UFOs in Reality (31 page)

However, prior to that, on June 27th, Kazuo had been in touch by telephone to request another visit, this time, with the editor of another Japanese magazine. This man would be particularly pleased to meet some of the local people who had had Close Encounters with periods of amnesia. Marion and I decided we’d be able to provide overnight accommodation again and a date was agreed for the visit after I had been in touch with the people concerned. When I met the visitors at Stockport Station after lunch on July 3rd., Kazuo introduced his companion as Mitsu. Mitsu was tall and slim and had an air of languid self-assurance about him. It also became evident that he half-smoked long and expensive-looking gold-tipped cigarettes. He gave the impression of being a member of the Japanese aristocracy, an observation later confirmed by Kazuo. The first stop after leaving the Station was the river bank at East Didsbury, the site of the Jones family’s encounter of 1979. As we talked and walked along the footpath beside the River Mersey, by sheer chance we met Linda Jones and her big dogs out for exercise. I had not pre-arranged this because a meeting had been arranged with Linda and others associated with Harry Harris’ hypnotic regression activities later on. However, Linda was keen to talk to the visitors, so we walked with her back towards her home. One of the Alsatians kept making it clear to us that he didn’t like us by growling in a threatening manner. What’s more, he kept slipping his collar as we ambled along, and despite assurances from Linda, this was rather disconcerting. Anyway, our walk ended without incident and we said our farewells before returning to my home in Cheshire.

That evening we drove to Linda Taylor’s home in Timperley, near Altrincham, Cheshire, to meet up with others in the Taylor’s garden, which had been kindly made available to us for that gathering.

Plate 4 shows the happily gathered company, myself excluded, because I took the photograph. Mitsu, Kazuo, Harry Harris, Linda Taylor, Linda Jones, Linda Jones’ husband and son are shown in the company of the late Mr. Arthur Tomlinson (standing) who, as Chairman of the Manchester-based D.I.G.A.P
.
, had been very helpful to me over the years from the late 1960s. Kazuo and Mitsu conducted their informal interviews and took photographs. As I drove the visitors back from that meeting, I ventured to ask Mitsu, for the first time, which magazine he edited. I was quite taken aback when he told me he was the new owner of Japanese ‘Playboy’ and wanted to extend the appeal of the magazine by publishing interesting factual stories in it. For the sake of the people he’d just met and interviewed I wanted his assurance that the article he produced would not interface directly with sexually-explicit photographs. He gave me that assurance, but I felt I had to inform all the participants of this to see if they had no wish to be published in that way. Although I was very surprised, no one seemed to object. A photocopy of the article was eventually sent out to me by Kazuo, but there was no covering letter of thanks from Mitsu that I can recall.

Plate 4

Towards the end of this period of intense Japanese interest in my work, I received word from Kazuo that he had been talking to the science correspondent of ASAHI
,
a leading Japanese newspaper, about my analytical work on the crop circles and had aroused some interest. Following onto that I had a call from that person, Mr. Keiji Takeuchi, suggesting a meeting at my home, late afternoon, on July 24th. I was extremely pleased that he was willing to travel from London to North Cheshire on the strength of Kazuo’s recommendation and, of course, said I would be glad to meet him. What’s more he would not require a lift from the Station to our home. He would hire a taxi. Well, the chosen date was a rather unfortunate one, because Marion had an important prior engagement to keep that afternoon and that meant I would also have to act as host to my visitor. And I am the worst host imaginable! When Mr. Takeuchi arrived on my doorstep I found him to be a be-suited, quietly spoken, cultured, gentleman who spoke perfect English. After welcoming him warmly and settling him at a table on which I had laid out the presentation material, rather foolishly, as it turned out, I offered to prepare refreshments for him. His response was that he would appreciate just a cup of Earl Grey tea. I knew we had that kind of tea, but not liking it much myself, I had never tried to make it. The result was that I presented my distinguished guest with what was probably the worst cup of Earl Grey tea he had ever tasted! (I apologise, Mr. Takeuchi. I am embarrassed even to this day.) While I was out in the kitchen, he had been poring over my material and he then began asking questions. The mathematical analysis part of the presentation was quite straight forward, but then we came to the question of how these patterns were being created. I knew we were about to enter forbidden territory. Fortunately, just about then, an avionics expert, ex-colleague and friend from British Aerospace, Mr. David Baldwinson, arrived to lend moral support. (David and I had talked about the kind of radiation that could possibly be responsible for laying down crops so precisely, without damaging the cell structure of growing plants. Like me, he had been unable to identify such radiation and had listened patiently when I talked of high frequency gravitational radiation. He had agreed to try to join us at that meeting.) Well, I did my best to break my ideas gently to Mr. Takeuchi, but I could tell that as soon as I talked of ET technology, not of this world, he began to lose interest, even when David tried to put the argument that there didn’t seem to be any obvious ‘other’ solution. So ended a very important interview. I felt sorry that Mr. Takeuchi had probably been very disappointed with the outcome after he’d gone to the trouble and the expense of paying me a ‘flying’ visit. I heard nothing further from him after that and Kazuo told me he’d not seen anything published.

Probably the final attempt made by Kazuo to make my work known to a wide audience in Japan was to contact leading TV producers over there with a view to producing a programme centred upon me. One day he told me he had persuaded a major TV company to invite me. They had suggested a programme on location in the fields below Mount Fuji, from where UFO activity had been reported, in the hope that UFOs might turn up again at times predicted by my timetable. Not having the confidence in my ability to be in the right place at the right time (unlike Eamonn Ansbro) I told Kajuo that particular proposal was probably not a good idea. But, overriding all that was the sad fact that, on my early retirement, I had been medically advised not to fly long distances at high altitude and that the stress of presentations would be an added hazard. So, I missed out on what could have been a very fruitful and exciting venture. (Subsequently, I had to turn down a number of invitations to go on lecture tours in the USA –eg. in Florida, Texas and California – for the same reasons.) That’s life, I suppose!

Kazuo has continued to communicate with us over the years since then and has been our guest in Torquay on several occasions, but, in recent years, he has returned to his archaeological studies. He is particularly interested in comparing the development of mathematics in Japan and in the West, from ancient times.

References

[18] Ashpole, E. ‘The UFO Phenomena’ (book) Headline Book Publishing, London. 1995, 1996.

CHAPTER 20
O
THER SUPPORTERS AND PROMOTERS
 

At the Beginning

Throughout the long years of my affliction with this study I have gathered many good friends and supporters of my task. Some of those encountered years ago are still keeping in touch, if only by Christmas cards or e-mails. Others have passed out of this world and yet others have simply passed on to do other things. One of my first benefactors was the late Mrs. Joan Nelstrop of Bramhall, Cheshire. She was the honorary secretary of
DIGAP
(Direct Investigations Group for Aerial Phenomena) when I became a relatively short-term member of it. As mentioned in earlier PHASEs, I met, Chairman, Arthur Tomlinson there and created a friendly link-up which lasted until Arthur’s fairly recent death. Joan Nelstrop and I investigated a number of UFO reports in our area and travelled regularly together to the DIGAP meetings in central Manchester. As told in PHASE 1, I also encountered Peter Rogerson at those meetings and thereby was given access to his international catalogue of selected good quality UFO reports, INTCAT. Selected cases from this collection started the database for my global study. Joan Nelstrop and DIGAP facilitated expansion of this database by allowing me to copy the contents of another catalogue they had obtained from a Staffordshire group. Without the co-operation of these people and the efforts of the cataloguers my global study could not have got started.

Another key player in my early research period was Mr. Anthony Pace, an amateur astronomer, who became BUFORA’s Research Director for a number of years. He and another amateur astronomer, Roger Stanway, had produced a detailed report of the Staffordshire sightings of 1967,
‘UFOs – Unidentified, Undeniable’ [1]
, which I purchased a copy of from their Newchapel Observatory, Stoke-on-Trent. This report helped me a lot in those analyses described in PHASE 1. Tony created a new kind of magazine for BUFORA to encourage people to write scientific papers on aspects of the UFO topic. Alas, when Tony went on to do other things, the magazine ceased publication and BUFORA reverted mostly to organising talks, annual conferences and issuing a ‘club’ magazine. However, I was grateful to the organisation for allowing me to give a first lecture on my findings at the 1976 conference in Birmingham. Instrumental in creating that opportunity was Ms. Jenny Randles, who was responsible for organising it that year. For some years after that I kept in touch with Jenny and, when she became a well-known author on the UFO topic, I questioned why she had never mentioned my work in her books. She replied she thought highly of the work, but couldn’t understand it – even after I had spent an afternoon at her home going through it with her! BUFORA provided me with a few other lecture platforms between 1976 and that important one of May 1987 but, unfortunately, I cannot recall having had any positive follow-up from any of those earlier lectures.

As Time Went By.

During the 1980s I became well-acquainted with a professional colleague, Mr. David Cayton, who was head of the Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Department at the same Hawker Siddely Aviation Ltd. site. Although we were scheduled usually to have lunch at different times, David’s personal schedule had to be more flexible and this meant sometimes we found that our lunchtimes coincided. Very soon he became aware of my scientific interest in the UFO enigma and, from then on, many of our conversations were about the latest developments. This arrangement continued after the formation of British Aerospace, later to become BAe, PLC. In fact, it continued until my early retirement in 1991 (just before the formation of BAE Systems). Soon after my retirement and move to Devon, I heard from David that he, too, had opted for an early retirement and had decided to offer his services to Quest International (then, the producers of the, British, UFO Magazine) as their voluntary UFO investigator for the North-West Region. So we were now working on the same problems and were often in touch. David and I still inform each other of new developments, including his investigations into strange animal deaths and mutilations. Another area of investigation receiving his attention in recent years has been the crop circles scene in Wiltshire and Hampshire.

In the latter application David has been ably accompanied by another of my Cheshire contacts of the 1980s, Mr. Robert Hulse. Marion and I first met Robert after he contacted us following an article about me published in a local Macclesfield newspaper. Robert confided in us that he had experienced strange things personally and, from one of his customers he had been told of a recent UFO event near Macclesfield. Also, being a resident of Macclesfield, he had met with others with UFO stories to tell. As a result of this information, I visited one of the witnesses and tried to understand the circumstances of the encounter. Robert’s recent investigations of crop-circles with David Cayton have been recorded, by him, on video with commentaries. I have been the fortunate recipient of some of these recordings, sent to me for consideration. I am pleased by the continued interest and willingness to share information with me.

My hopeful encounters with an experienced South West journalist, Mr. Arthur Blood, began in early 1997. I had been told by Edward Ashpole that the editor of the Plymouth Evening Herald had asked Mr. Blood to review his book,
‘The UFO Phenomena’ [18] a
nd Edward suggested that it might be helpful if I were to contact the reviewer personally. He was able to give a telephone number for that purpose. On February 19th, I made that telephone call and discussed the chapter on my work for some time. Arthur Blood seemed to be enthused by it all and suggested that Dr. Percy Seymour, Professor of Astronomy
,
University of Plymouth, might be willing to discuss it with me. He had recently written up an interview with the Professor and had found him to be helpful. Equipped with the Professor’s telephone number, I followed that suggestion immediately, on the same day, referencing Arthur Blood and requesting a meeting for a short presentation. I was more than pleased when Dr. Seymour suggested we might be able to meet during
Science Week
in
March, 1997
. Subsequently, we arranged to meet at the planetarium during the lunch break, between 12 noon and 1 pm., on Thursday, March 20th. As requested, I informed Arthur Blood of this as I knew he wanted to arrange to be present.