Modern Mysteries

UK police kept secret files about sci-fi fans

By T.K. Randall
May 19, 2015

Image: Leonard Nimoy
Credit: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 (adapted) On the face of it there would seem to be nothing threatening at all about the stereotypical 'Trekkie', yet back in the 1990s police in the UK had found it necessary to keep a special dossier documenting the potential for fans of TV shows such as Star Trek and the X-Files to suddenly go mad and kill either themselves or other people at the turn of the millennium.

Lesser known shows such as Dark Skies and Roswell also prompted similar concerns from law enforcement.

The dossier, which was entitled "UFO New Religious Movements and the Millennium", was created in the wake of the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult back in 1997."The documents show the police and security services were concerned about the export of some new religious movements concerning UFOs and aliens from the USA in the aftermath of the mass suicide by followers of the Heaven's Gate," said author Dr Dave Clarke.

The main concern was that people hooked on these TV shows had the potential to act out in relation to the plots and themes of the episodes and subsequently form their own suicide cults.

"Fuel is added to the fire by television dramas and feature films mostly produced in America," the dossier read. "These draw together the various strands of religion, UFOs, conspiracies, and mystic events and put them in an entertaining storyline."

"Obviously this is not sinister in itself, what is of concern is the devotion certain groups and individuals ascribe to the contents of these programmes."

Source: Telegraph

Tags: Star Trek, X-Files