‘This flying saucer situation is not all imaginary, or [people] seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around.’ United States Air Force.
11.45pm, September, early 70s
The light over Black Head was too high to be a lighthouse, too low to be a star, too still to be a plane. I’d passed that way hundreds of times and never noticed it. At the top of Cornarone Hill, I stopped the car and the three of us got out. Full moon, no clouds, not a breath of wind, not a sound anywhere. Minutes later, the light suddenly streaked up across Galway Bay, towards us, gaining altitude steeply. No gradual acceleration – just a flash of speed. Then it went out, vanished, like a shooting star going upwards.
8.30pm, a few years later
Another still night, about 4 miles north of Cornarone Hill, in Connemara’s uninhabited Empty Quarter; high over the bog to the north-west, three gently throbbing lights in a close triangle, now greenish, now reddish. After a short while, they just quietly weren’t there anymore. No move, no fade, just gone. Again, I had two companions.
UFO sightings have been reported by so many people that they must be accepted as fact. Explaining them is a different matter. Sure, many can be dismissed as strange aircraft (but only in this last century), or little-understood natural phenomena – though with science nailing nature’s wonders, one by one, it’s getting harder to use this excuse. But even the most sceptical of scientists concede that at least some of the well-documented, multi-witnessed sightings cannot be explained by either physics or psychology, and, at this point, it becomes anybody’s guess. Extraterrestrial visits would seem to be the most reasonable explanation – the inhabitants of other planets sending out probes just as we do into our neighbouring space.
THREAT
Most serious investigations have been done by the military in various countries, presumably to assess the threat, if any, posed by extraterrestrials who can come and go as they please, but it seems that many of these investigations – at their heyday during the Cold War – have been wound down for lack of funds, progress, or the decision that there is no threat. Still, how can we be sure they have been wound down when an official USAF order, Air Force Regulation 200-2, states: “it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB’s [sic] when the object is positively identified as a familiar object,” but “For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved.” Or: Don’t tell the public when we, the mighty USAF, haven’t a clue what it is.
UFO sightings go back forever. Chinese author, Shen Kuo, in 1088AD, described ‘a flying object with opening doors that would shine a blinding light from its interior (from an object shaped like a pearl) that would cast shadows from trees for ten miles in radius, and was able to take off at tremendous speeds.’ UFOs are said to be depicted on ancient monuments and artefacts worldwide, but as most UFOs seem to have very basic, common shapes – discs, spheres, chevrons, triangles, or Shen Kuo’s pearl – it seems a little precocious to decide that such shapes represent UFOs and nothing else.
A USAF investigation reported: ‘This flying saucer situation is not all imaginary, or [people] seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around.’ That was in 1947, and the situation hasn’t advanced much since.
Many governments now claim to have lost interest in UFO research, but there is a group of scientists worldwide who, as the Invisible College, continue to investigate them.
Sightings should be reported to The UFO Society of Ireland on www.ufosocietyireland.com
