"My experiences are ones I haven’t been able to tell most people for fear of ridicule. They won’t believe m e b e c au s e , f o r t h e m , s e e i n g is believing, but they haven’t seen what I’ve seen."
Bridget Grant, a close friend of Nick Pope, would certainly agree. The British housewife claims to have had at least 17 encounters with UFOs, including five up close, “Why me?” asks Grant. “I don’t know. I just can’t understand it, but I need some answers. I’m very happy that I’ve witnessed what I have, but at times it can be frustrating because my experiences are ones I haven’t been able to tell most people for fear of ridicule. Many people just won’t believe me because, for them, seeing is believing, but they haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
It’s not just farmers and housewives who are on the look out for ET and his little green friends. The SETI Institute in California is, as the name suggests, at the forefront of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Using the Allen Telescope Array, a large cluster of small dishes able to simultaneously scan conventional radio astronomy projects alongside the Institute’s own observations, SETI is able to look for signals and frequencies between 1,000 and 10,000Mhz to detect intelligent life in outer space. “Basically, if they can build a transmitter or laser so that they can signal us, then they’re intelligent and that’s it in our book,” explains Dr Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute. “Even though we’re mainly concerned with SETI research and, more recently, astrobiology, I still get about five or 10 emails and phone calls a day from people who have seen UFOs,” confesses Shostak. “I’m sure that 99 per cent of the people that get in touch with me have seen something, but the question is, 'What have they seen?' I honestly think that if Earth was being visited, no matter what the government of the United States, the UK or even Belgium might do,
056 T h e A t t a c k t h e B l o c k I s s u e
there are 150 other countries, and I find it hard to believe that all of them have managed to cover up the evidence; and yet the average guy in the street sees it all the time. It’s like thinking that the British postal service is covering up that one per cent of the workforce are actually aliens. You’ve got to think as well, if we’ve been having these visitors ever since the war, and the planes still take off from Heathrow with no interference or danger, why would governments keep it quiet? They seem perfectly benign, they don’t cause any trouble; they’re the best houseguests you could ever have, I think.” Even now, having left the MoD in 2006, Nick Pope still finds himself at the centre of controversy. Several individuals approached for this feature refused to talk after learning of Pope’s involvement, claiming that he was a ‘disinformer’, who ‘believes in ETs and UFOs, but will never admit it publicly’. “Ufologists and conspiracy theorists get somewhat obsessed with me,” admits Pope. “On several occasions I’ve been accused of being part of an official cover-up or being a disinformation operative, but none of these criticisms bother me. The MoD is being as open as it can by releasing its UFO files, but because the files don’t tell people what they want to hear – that we’re being visited by extraterrestrials – they think we’re holding back the really interesting files. The thing is, if people believe that, there’s really nothing that the MoD or I can do about it because any assurances we give will automatically be dismissed as lies.” “If people in the UK truly believe in extraterrestrials then maybe they should be encouraging more SETI research in Britain,” adds a clearly frustrated Shostak. “With the exception of the Italians, the Europeans don’t do much SETI at all. And that’s a shame, especially when they’ve got plenty of antennas sitting up there near Manchester which could be used.”