APOLOGIES.

Firstly let me begin by offering my humble apologies for the lateness of ‘any’ news on the SPI England site, but you guessed it, it’s the usual get out clause, that of ‘amazingly busy’ !! Mind you, that’s still not a reason for not updating the SPI web site, is it readers, so I will stand in the corner for a few hours until I feel I’ve served me penance !! Right, that’s that out of the way.

DISNEY CHANNEL AGAIN !

February 2000 saw me once more being invited by the Disney channel to speak to their young audience, not on UFOs, but on ‘Things That Fall From The Sky’. Admittedly this is a subject that I only know vaguely but nonetheless I endeavored to try the best I could, to explain a few points about what I felt about it all. Basically I suggested that a fair percentage of things that fall from the sky have natural ‘down to earth’ (if you’ll excuse the intended pun) explanations. Bits falling from aircraft, wind debris putting things down etc, what’s harder to explain, is the falls of fish and selected other ‘items’ that can also fall from the sky. Clearly not all falls of this kind can be put down to the wind picking things up and depositing them down many miles further on. I just can’t buy that, (not entirely anyway). Like most fortean subjects, incidents such as this tend to confuse us and fill us with wonderment, and what could be behind it, ‘well who knows’ . I welcome my readers’ comments on this, E-mail me at the usual address and I’ll print some of them in our next update. I also had a chance to talk about the time when Steven Speilberg wanted to assist me by helping me to catch The Loch Ness Monster. Briefly I had devised a special kind of trap that would lure "Nessie" towards it whereby radio biopsy darts would then be released from various wires around a ringed cage which would penetrate "Nessie’s " skin and render her unconscious. Divers would then be sent down to collect her. There is much more to it than that, believe me, but basically that’s how it works. Anyway, Speilberg was interested and it made big news in one of the Scottish papers a few years back. Sadly nothing came of it. But the show gave me a chance to show to the viewers what this trap looked like and how it would work. Like my last appearance on the Disney Channel (January 2000), I didn’t really get very long to explain things but nonetheless it had been a pleasant and enjoyable experience once again. I also met at the Disney Channel at St John’s Wood, a boy-band called A1. I had never heard of them before. They sang their latest hit song, which (oh my God) I actually liked and they seem a nice bunch of guys - hope they do well. As I was leaving the studio, there must have been around 50 young girls all outside waiting to catch a glimpse of their idols and when I walked out the door, I saw their faces drop, no doubt they were wondering, "Who’s that auld codger" !! As I was in the vicinity of Abbey Road, I asked my chauffeur to take me to see the outside of the Abbey Road studios where the Beatles made many of their famous hits. We parked right outside it, beside the small white wall that contains thousands of scribbled graffiti made by fans young and old alike from many countries. The studios didn’t look anything special, nor the pedestrian crossing made famous on the cover of the Abbey Road album, but it was still great for me, a big Beatles fan, to see the outside of this famous studio. By the way, Judy and I have tickets to watch the Bootleg Beatles in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London this December, having seen them before in Edinburgh I know just what to expect, sheer incredible brilliance !!! Right enough of the music.

BUFORA LECTURES.

As most of you may know, I am the organiser for the lectures for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA). Believe you me, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There have been a number of speakers who have jumped ship at the 11^th hour leaving me with their spots to fill, but fill them I have. Dave Clarke (the other researcher on the Howden Moors UFO ! Incident) also let me down. BUFORA were giving Dave his (second) chance to speak to us to give us his side of the coin on this controversial incident. Max Burns has already presented his, and Dave had the right to reply. But guess what, he felt that he had spoken about this case far too much and therefore was fed up with it and didn’t want to speak about it anymore !!! (so why agree in the first place !) After all his tirade of ‘opinion’ at BUFORA and Max, he can’t be bothered to explain his side of the story. I’m sorry, but there are no words to describe my thoughts on this one. It’s alright, it seems, to slag the other researcher on this case (Max Burns) as Dave does, but when he gets the chance to defend his actions and case investigation, he can’t be bothered. Jeeeeezzzz!!!!!!!!

Anyway, the lecture programme has changed since my last writing. The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe gave a good talk on Saturday 1^st April. Lionel, incidentally, is our new President and we at BUFORA wish him well in his new post. I’ll be talking on Saturday June 3^rd at the University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, Central London. This will be our last time at the University due to their increase of cost. All BUFORA lectures as of September 4^th 2000, will now be held at a new venue, that of,

The Quaker International Centre, 1 Byng Place, London, WC1E 7JH, (near the British Museum)

There is a new day, (MONDAY) and a new start time, 7:00pm till 10:00pm. On Monday September 4^th will be George Wingfield talking about ‘Black Triangles’. Monday 2^nd of October will be Jerry Anderson from Kent in regards to his UFO research in his neck of the woods. Monday 6^th of November should have been Reg Presley of the Troggs, but he now has commitments over in the States that day. Monday 4^th of December will be Richard Conway, talking on the Bible Code, is there really a hidden message in the Bible !! Prices have been dropped as well, Adults are now £4:00, and BUFORA members £2:00. Do please support British UFOlogy by coming along to these meetings. For further information on our BUFORA meetings, please write to Malcolm at the usual address.

A WEIRD WEEKEND !!!

Larger than life paranormal researcher and UFOlogist Jonathan Downes kindly invited me to take part in an event that he was organising over the weekend of 4t^h to 6^th of May, down in Exwick near Exeter, Devon. The event was entitled, "A Weird Weekend" and featured speakers such as, Mike Hallowell talking about the Marsden Grotto in Tyne and Wear, Richard Freeman on Dragons, David Farrant on the Highgate Vampire, Nick Redfern on Noah’s Ark and the CIA, and yours truly on (no not Scottish UFOs) but Scottish ghosts. I discussed numerous cases from the files of SPI which referred to our work on haunted houses and poltergeist cases. Sadly as per usual, I didn’t have enough time to finish my talk, and that was after taking an hour out of it in the first place !! The only speaker/s to let us down were Tim Matthews who rumour had it wouldn’t come down because Andy Roberts was due to talk, and when Andy found out that Tim was due to talk at the event, he too didn’t want to come. The end result was that both researchers didn’t turn up - talk about childish behaviour! On Sunday everyone jumped into their cars and headed off to Dartmoor where some speakers were talking about the Beast of Dartmoor and also various other legends that have sprung up around the place. Thankfully the weather was fantastic and although Dartmoor can be a very bleak place, on this day it looked wonderful. A film crew from BBC Wales came along to film the talks. From Dartmoor we again jumped into our respective cars and headed off to our next port of call which was Dartmoor Wildlife Centre near Plymouth. The Wildlife centre houses many animals including pumas, lions, bald headed eagles and much more. Again we had more talks and I also did a small piece of filming for BBC Wales. Jonathan’s weekend had been a great success, and although there hadn’t been much in the way of people attending, it went off well. The fantastic weather that weekend also made it special and Jonathan states that this will be the first of many of these types of "Weird Weekends".

NEW MOBILE NUMBER. !

I have finally come into the 21^st century by getting myself a mobile phone. To me, all these phone tariffs and special deals on phones are very confusing, and it wouldn’t surprise me that if you wear odd coloured socks, then you would get cheap deals on the weekend !! Anyway, I just plucked the first phone out of the newspaper that I thought was good. So, do please take note of my mobile telephone number, it is.

For those who are interested, it’s a Nokia 3210 on the One 2 One system.

BUFORA APRA SKYWATCH.

BUFORA and APRA will be holding a UFO skywatch on the evening of Saturday June 24^th, the location being the mysterious village of Avebury in Wiltshire with its hundreds of standing stones. I absolutely love this place and everytime I visit there I get a great buzz. Avebury really is an impressive place. Everyone will be meeting up in the Barge Inn near Alton Barnes. The Barge Inn, for those that don’t know, is the place where all the crop circle enthusiasts hang out and if you haven’t checked out the back room of the Barge, then you ought to, it’s something else !! If anyone is interested in coming along, could they call me or E-mail me and I’ll let the organisers know. Come along. It will be good fun.

VISIT TO STONEHENGE.

I’ve been to many strange places in my life, but one place that I had never visited until recently, was Stonehenge, another mystical place that has been photographed and filmed many times. As you know, Stonehenge is a circle of tall standing stones set in a field, probably the most famous of all grouped standing stones in the world. Judy and I travelled down to Stonehenge where we paid our £4:50 entrance fee. Stonehenge was not as impressive as I thought it would be but nonetheless it was a sight to behold. Everyone was walking around with hand held tape players which told you all you needed to know about Stonehenge. There were tape players in all languages, French, German, Japanese, etc. Even although Stonehenge is not overly large, it does make one wonder what it was all about and how they got those large stones in place.

JUDY AND I IN LOCAL PRESS.

My partner Judy and I were featured twice in two local papers a few months ago where we gave them information relating to the work of both BUFORA and SPI England, and although both newspapers had a wide coverage in the London area, very few readers came forward with their stories !!

LWT

I’ve been invited by London weekend Television, to participate in a programme that they will be doing soon in regards to UFOs. As the BUFORA press officer I’ve been invited to say a ‘few things’ (!) I’ve also been asked to bring along fellow BUFORA members and also other researchers. I’ll give you all the ‘bumpf’ in our next news.

ABDUCTION CASE? (J.J.)

I received an email a few days ago from an American researcher who had been given my name by Pete Robbins (of "Left at East Gate" fame). This researcher had had a rather distressing call from a young woman in Glasgow who believed that she might have been abducted by aliens. Her original point of contact had been a British military officer on secondment to a USAF base at Colorado Springs, who in turn passed her on to the Seattle-based ufologist. Malcolm then passed her info on to Brian and Billy at SPI Scotland, and asked if they could look into the case. It turns out not to have been a case at all, and the young lady, when advised by Brian to visit her doctor, discovered that she had a medical condition which could easily account for her blacking out for somewhere between five and thirty minutes. It seems strange to me that she took such pains to contact an abduction specialist, to the extent even of phoning NASA! Brian seems pretty confident that there is nothing else to uncover, and it just shows how pervasive this imagery of alien abduction is. It’s clouding a real and important phenomenon, and making our work as investigators and researchers so much more difficult. (J.J)

Well not a lot to write home about this time round. It seems to me if the UFO subject is on the wane with very little happening here in the U.K. (or am I wrong !) What we need is a major UFO Incident to spring up which will capture all our minds again, something that will find itself splashed all over the newspapers. I met an interesting young researcher recently who came to my house in Ealing, David Williams is his name and I think we’re going to hear a lot more about him. He showed me some of his collection of ghost photographs and strange things that have come up on his photographs. (Very peculiar) Most of his strange photographs have effects in them like my own collection, so it’s good to see that a common thread of strangeness can be found other places as well. He also showed me video footage of a strange white light which slowly moved across a pub room during closing hours. (great stuff !)

Another visitor to my home in Ealing recently was well-traveled Scottish researcher Dave Moncur. Dave is sporting a very cropped hairstyle - David Beckham look out. Mr Moncur has more stories to tell than there are people on this planet, where would we be without him !

I’d like to thank once more, Dean Ladds, our SPI web wizard without whom none of this would be possible, well done Dean. Until next time, keep watching the skies and beware of the ghost in your bedroom.

© Malcolm Robinson, SPI England. May 2000 News.

©Malcolm Robinson, SPI ENGLAND 2000.
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