NOT OF THIS EARTH?
In this issue, we revisit an almost forgotten case of high strangeness from the 1970s
– the mystery of the ‘Risley Silver Man’, in which an alien invasion appeared to be targeting a highly sensitive British nuclear research site. Late one night in March 1978, a service engineer called Ken Edwards was driving home from a union meeting. His route took him past what was then the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) site at Risley; and it was here that he saw a 7ft-tall silver man cross the road, shoot light beams from his eyes, and pass through a chain-link security fence. Over the years, various increasingly outlandish theories have been mooted to explain what must count as one of the oddest UK close encounters on record (our favourite is that the Silver Man was the ghost of a dead extraterrestrial), but the case has largely gathered dust.
Step forward Glenn Vaudrey, who through a combination of being in the right place at the right time, some persistant detective work and a bit of good luck, thinks he has finally found the truth behind the Silver Man story; his solution has very little to do with aliens – turn to p36 – but it may have put the mystery to rest at last.
Speaking of aliens, the New York Times (23 July) has once again been pushing the story of the Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ programme, supposedly a continuation of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that the Times claimed in 2017 had been in operation until 2012, when the Defense Department axed its $22 million budget (see FT362:2, 363:28 and passim for more).
Once again, the Gray Lady appeared to be making breathless claims of recovered alien artefacts that, if true, would have caused some excitement in ufological circles.
Sadly, the paper published a small correction to the story the following day: “An earlier version of this article inaccurately rendered remarks attributed to Harry Reid, the retired Senate majority leader from Nevada. Mr Reid said he believed that crashes of objects of unknown origin may have occurred and that retrieved materials should be studied; he did not say that crashes had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades.” Oh well.
GETTING COPIES OF FT
With shops having reopened, it will once again be possible to buy FT from your usual stockist. If you are still experiencing difficulties, or cannot go out, then copies for home delivery, including recent issues you might have missed, can be ordered here: https:// magsdirect.co.uk/magazinecategory/entertainment/ fortean/. Taking out a subscription is, of course, the best way to guarantee your regular FT fix, and if you are able to support us in this way, then turn to p.58 for the latest offers.
ERRATA
FT392:16: Mark Dormann of Palm Coast, Florida, was confused by the story of the puppy found in Siberian permafrost: “I can see how radiocarbon dating can determine when it was frozen (18,000 years ago) but not how old it was (two months).” This was down to careless wording in the original report, which went uncorrected. The puppy’s age was determined by dentition, not radiocarbon dating.
FT393:16: Simon Lamont emailed with a correction to our report on Eamon Holmes’s comments on 5G and coronavirus; for the record, the TV presenter’s controversial remarks were made on ITV’s This Morning, not the BBC’s The One Show.
FT396:63: Incorrect details were printed for the two films covered in this issue’s The Reverend’s Review column. They should have been as follows:
Death Ship, Dir Alvin Rakoff, US 1980. Nucleus Films, £14.99 (Blu-ray).
The Woman in Black, Dir Herbert Wise, UK 1989, Network, (Ltd Edition Blu-ray). This is now sold out, but Network have announced that a standard edition will be released in the future.