- A GROUP of retired and serving police
officers are risking ridicule by coming forward to tell all about their
alleged encounters with UFOs.
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- More than 20 officers have responded
to an advertisement in Police Review inviting them to recount their close
encounters of the third kind. These include stories of alien abduction
and gigantic blocks of light hovering above their squad cars.
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- At least two former officers claim to
have photographic evidence of their meetings with extra-terrestrials.
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- Their extraordinary stories are to be
collected in a new book Policing the UFO, to include interviews with at
least 20 former and serving police officers and as many as 200 recorded
incidents involving police from around the world. Many of the examples
from the second category will be taken from previously unreleased Ministry
of Defence papers.
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- The book's author, Irene Bott, has chosen
to concentrate on police officers because of their relative position of
trust in society. "They are less likely to be written off as cranks,
loonies or anoraks," she explained.
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- Others may, however, think they are boldly
going beyond the call of duty and risking ridicule and professional suicide.
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- For this reason, many officers appear
to have waited until they have left the police service before speaking
out, although others who contacted the researchers feel so strongly about
what they have witnessed that they are prepared to be named.
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- The reported encounters include:
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- - An officer who claims to have been
abducted and medically examined by aliens in the 1980s. The former officer,
who has yet to give the full details of his case, is said to have been
out driving when he experienced disturbances to his vehicle followed by
memory loss. He later recalled, via hypnosis, being taken aboard a space
craft and examined by aliens.
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- - A police officer says he took five
photographs of a UFO while on duty in the West Midlands in the 1980s, but
that the MoD confiscated them.
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- - A policeman and woman were out on patrol
in the countryside and saw lights and a cylindrical object in the sky.
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- - An officer who saw a disc shaped object
hovering 20ft above the road.
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- - A police officer who, in the 1970s
while on duty, saw a wedge-shaped object in the sky that was about four
storeys high and 50ft long.
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- - Declassified MoD papers from the 1950s
to the 1970s that report investigations into reported sightings by police
officers and incidents at military bases. The files name police officers
involved and allegedly include accounts of helicopters being sent after
UFOs.
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- There have also been several reports
from officers in Sussex - one as recently as last month - an area which
is considered a fruitful zone for UFO sightings.
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- While the majority of the police officers
who have been in contact are retired, some are serving and include an Inspector.
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- Ms Bott said: "In a court of law
the person who is most believed is usually a policeman. Also, these people
are out day and night observing things around them so they are excellent
witnesses.
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- "A UFO is simply an unidentified
flying object, it's not little green men.
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- "Many officers do not want to talk
about it openly while they are still serving because they can kiss their
promotion chances goodbye."
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- So far she has been in touch with about
20 serving and former officers - two serving officers contacted her a couple
of weeks ago and claim to have seen UFOs in the past month.
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- Nick Redfern, an author of several books
on UFOs, who is assisting Ms Bott with her project, added: "These
people are willing to fly in the face of potential ridicule, which shows
how strongly they feel about what they have witnessed - these are strong,
credible witnesses."
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- One of those to come forward was former
Pc John Hanson. His encounter with a UFO took place on the evening of 14
June 1995.
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- Mr Hanson, 52, who retired from the West
Midlands police force in 1994, after 27 years service, was at his home
near Redditch, Worcestershire, when he looked out of his bedroom window.
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- "I saw a silver pear-shaped ball
of light hovering over a tree," he recalled. "It was about 40ft
off the ground, and about 20ft long and 5ft wide.
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- "Immediately opposite was a red
cigar-shaped object, about 30ft tall.
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- "The pear ball suddenly moved and
there was a piece cut out of it like a wedge of cheese. It then changed
into the shape of a jelly bean and jumped onto the cigar shaped object.
The two objects then fused together, produced a rippling light and were
gone."
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- He said the whole episode lasted about
five minutes and took place at 10.35pm, and that a similar sighting took
place 20 miles away on the same night.
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- "I am not talking about flying saucers
or space men, but an unidentified object - some form of energy source,"
he added.
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