Quiet Guys and Three Mince Pies

In a field so full of craziness and absurdities, it’s easy to overlook the quiet people standing away from the crowds. Amidst all the flash and dazzle of what passes for ufology there are still people out there, working away and attracting less attention than their noisier neighbours. The snake-oil guys run the side-shows and will always draw in the punters…they don’t need UFOs to do it either: health pills, free energy, Ponzi schemes etc. Nevertheless, the quiet guys are sometimes worth watching.


With this in mind, I get to post a thread that focuses on a handful of guys who are quietly working away, adding substance, and gaining little attention and less money. In this thread, the main ones are John Hanson and Dawn Holloway. They’ve been working away at the coal-face of local UFO news reports for years, amassing a large collection of clippings, images and interviews with some of the witnesses. Without their work, most of these incidents would have faded away as the witness’ memories re-evaluated or embellished them into distortions.

Some of these clippings and images are huge (copyright @ Haunted Skies), but it's the only way to read the content.




They’ve published two books called Haunted Skies These valuable collections contain clipping after clipping from English newspapers over the decades. What makes the work special, in my view, is that they are providing an archive of information that simply wouldn’t exist without them. They run a blog called The Haunted Skies Project where you can see some of the examples that will be going into the next book. Some of the clippings are of famous incidents like the front-page news of Operation Mainbrace sightings. The more fascinating ones are from local pages and cover the stuff that never sees mainstream news.



This brings me to another gent who a few on ATS will be familiar with…Terry Hansen, author of The Missing Times.. In his book he covers the lack of UFO reports in mainstream news and develops an idea of a multi-faceted cover-up. He could be right, who knows? One point he repeats in the book is how local newspapers cover UFO reports and no matter how big an incident, it rarely reaches the nationals. In Hansen’s thesis, censorship and complicity with CIA-driven issues of ‘perception management’ and ‘national security’ prevents mainstream nationals from covering UFO stories in a serious way. It’s hard to look at Haunted Skies without considering these points.

In the interview (linked later), John Hanson raises questions of why the major tabloids are happy to post outlandish stories and show little interest in the more credible, intriguing reports.

Hansen’s one of the good guys working quietly and supports his arguments with documents, clippings and reasoned arguments. He describes how the CIA claimed to have full control of the AP wires back in the 60s and could intercept, or add, any story that went out. This allowed them the great position of seeding any story they chose, anywhere in the world…or killing one. Likewise, there’s often been talk that the National Enquirer was the media-arm of the CIA as they strove to squash UFOs being treated seriously. Seeing what Bob Pratt wrote and hearing Tim Binnall’s current Paul Bannister interview makes it a tough one to call, in my opinion. Again, who knows for sure?

It’s this that makes me view the Haunted Skies project as a valuable endeavour and recommend the books. If Hansen’s ideas of censorship are correct, these books represent a real history of human experiences and potential UFO encounters that would otherwise be unknown to most of us. They are the stories that never made the nationals; they capture the moment in time when someone, somewhere was confronted by the unknown. Without collections like these books, those bizarre interactions would fade from our collective memories and lose the substance of reality that first struck the witnesses. Just imagine experiencing a classic encounter – structured craft, maybe a couple of humanoids – and it’s a couple of column inches at the bottom of tomorrow’s garbage?

I know the plural of anecdotes isn’t data (to a degree), but given the wealth of folkloric bafflements and wonders in these old news stories, don’t they amount to something? It’s out there in the archives of other people and organisations. A mound of reported evidence that isn’t all hoaxes, folklore, aliens, black tech, Russian rockets or blithering idiots watching Venus.

They’re like some unknown Morse-code being tapped out on the wires of our human experience and instead of hearing the signal, we’re passing them off as a meaningless noise

Michael Swords has covered similar ground in his interesting book, Grass Roots UFOs (from Timmerman files). He covers the US end of these urban accounts of anomalous experiences. In this case, oral accounts told by Joe Public to Timmerman over two decades.

Despite some people thinking ‘folklore’ is a dirty word in ufology, these clippings and accounts are no less than folklore and could be representative of something much more.

This just about brings me onto the interview that caused me to write this thread.
Kate Valentine has an archive of interviews with some of the interesting thinkers in the field. Once more, she's amongst those who are adding to the history of ufology without too much song and dance. Off the top of my head, I've enjoyed listening to Tyler Kokjohn (introduced by the 'topia guys), Chris Rutkowski and Carl Feindt.. I particularly enjoy listening to for her unique voice. She’s recently interviewed John Hanson for her show. When her guests are my kind of guys, her shows are excellent and tend to avoid all the predictable BS questions. In the Hanson interview, he explains very clearly how important the book is to posterity. He tells some interesting anecdotes and sounds very reasonable...

The John Hanson interview is available right here as RIGHT CLICK, SAVE AS...

One tale in particular deserves its own thread, but let's throw # to the wind and discuss it here.

Fellow member, Isaac Koi, has taken the time to collect every UFO-related book published and gone a step further by categorising them all and cross-referencing the page numbers of damn near every account in them. The following account has been duly recorded and provided, at no cost, on his website as... Mince Pie Martians.

The little-known English case of the ‘Mince-pie Martians’ will appeal to anyone who enjoyed the "Don't Be Alarmed; We're Martians" thread with Simonton's pancakes and Wilcox' chatty Martians.. Here are some of the details of a truly bizarre case and Hanson adds more in the interview…

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/417394730022.png[/atsimg]

In the image, this fine-looking lady isn’t about to ‘one-bomb’ three whiskey slammers and eat the pies; she’s demonstrating part of a very strange encounter. According to her account, she was visited by three little fairy-critters from ‘Elsewhere.’ In the course of the visit, these little (3 and a half feet) guys spoke as one in a deep, growling voice on subjects as diverse as Jesus, women in the home and Tommy Steele (even more absurd if you google the guy!). They partook in a shot of whiskey (water says Jerry Clark) and left, in an egg-shaped contraption, with the mince pies.

Just another old lady high as a kite on prescription drugs and whiskey passing her lonely hours away while Mr Hingley was at work? Maybe the following week, Elvis came by too? What makes the account interesting is in the way these encounters always have a little hook that catches the reader’s imagination and inevitably left Mrs Hingley puzzled for years.

Here’s the hook; the neighbours saw the object fly off, there was a depression in the snow and the little guys had left prints on the kitchen door. Great stuff! What do we make of all that?

Investigators found an oval-shaped impression in the backyard snow. Hingley com- plained that her clock, radio, and television were no longer functioning. The cassette tapes that she said the beings had touched were ruined. She suffered a range of physical discomforts in her eyes, ears, and jaw. Her doctor became alarmed enough about her well-being that he ordered her to stay home from work for two weeks. As outlandish as her story sounded, investigators did not doubt her sincerity.

Clark, Jerome, “Extraordinary Encounters : An Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrials and Otherworldly Beings” (2000) p177

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0bb7a6cc1265.png[/atsimg]

An excellent, illustrated and extensive article on this incident is over here at Greetings Earthlings Revisited: The Rowley Regis Case

Anyway, let’s bring this to a close. If you like Hanson’s blog, you might enjoy the books and if you like the story above, you might enjoy the Kate Valentine Show.

In closing, the focus here has been on the quiet people in ufology and those that generate the reports…you and me with a little mischief by the UFO phenomena thrown in as fuel.

Hanson & Holloway's books are like butterfly collections whereby the beauty of something that has passed is captured and remembered forever. Without endeavours like theirs, Mike Swords and many more, most of these incredible reports would barely be known. Isaac Koi is also one of the 'quiet guys;' his contribution to the subject isn't about personality or finance. Kate Valentine and Terry Hansen are as much a part of ufology’s fabric and history as Dawn Holloway and John Hanson.

In the light of all the big personalities and the bickering over who’s got too much of the blanket, we shouldn’t overlook people like these ones right here. They come quietly with their gifts and don’t expect worship…just plain old appreciation.

Thanks op really great work! I like how you have highlighted some of the not so known researchers. It's all interesting.

When did Mrs. Hingsley's case happen? What year?

reply to post by ThinkingCap

When did Mrs. Hingsley's case happen? What year?

Where: Rowley Regis, West Midlands, England
When: January 4, 1979
Witness: Jean Hingley

Details are here at Greetings Earthlings Revisited: The Rowley Regis Case

I repeat myself occasionally when I say that for people just getting into the whole circus that is the subject of UFOs, it's easy to think that it all has to do with grey aliens flying around in mechanical ships, doing an occasional abduction. But the deeper you dig into it, the more you come up with stuff that is simply crazy and strange and appears to have nothing to do with extraterrestrials or any other kind of logical, rational thing.

The odd stories tend to get shuffled out of the way because they don't fit the general mythology, which is a shame.

It's good that there are people out there still documenting this stuff before it completely fades away.

Where are Mrs Hingleys neighbours? thats the big question
Locked in the cellar with the aliens for the past 30 odd years,Somethings odd alright.

An excellent response to the ongoing tomfoolery of mainstream ufology. The MSU, if you will, might be about as reliable as a lot of us feel the MSM to be.

I've enjoyed Terry Hansen's work before and while perusing your links I found the older article of his excerpted below.

While the info isn't new, the way it's laid out hit me afresh. In the following article excerpts note not only the term "CIA" but also those that were attached to Psychological Warfare duties before (during?) joining NICAP and other orgs.

So, either these folk who have held some of the highest clearances extant either believed for some reason…or were there for psy-ops reasons...or both??

Have these psy-ops been tailored to make us believe…or make us not believe?

At this point and in my opinion it seems more as if they have used reverse psychology and want us to believe. Or child psychology as it's sometimes erroneously, but somewhat on target, referred to as.

Excerpts of The Psychology of Dreamland
by Terry Hansen.

...The CIA's conclusion that UFO groups needed to be watched apparently was taken to heart. One of the most influential private UFO research organizations in the 1960s, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), was literally crawling with CIA or former CIA personnel. In fact, it is hard to escape the impression that NICAP was being actively managed (or, more appropriately, mismanaged) by the CIA for its own inscrutable purposes….

…Shortly after NICAP was founded by space-propulsion researcher T. Townsend Brown in October 1956, at least two CIA covert agents worked their way into key positions in the organization. Nicholas de Rochefort, an employee of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff became vice-chairman of NICAP in late 1956. The second was Bernard J.O. Carvalho who became chairman of the group's membership subcommittee.

...In 1957, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the CIA's original director (from 1947-50), joined NICAP's Board of Governors. As stated earlier, the authenticity of the MJ-12 briefing document is a subject of dispute, but it is nevertheless worth noting that Hillenkoetter was listed in that document as a member of the Majestic 12 UFO investigation team, along with Donald Menzel.

Another NICAP board member was Col. Joseph Bryan III who, from 1947-53 had been the founder and original chief of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff.

In addition, former CIA briefing officer Karl Pflock was chairman of NICAP's Washington, D.C., subcommittee during the late 1960s and early 1970s, according to Zechel. Pflock, who has researched the Roswell case under a grant from the non-profit Fund for UFO Research, was author of the theory that the alleged Roswell UFO crash was really a secret Project Mogul balloon, an idea the Air Force endorsed in its recent press release. Pflock vigorously ridicules any suggestion that he has a hidden, CIA-inspired agenda. (See "I was a Ufologist for the CIA..." UFO Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, 1993) There are other CIA connections, as well, but I will not belabor the point.
www.themissingtimes.com...

Hope I'm not off topic with that. I'm off to dig through more of your links. Isaac Koi was another great call and certainly uber-worthy of making your list. Outstanding, Kandinsky.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Hi Kandinsky, thanks a lot for that remarkable thread!!

In case you or other interested readers haven't already seen it, here's a very interesting lecture of Terry Hansen he did on the Xcon in 2004, in which he talked about the mainstream media and their dealing with the UFO-Topic:

video.google.com...

NEWS MEDIA COMPLICITY AND THE TRUTH EMBARGO, with Terry Hansen. A mesmerizing account of his investigation into whether some of America's most influential news organizations, many having maintained close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, have willingly suppressed full and accurate news coverage of extraterrestrial related phenomena for a variety of "national-security" reasons.

Hansen reveals the remarkable and persistent difference in UFO-related news coverage exhibited by local and national news organizations and reviews the history of censorship and propaganda during the twentieth century and the evidence for media-government collusion over the course of the half-century-long UFO controversy. Terry Hansen is an independent journalist with an interest in scientific controversies and the politics of mass media.

He is author of The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up. He has organized and moderated two symposiums about the science and politics of UFO research for the Science Museum of Minnesota. Hansen holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in science journalism, both from the University of Minnesota. He was a founding partner of KFH Publications, Inc., a Seattle computer-magazine publishing company. This presentation covers some of the more recent and important stories that have been suppressed by the media cartels and powers-that-be.«

Another guy possibly interesting for you is Dr. John Altschuler, a veterinary pathologist/hematologist who was the first to investigate scientifically the strange cases of animal mutilations that started occuring in the 60ies.

Timothy Good made a tribute to him in his lecture he held at the Xcon in 2004 (right in the first minutes of his lecture):

video.google.com...

reply to post by Blue Shift

It's good that there are people out there still documenting this stuff before it completely fades away.

This is something that's really hit home in the past year. I had to contact AFU last year and was struck by their archives and history. Mike Swords is currently the custodian of the Ivan T Sanderson SITU archive and has access to the dreamland (for me) of the CUFOS archives. John Hanson is amongst these guys too. APRO's collection is under dispute and possibly disintegrating.

We're probably on the same page with the encounters.

reply to post by The GUT
Thanks for the reply, you usually add quality to a thread.

At this point and in my opinion it seems more as if they have used reverse psychology and want us to believe. Or child psychology as it's sometimes erroneously, but somewhat on target, referred to as.

My own approach is to view that as extraneous and somewhat of a different topic. I like to focus on the raw accounts (clippings, reports etc) and consider what the hell they might tell us? All the jibber jabber that surrounds the core accounts is the sound of cash-registers, belief systems and the endless work of the 'unknowns' (MJ-12 documents, evil aliens, Dulce bases, Holloman landings etc).

The factory approach of LMH, Exopolitics, Streiber, Bob Dean (those kind of guys) etc keep pouring junk into the system and making it impossible to focus properly. It's been there since those Contactees and the Robertson panel....nothing new....SOBs!

That's one reason why I wanted to write about the decent people and move past the Imbrognos and BS merchants out there.

reply to post by Peloquin
Thanks for the video link, it's interesting viewing and being ripped to HD right now. I'll have to read a little more about Altshuler due to his links with Moulton-Howe. She might have started well, but, for years, she'll support every ridiculous story without any regard for plausibility.







As far as I can tell, Hanson, Holloway, Swords et al aren't generally pushing agendas and answers...they share the big questions and give us something to think about.

It is these types of cases that I find genuinly interesting because they often make no sense. Its just that "whaaa...?!" feeling, or possibly "how on earth did they thought up this kind of encounter?!" which leave you with a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe it isnt imagination...

But then someone usually make a post with "OMG THIS IS SO REAL, ALIENS EXIST!!! ALSO, LOOK AT THESE REAL UFO PICTURES/VIDEOS [insert links to random UFOs that's been debunked as hoaxes over and over and over again]" which ruin the original argument by association.

i love those reports they are much more valuable than the worshiped reports like roswell and rendlesham




focus on the humanoids not what they pilot

a reply to: humanoidlord

Cheers and thanks for reminding me of the thread. The humanoids, critters and indescribable entities are indeed a fascinating aspect of these reported phenomena.

I'll post an amusing report from Hanson/Holloway's 1st book in here tomorrow. It's quite obscure and you just might have seen it before. It's a good one regardless. : )

Click on the thumbs:

a reply to: Blue Shift

It's easy to forget, what with sloppy you-tube videos trying to convince us. That some of the stories remain unresolved, and some of the stories, many of them the same ones, are damned alarming.

Odd, and sometimes alarming, those are the ones that, IMHO, warrant investigation the most. So naturally, they're the ones most ignored/buried...

Missed this thread the first time round mate -great stuff.

Couldn't agree more about the researchers listed but was sorry to see that Terry Hansen passed away in 2014 and his website closed down - here he is speaking in 2004 and thought he made some mighty fine points about corporate media censorship and precision propaganda when it comes to the UFO subject.





Would also say that Jan Aldrich, Barry Greenwood, Francis Ridge, Dr Peter Sturrock, Ted Bloecher and Loren E. Gross deserves a mention -as does the research of Kenny Young, Tom Tulien, Clas Svahn, Richard Hall, George Fawcett, Ted Phillips, Gary Heseltine, Keith Basterfield, Paul Dean, Bill Chalker, David Cayton and Martin Shough.

Cheers!

a reply to: karl 12

Good to see you mate

I admire the 'quiet guys' to this day even if enthusiasm for the subject has waned a lot.

Would also say that Jan Aldrich, Barry Greenwood, Francis Ridge, Dr Peter Sturrock, Ted Bloecher and Loren E. Gross deserves a mention -as does the research of Kenny Young, Tom Tulien, Clas Svahn, Richard Hall, George Fawcett, Ted Phillips, Gary Heseltine, Keith Basterfield, Paul Dean, Bill Chalker, David Cayton and Martin Shough.

Some great examples.

a reply to: Kandinsky


i thank you for reminding the world that the humanoid phenomena really matters

a reply to: Kandinsky

amazing story!
i dint heard of this one before however i have heard of the airplane "gremlins" that annoyed pilots on world war two
i find those reports amazing!

a reply to: karl 12

and dont forget David Webb if it wasnt for him i probaly wount be talking to you guys about humanoids