Published by The Leicestershire UFO Research Society (Est. 1971)

Edited by Graham Hall & Jeff Lord

Via this register, for the first time, a long awaited opportunity was made available for us to outline the ‘Case for the Leicestershire UFO’, by presenting and recording the collated facts, as they are so far known, regarding our investigations of regional sighting reports involving Unidentified Flying Object phenomena over the Leicestershire (and immediate surrounding areas) of the United Kingdom. At least, those that have occurred, except for a few exceptions, since the formation of the first regional UFO investigation society in the area and those of course, that have eventually been brought to our attention.

During the late 1960’s, The Leicestershire UFO Investigation Network was formed by several local groups to act as a loose co-ordination system with the advantage of wider regional coverage.

As a civil volunteer ground-based research organisation, LUFOIN members are well aware of their own shortcomings, but the hope has always been however, that the time involved in gathering and presenting the LUFOIN findings, has not been misused, and that enough information is here made available in order that some kind of serious opinion can be formed as regards this fascinating subject, (at least at a local level), and whether or not, as a whole, it represents something new and unknown to general science, operating above and within Leicestershire’s borders, and which may or may not be linked with similar phenomena that have been reportedly seen over and over again, both above and upon, other areas of our Country, and also indeed, the whole Globe.

As will be seen, much of the data that has been made available, has been done so via actual witness statements. These have been gathered over the years and carefully filed, waiting for the correct moment in time to be re-opened and eventually collated, in order that the information can be made available to everyone who has a serious interest in the subject. If witnesses requested anonymity at the time of their sighting report however, then their identity still remains withheld from publication, thus adhering to strict LUFOIN code of practice.

At all times, members have attempted to remain ‘on the fence’ when it comes to the question of what UFOs as a phenomenon might actually represent, and as will be seen, they have attempted to provide quite plausible explanations for at least some of the sightings that originally puzzled both the witness and the UFO investigator alike.

Even so, due to the positive gathered evidence, society members have eventually been forced to the conclusion, that if taken as a whole, together with global testimony, the evidence so far seems to indicate there is certainly something continuous and curiously real to be examined, and that there indeed does appear to be some sort of hidden, unknown element, or elements or even intruder, or intruders, within our midst.

If this realisation is a true conclusion, and this really is the case, one must surely consider then, that if these unknown, unrecognised aerial ‘objects’ or the various witnessed ground ‘phenomena’ actually do exist, do they represent another quite separate technology, or technologies, to that/those of Human Beings?

Additionally, if such a separate technology or technologies is/are a reality, and, for reasons known only to themselves, are interested in both our biological make-up together with our environment, we must consider if the technology in question, even if it appears at first to be such, is more greatly advanced than the technology currently in use by the intelligently highest known life forms under scrutiny here on Planet Earth.

Accordingly, however, if it is, we must also ask the question, does a more advanced technology necessarily have to be, as is the widely held belief, coming to our planet from origins somewhere in the remote regions of outer space? Would it necessarily have the means or capability to traverse the Universe from one planetary system to another?

Consideration of basic known laws and discovered scientific facts suggest that this possibility, although not entirely out of the question, is a very remote one, and is picked up on by many a critic of the subject. For example, the vast distances that are involved in interstellar travel. Even at light speed, in the physical Universe as we so far know it, we are talking several years in travel time just to reach the nearest star to our own Solar System.

Also, it could be said, after Humanity’s own discoveries recently concerning that realm, that our planet, although extremely important to us, when examined in a larger context, is not particularly that interesting when one considers the Universal scale of things. Not a rarity at all it seems, just a small, spherical piece of cooling rock, orbiting a relatively ordinary star, of which there are many billions. Why, therefore, would we attract vast amounts of outside interest anyway?

All the aforementioned points of course, are oft touched upon by exponents of the anti-UFO lobby, who, by using known astronomical facts, and presuming that ufology involves the study of nuts and bolts alien craft per se, will attempt to destroy positive beliefs that currently exist within certain sectors of our society concerning the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects, and also include references as regards reported occupants of these objects, if the accounts of ‘close encounters’ are to be believed, seemingly being basically humanoid in shape, going on to point out that this is a factor that alone means that our visitors must come from Earth-like worlds, where apes and men, not unlike ourselves, and the many apes and monkeys found on our world, also, unbeknown to us, exist elsewhere in the Universe, and they are therefore subject to similar laws to ourselves, following the same evolutionary steps. At the same time , it is pointed out by our critics, that the odds against the identical evolutionary programme happening elsewhere, although not totally impossible, is simply too remote a possibility to even contemplate. Because of basic scientific fact, the various members of LUFOIN have to agree with this argument, with some members feeling that somehow, it could surely provide a definite clue thereby, to solving the whole UFO mystery.

Some ufologists have made too many unscientific assumptions in the past concerning UFO origins, without truly thinking it through, therefore leaving themselves wide open to such well-founded criticism.

Reproduced below is an article generally criticising ufologists and their methods, that appeared in The ‘Hinckley & District Focus’ magazine - April 1978, following a publicity article about the activities of LUFOIN members, penned by Barwell member and group treasurer, Louis McMeekin, in the previous month’s issue.

“ So UFOs have been sighted over the County and a local society is looking into it. No doubt this could be a good thing for the region provided that this body always conducts itself in a truly scientific manner, i.e. with open-minded thoroughness and level-headed thinking, with caution and care, with patience and persistence. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Ufologists generally know little of science, are guilty of shallow thinking, snap decisions, and of being caught up in a web of propaganda and hysteria.

True! No-one today believes that we are the only intelligent beings in the Universe.

True! There is a great deal of documented evidence concerning unexplained aerial phenomena, much of which has been reported by very careful, well-trained observers.

True! It is only right and proper for some organisation to investigate any reports of unusual ‘sightings’.

But why should the general public have to be continually brainwashed by the naïve views of ill-informed cranks?

Why do we continually have to suffer all this ‘close encounters of the third kind’ nonsense?

Why does the popular press not publish ‘down to Earth’ facts instead of kindling cheap sensationalism.

The Earth is 4,700 million years old, and during that time, as many as four million stars, all with accompanying planets? Could have come within fifty light years, (300 million million miles) of the Solar System. Now, if we assume that 10 million superior civilisations have existed in our galaxy during the lifetime of the Earth, and that their average travel distance is 50 light years, a simple mathematical calculation will give us a possible maximum of 420 visits during that period. Less than one visit every 10 million years. That should at least put the problem into perspective. No doubt I shall now be accused of having a fixation - of believing that nothing beyond the laws known to man can exist, of refusing to accept any idea that does not fit in with my narrow concepts.

O.K. then, try it the other way. Lets make some really wild assumptions.

Assume that the extra-terrestrials are immortal. Assume endurable spacecraft with an infinite life span. Assume that fuel is unnecessary. Assume the capability of velocities up to the speed of light. Assume 10 million space faring civilisations in our galaxy alone, and that each launch from each civilisation makes one contact per journey. Now there are 100,000 stars in the galaxy, so . . How many launches per year would each civilisation have to make for just one UFO per year to be a genuine extra-terrestrial investigation?

Answer:- 10,000 launches per year for each of the 10 million civilisations. Do you ufologists really believe that all this is possible? And please don’t comment that the Solar system may be an especially interesting place. If it is then we are rare specimens indeed, and the estimated 10 million civilisations is absurdly high (it is anyway). If there are, in fact, 10 million civilisations, one can only conclude that we are commonplace and therefore dull.

Finally, I must comment on the damaging, and false accusations levelled at scientists. Scientists, by profession, are totally committed to the ‘open-minded’ approach, their lives being dedicated to a search for truth. They analyse, study, and endeavour to solve the mysteries of the Universe. They never pretend that problems do not exist and will always be the first to admit that they do not know everything. To suggest otherwise only reveals the ignorance of the accuser. It is those ufologists with an unscientific and a dogmatic attitude that pretend that problems don’t exist, by the simple expedient of attributing everything that they do not understand to ‘little green men’.

Paradoxically enough it is those same ufologists (usually those who claim to have had a ‘close encounter of the third kind’), who are singularly unimaginative. It is they who reduce the glorious symbolism of the Bible to the nuts and bolts of a conventional spaceship. It is they who imagine that a galactic super-intelligence will travel thousands of light years and then find nothing better to do than to give some earth bound nutcase a joy ride in a flying saucer or frighten an innocent motorist by stalling his engine. Oh, No! Mr. Ufologist, it is you who wears the blinkers. Even your extraterrestrial is too Earth-like to be credible.

Suppose Earth were to start all over again, and let the random factors of evolution operate for a second time., I believe we would end up with nothing at all resembling our present form. How much less likely then, that organisms evolving 5000 million years, in a totally different environment, on another planet, orbiting round a faraway star, would look even remotely like a human being”.

*

In documents around the globe concerning alleged meetings with the humanoid occupants of UFOs, and there are now many hundreds of such accounts on record, where those same occupants, on their meetings with humans, seem to want to bolster our original beliefs concerning their origins, by claiming, when asked by frightened and concerned contactees, where they come from, by replying that they do indeed come from the far reaches of outer space, or perhaps from planets within our own solar system, such as Venus or Mars, also the Moon, which we now know is totally untrue, having explored some of these places for ourselves, either with probes or, in person, and found them to be totally devoid of any kind of life, humanoid or otherwise. In fact, conditions on these worlds are totally inhospitable to any kind of land dwelling life form.

This must mean then, one assumes, that someone along the line, either the witness, or the humanoid occupant, is lying about such statements, and, it is so easy of course to believe then, because of the very nature of the UFO topic, that it obviously has to be the witness who is doing this lying, or perhaps, it is thought, that he has not encountered these ‘aliens’ at all, and is making the whole thing up for whatever reasons he sees fit, or, perhaps he was deluded or suffering an extreme hallucinatory experience.

Unfortunately, whilst these various theories have been shown to explain some of the more bizarre claims, it does not explain however, how certain, sincere witnesses are physically effected by close contact with UFOs or their occupants, or both, including burns, marks, radiation poisoning, etc.

If true UFOs exist, and the sighting and other gathered evidence, if studied collectively, so far certainly seems to suggest that they most assuredly do, and that they are a representation of an intelligent technology (or technologies) other than that of man, and their occupants have been studying both ourselves and our world, via their ’transportation vehicles’ for some considerable period of time, then surely, they must also be aware of our own advances since they first made themselves aware to us.

It is now important to remember, not as many will need reminding, that these days, we are deep inside the digital technological age, and, whilst not yet perfect by any means, it shows that vast improvements in all aspects of atmospheric study and surveillance equipment have been made in the last quarter of a century alone.

The now long - term evidence, as collected so far, relating to Unidentified Flying Objects over the regional county of Leicestershire, however unbelievable and scientifically unpopular as it might be in some quarters, does not indicate at all that hallucinations or mistakes are constantly taking place that could not be recognised at the time, like the examples shown, by trained UFO investigation officers. Instead, the aforementioned evidence tends to agree with original popular concepts and beliefs, and openly suggests that Leicestershire researchers, in line with others situated around the rest of the Globe, could quite easily, without at first even realising it, and after removing all the mistakes, etc., have for a long time, been dealing with extremely intelligently co-ordinated behaviour patterns produced by an unknown and totally unique, essentially secretive, element.

However, it is by now realised that due to human pre-conceptions regarding the actual existence or possibility of such an element being loose on our planet, together with little or no official investigation into the problem, and the lack of ongoing funded research into the phenomenon by many countries, factors which are also coupled with mans prior knowledge concerning the (apparent) known laws which govern interstellar travel, this same unknown element has so far seemingly been unrecognised, ridiculed, by-passed or virtually ignored by those scientific bodies who might be qualified to study it.

Therefore, this well documented unique and illusive aerial invader, the same long-term mysterious interloper that after all this time is still with us and apparently refuses to go away, known simply as the ‘UFO’ , the one that has seemingly always behaved in the same manner, staying at a tantalising, but relatively safe distance from mankind, and his apparently ineffective defence network systems, doing so by using what appear to be excellent methods of subterfuge, according to the evidence, has been allowed for a great many years, to intrude into Global airspace, and continue unhindered with its ‘agenda‘, whatever that might be, friendly or otherwise, and thus has also been allowed at the same time, to terrify, bemuse, mystify, psychologically and physically effect or hinder, either by accident or design, the many witnesses whom it chooses at times, to come into slightly closer contact with.

At the same time, this continued noted ‘interference’ has concerned many intrigued and bemused ground and air observers, and has given rise to the many recent civil research societies and associations, as well as the many individuals, who have made incalculable attempts to try and unravel the UFO mystery once and for all, but so far, have failed to do so.

And so, even though the collected data is swayed towards the extraterrestrial or ’visitor’ theory, and structured craft with occupants are also described in some of the Leicestershire reports, the Leicestershire project, like the rest of the globe, has yet to find any direct tangible proof of its identity or reality, and the idea that, after all of the thousands of reports ever received from either the United Kingdom or across the World, that true UFOs are spaceships from distant, planetary civilisations, remains, as ever, totally un-substantiated.

In the meantime, the UFO phenomenon itself has, as we have attempted to show, proved itself to be very real, and is still usually regarded by many, against all scientific probability, to probably be somehow alien in origin, and one that appears to have, or at least gives indications of having, seemingly limitless access to highly sophisticated and extremely advanced aerial devices, in order to achieve, what on the surface, appears to be at least, some form of covert, sporadic and extremely long-term detailed surveillance of ourselves, our working systems and our environment.

We are indebted indeed, to all those who have to continued to report their sightings, and here also put on record how grateful we are to those people who have assisted us over the years in all aspects of our enquiries concerning these events. It is a fact, that when people have given their accounts, they have done so without any preconceptions that we might be able to find out for definite what they actually saw, but rather, that by reporting their sighting, they just might be assisting some future enterprise, some respected future body of science that perhaps one day, may be interested in what they had witnessed, and, with that objective in mind, we hope that this register goes some of the way towards achieving that end.

Coalville Unidentified Flying Object Research Society (The).

County UFO Research Project (The).

Hinckley Aerial Phenomena Investigations

Hinckley Unidentified Flying Object Research Team (The).

Leicestershire Unidentified Flying Object Research Society (The).

Leicestershire Unidentified Flying Object Study Group (The).

Melton Ufologist Society.

Midlands UFO Report Centre (The).

National Investigations Committee (on) Aerial Phenomena (G.B.).

Nuneaton Aerial Phenomena Society (The).

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation (of) Leicester (The).

(Formally Leicester Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation, (The).

UFO Research Midlands, East - (BUFORA - Midlands).

Birmingham UFO Society (The).

Derby UFO Research Association (The).

British UFO Research Association (The).

Midlands UFO Network (The).

Northern UFO Network (The).

East Midlands Phenomena Research Association- (The).

Contact U.K.

UFOdna.

B.E.A.M.s.

UFO uk.

Mr. Steve Allan.

Mr. John Anderton.

Mr. John Barden.

Mrs. Pat Berry B.Sc.

Mr. Mark Brown.

Mr. Matthew Buchan.

Mr. Andy Collins.

Mr. Geoffrey Coxon, B.Sc. I. En.

Mr. J.B. Delair, (Contact U.K).

Mr. Paul Devereux.

Mr. Peter Drozdz.

Mr. G. Geldard.

Mr. Graham Hall.

Mr. Colin Hill.

Mr. Michael Kerr.

Mr. J. Lanyon.

Mr. Robert Lapworth.

Mr. Jeff Lord.

Mr. Kevin McClure.

Mr. Brian Maddox.

Mr. David Mayne.

Mrs. Jean Mayne (Deceased)

Mr. Bill Muir.

Mr. Bryan Panter.

Mr. Clive Potter.

Mr. Mike Sacks.

Mr. Alan Salisbury.

Mr. David Sydeserff.

Mr. David Stanley, (Trace Analysis).

Mr. Geoff Taylor.

Mr. Trevor Thornton.

Mr. Steve Wilson.

Mr. Peter Ann, Derby.

Mr. Robin Berry.

Dr. David Clarke.

Mr. Ian Cresswell.

The Leicester Natural History Museum - Doctor Peter Crowther. (Consultant - Latest U.K. Land Survey, Croft Hill Data and Geology).

Mr. Greg Drozdz. (Consultant and Historian- Hinckley Museum & Psychic Phenomena Files).

Mr. T. Evans. (Silent Vulcan Movie Footage).

Mr. David Goldsmith. (Hinckley Natural History Society).

Mr Timothy Good.

Mr. David Hall (LUFORS Photography).

Mr. Michael Hall (Editorial Assistant, LUFOIN Website Management).

Dr. R. Morrell. Ph.D., F.L.S. (Nottingham UFO Investigation Society).

Doctor R. J. King. (Department of Geology- Leicester University).

Mr. Nilesh Morar (Consultant - Psychological Aspects).

Mr. Robert Moreton.

Miss Jenny Randles.

Mr. Michael Rollason.

Mr. Derek Sampson.

Flying Saucer Review (The).

Leicestershire Police (Air Division).

Mr. Culson. (East Midlands Airport, Head - Air Traffic Control).

Coventry (Baggington) Airport.

Birmingham Airport.

Nottingham Weather Centre.

The British Balloon and Airship Club.

The Leicester Mercury.

The Hinckley Times.

The Hinckley and District Journal.

The Nuneaton Evening Tribune.

The Tamworth Herald.

The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Hinckley & District Borough Council.

Ministry of Defence (Air).

Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough.

Style Photographic Studios.

And Finally…. Last, but by no means least of course,

The Witnesses.