFO/UAP phenomenon is very much alive and kicking and has yet to be satisfactorily resolved!