Nick Pope
by Andrew Williams, August 10th, 2005
Nick Pope was the head of the Ministry of Defence's UFO Project from 1991 until 1994. He went on to write several sci-fi books and is a regular on the UFO convention circuit - lecturing all over the world about his time as the MoD's very own 'Fox Mulder'. Civil servant Pope still works for the MoD but is reluctant to 'go into details' about his job specifics.
What did your job as head of the MoD's UFO Project entail?
I had been in the MoD since 1985 and did various things - they move you around every three years - when they suddenly asked me to head the UFO Project. I had no previous interest in UFOs, which was probably the best way to come into that job.
What did you do every day?
We researched and investigated the UFO mystery to see if reports of UFOs suggested anything of any defence significance. We looked at whether they posed a threat to Britain and if the things that were being reported were cause for concern.
And what did you conclude?
That 95 per cent of it was just misidentification - aircraft lights, weather balloons, meteors, satellites, etc. But there was a five per cent core of things that defied conventional explanation. I had UFOs reported by trained observers, such as pilots and military personnel, plus visual sightings backed up by radar which is always interesting.
You've said you started off quite sceptical but after three years in the job came to believe that aliens exist. What evidence convinced you?
Yes, I came out of the job convinced that some UFOs might be extra-terrestrial. There isn't proof but there is some intriguing evidence. The best example is Britain's most famous UFO case - the Rendlesham Forest incident of 1980. Essentially, a UFO landed between two military bases; all the witnesses were military, three 'landing' indentations were found in the clearing in the forest and a Geiger counter showed the radiation readings in the area were ten times higher than normal. That really made me think there was hard evidence of UFOs visiting Britain. Two years ago, a US military police officer said he was responsible for it but I very much doubt he is. There are a lot of people who want to write themselves into the story retroactively and it doesn't wash.
Do you believe people have been abducted by aliens?
I looked at about 100 cases and I'm puzzled. The people involved aren't after publicity or money for their stories, most of them run a mile if you try to involve them in media projects. There have been scientific studies into the people who make these claims and the conclusions suggest they believe what they say happened really did happen. That doesn't mean it took place in the physical universe, of course.
Have you found any physical evidence?
No. Some people claim they have been abducted and implanted with an alien tracking device. If I can recover one of these, I can prove the mystery definitively. Until I get one, I don't have anything I can take to the scientific community. It would be foolish to write off these claims just because of scepticism. You should investigate claims no matter how extraordinary they seem and that has always been the view of the MoD.
I'm convinced that some UFOs might be extra-terrestrial. There isn't proof but there is some intriguing evidence
Presumably, you're investigating these tracking devices in your spare time?
Yes. All my research is now in a private capacity. I had the most interesting job in the country. After three years of that, I couldn't turn my back on it.
Is there anything you remain unconvinced by?
I was drawn into just about every strange paranormal phenomenon you could imagine. I had people phoning me up offering to become psychic spies for the MoD, tracking Russian submarines or finding hidden caches of drugs with their minds. I used to set them a test. I would hide an object in my flat and challenge them to say what the object was and tell me where I had put it. Sadly, none of them managed it. Had one come up with the answer, I would have taken it further. You have to keep an open mind.
60 SECONDS EXTRA!: People freely admit to making 'landing marks' in crop circles for a laugh. Do you think there are any genuine cases?
Most of it is just people having a bit of fun. I talked to some people who made the formations and they consider themselves artists and their formations as conceptual art - with some of the art being the reaction they provoke from ufologists and the media. Again, though, I look at a tiny percentage of them and think, 'Well I wonder if extra-terrestrials weren't involved.'
60 SECONDS EXTRA!: Everyone has an idea of what aliens look like, which is a recent cultural phenomenon. Why is that? Why do many 'abductees' give similar descriptions?
The simple answer is that that's what aliens really look like. There's a possibly more complex answer regarding how the image of an alien with grey skin and large almond eyes has become part of the popular culture so we can't rule out the possibility it may have influenced some people's abduction stories. Just about all the abductees who have taken a lie-detector test, though, have passed the tests with flying colours. Aliens have to look like something - so why not that?
60 SECONDS EXTRA!: You also investigated cattle mutilations. South America was plagued by the so-called 'goat sucker' phenomenon (supposedly abandoned alien creatures which look like green kangaroos and kill sheep). Does Britain have its own goat sucker infestation?
I liaised with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and they had one or two strange reports of mutilated cattle but they tended to write everything off as a 'dog attack'. It was easier for them to write that from an insurance point of view rather than say the livestock had been savaged by extra-terrestrial entities. I honestly don't know about the goat suckers. I haven't seen enough evidence to convince me that we have them in Britain.
60 SECONDS EXTRA!: Scotland has the highest concentration of UFO sightings in the world - why is that?
I have no idea. From time to time, there are various UFO hot spots. In the 1960s, it was Warminster, now it's Scotland - a town called Bonnybridge in particular. Sometimes it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes the local tourist office want to promote their particular town. The No.1 hotspot during my time was London. That might sound strange as people have this idea that you only see UFOs late at night on lonely country roads but it has something to do with population density. If a UFO is in a particular location, if there are more people to see it and report it, then that's going to make that location a UFO hotspot. After all, there are 8million people in London.
thisislondon.co.uk
