The Warminster Interview - Part Two

In this final instalment we discuss general topics within the field of Ufology.

Weird Wiltshire: What is the future of Ufology?

Kevin Goodman: What's the next big thing? I don't know. If I had a crystal ball I would be there tomorrow. Ufology in general in the country is in the doldrums. I think there are far too many people who are prepared to knock it at the moment. People are afraid to come forward and say they have seen something. There is the famous story about the "Dorito" over the west midlands. Which people have said "Oh it's a Vulcan bomber."

Steve Dewey: Only one person said it was a bomber and about 5,000 people jumped on him and said don't be ridiculous. It would have made a lot of noise, it would have had navigation lights and not just 3 blobs.

KG: If you look at statistics for sightings that were reported to the MOD when the X-Files were on, they peaked. Because "I want to believe" is the old tag line. Ufology is stagnant at the moment. There is nothing really big happening and you know we live in a more enlightened age. People now know what to look for now. People are being a lot more selective if they come forward and say they have seen something they cannot explain.

WW: There was an increase in sightings from 2006 to 2007.

SD: I was going to say I just don't agree. People still see stuff and they still write reports. There have been a lot of Tai Lanterns mistaken for UFO's recently and those have been reported to local newspapers. On the UFO UK list people are picking up the reports, so they are being reported. Trouble is people are shooting them down. Before the Internet, people could see stuff and it would be out there for ages and no one would report on it. The Hackney times or whatever would have these sighting reports in their archive for months or years. But now it's completely different. Somebody reports something on the Internet and people go "Oh its Tai Lanterns."

WW: There is almost an immediate reaction that was never there before?

KG: I mean it goes back to being up here in the 70's. Some of the readers of the web site might find this hard to believe but back then there was no such thing as mobile phones. We used to come up here, literally divorced from the world. You could see something and you could log it and write up your notes. The nearest person you could report it to was Arthur Shuttlewood or the Fountain Centre. These days you could have someone on Cop Heap or even on Clay Hill and you call and say "Oh look there is something coming over can you see where you are?" There was nothing like that in those days. It was all very much first hand accounts written two or three days later. And then reported later still. And what happened in the intervening time is that people had embellished it slightly.

SD: There is a discussion on the way people create stories. What makes Ufology interesting for most people is the sighting and the excitement. If they were to say "I saw a light in the sky", it could be the dullest thing in the world, which would last about three seconds in conversation. If you said, not deliberately though, that you had seen the biggest light in the sky... You know like fishing, "I caught the biggest fish", "I saw the biggest light in the sky and you wouldn't believe how fantastic it was." People embellish stories naturally. Again, before the internet people were sitting around in Warminster or wherever, they'd go home and tell the story and someone else would tell someone else and so on.

WW: 95% of sightings can be explained, what do you think the remaining 5% represents?

SD: What I think is if we had more information about that 5% they would be explained as well. There is a kernel of information we cannot get at. If we could get that they could be explained.

WW: How do you think we could get that information?

SD: In a lot of cases I think it's too difficult. The story is too old or the sighting badly explained or the person may have a belief system and read things into what they saw. So you are not going to get the information. I've got no problem with the military doing top secret things, but no-one is going to walk out of the army camp one day and say "Oi, you lot up there, come and have a look at this!"

KG: I think Steve is right to an extent. There is also unknown phenomena like Earth Lights and Ball Lighting.

SD: Yeah, I was counting that in.

KG: I have seen two things I cannot explain up here, but in the whole of the Warminster context and Ufology in general I think that less than one half of one percent could be classified as a UAP. I don't like using the term UFO these days, because of the connotations it brings up.

(WW Note: UAP: Unidentified Ariel Phenomena) SD: Looking for little green men? It's about LGM. For researchers it is not about LGM, but for a lot of people it is.

KG: There is one thing also that I have always found interesting is that how the appearance of the ET's have changed over the years. From Arian Humanoids, then the Close Encounters film comes out and you have your classic Grays and people report they have been abducted or have seen these Grays.

WW: Does it go further? Could you push it back through history to medieval manifestations for example?

SD: I think it's modern folklore KG: Also how the description of the objects have changed. We had flying saucers, then mother ships, then flying triangles, what's next? How is it evolving?

SD: What I have found interesting about Ufology, is the small craft, known as scout craft, why are they always 30 feet in diameter?

KG: Because people have read that's what they are. As time goes on it will be more difficult to investigate the phenomena objectively because it has permeated the human psyche.

WW: The Ministry of Defence are releasing hundreds of UFO reports, do you think there is anything in that data we could gain from?

SD: Probably not. Truth be told.

KG: If there was anything of national security or national importance I think they wouldn't have released it. I'm not saying there is or that there isn't.

WW: Any final message for our readers?

SD: Keep an open mind and come and visit this place.

KG: Keep an open mind.

My thanks to Steve and Kevin for a delightful afternoon in Warminster.

Look out for more articles under the title of Stories from the Hill' in which Steve relates some of his favourite explainable encounters from the '70.s Were you at Cradle Hill in the 60's or 70's? If so, Weird Wiltshire would like to hear from you.