Another day...Posted by Sufor Mon, February 01, 2010 08:09:59Up until December 2007 I had something like 25 years of interest and research under my belt with regard to the fortean. I then decided to form SUFOR to focus one particular element of this broad subject matter and set-up the webpage and the group. SUFOR had a good membership, both physical and virtual. Our mailing list grew quite large and our public meetings and lectures were attracting decent enough numbers. I opened the telephone hotline and since then we have received around 3-5 calls per week.
In 2009 I became involved in Weird and this took up a serious amount of my time as I became wrapped up in organising the Weird 09 conference. Now, in 2010, my involvement with Weird and its many streams of activity, consumes vast amounts of my time. A lot of this time is associated with the set-up, the webpage, links, advertising and exposure and I hope post February that things will ease off a little as the mechanics of Weird settle down.
The remainder of my time has been spent dealing with UFO sighting reports and of late I have been unable to get back to some witnesses, purely because of the time constraints. However, the quality (from an investigator point of view), of the sightings has fallen greatly and appear now to be aircraft and lanterns for the most part. There is perhaps one case that is interesting and still active and there were two cases in 2009 and 2008 – both were explainable.
So to cut a very long story short, I have decided to mothball the public face of SUFOR for the short term and will be closing the investigation desk. The site will remain open as it still has some good articles and links, but unless something major happens, no new cases will be investigated and the phone line will move to a Weird information service.
My interests in the UFOs remains, but there are many subjects that hold my interest from Sumerian Myths through to bases on the moon. UFOs only ever represented one slice of my interests.
SUFOR allowed me to meet many interesting people, some have become good friends. To everyone who helped with SUFOR – my thanks.
SUFOR may re-open it’s investigation desk if the quality of sightings increase or something major happens, so perhaps the door hasn’t been nailed shut!
I will continue to focus on Weird, the conference, lectures, investigations and the podcast.
Best wishes,
Chris
Another day...Posted by Sufor Tue, January 12, 2010 08:23:03Things are pretty quiet on the sightings front from SUFOR this week, so I have had some time to dedicate to the first lecture of 2010. I will announce the details in a few days, but the talk will be on the last Saturday of this month (30th) at the Kings Arms Hotel, Wood Street, Swindon. Doors open at 7:00pm with the talk starting at 7:30pm. We expect to finish by 9:00pm. There is a bar and drinks are allowed into the meeting room. Merchandise will be on sale. Tickets can be bought on the night (£6) or can be bought in advance from www.weirdevents.co.uk/wtalking.htm.
If you have the time please let others know about this on your favourite forum or news site or pass the details onto your friends.
Thanks
Chris
Another day...Posted by Sufor Sat, January 09, 2010 12:55:49A post on SUFOR reports and UK / World news.
There were in total 14 calls to the ARC hotline (01793 484510) to report UFO sightings. Only one call caused a little bit of mystery, with the other 13 reports being lanterns.
I received five reports by email. Unfortunately all of these were lanterns too.
The remaining call that has me stumped is a close encounter report. A witness who will remain nameless, called and informed me of his sightings over the last few weeks. The witness had been affected by his experiences and as usual the first priority was to reassue the person in question. I wanted to get down to his location this weekend, but the weather has stopped any travel plans to this part of the country. I may pass this call to a local UFO investigator. More updates on this as the case unfolds.
Bridlington has had another set of lanterns flying through the skies. (http://www.bridlingtonfreepress.co.uk/news/Sightings-of-UFOs-above-Bridlington.5959382.jp) but what I found funny was that the google ads were all for people selling lanterns. (have to smile don't you).
Michael Cohen reports a diamond shaped UFO over Bulgaria, but the video doesn't show very much. I doubt though this will turn out to be anything exotic. With little other informatoin on the article no further analysis is possible.
Disclosure continues its relentless march with another article carried by News Blaze of PRG announcing a renewed international effort to lift the 62 year old truth embargo on Aliens & UFOs. From what I recall, disclosure was promised this year - by March I believe. Disclosure for me is leap of faith too far. Its basis that ET is on the planet earth is not something I feel comfortable with at the time. I am happy that what we see in our skies in explainable and the ones that are not are most likely not ET visiting, but this is a different subject completely. A lot of people find this attractive, as there of course exists the possibility that ET does exist and if ET does exist, why not ... Well, I would asky Why instead..
Next week should be interesting with a guest on CAT that I have been following for years... Keep an ear out at www.clearairpod.co.uk.
Another day...Posted by Sufor Fri, January 08, 2010 21:34:08SUFOR is moving from web based updates to this news feed and an audio update on the case investigations.
The caselog will remain for historic purposes only.
First audio feeds will be out next week.
Another day...Posted by Sufor Sun, December 20, 2009 14:45:11I was getting ready to drive down to Southhampton today when the phone rang and out of the blue a nurse from the vets told me my cat had been ran over and someone had brought him into the surgery. He hadn't survived the accident and they wanted to know what I wanted to do..
I'm gutted, I don't know what to do...
He was more than a cat, he was my mate. I rescued him as a kitten, a hissing scratching ball of fur that was scared of all humans. His litter had been found by some kids and they were going through them one by one and killing them. My cat, Plato, was one of the few survivors.
He thought he was human, he really did. He was always there for me, waiting for a morning 'cuddle' and always waited for me to get in from work to say hello. Then we would spend the late evenings together on the sofa watching TV. He did have a very loud purr when he was so contented.
I keep expecting to hear him come in and sit by me as he normally would when I'm typing on the PC, I expect to hear the cat flap open/close and the little 'mew' greeting I would get.
A sad, sad day indeed.
I can't believe he is gone..
Chris.
Another day...Posted by Sufor Fri, December 18, 2009 07:31:52There is only one week to go and as usual I haven’t done any preparation for Christmas at all. I keep promising myself I will be more organised and perhaps 2010 is the year to actually do something about that.
SUFOR have had a couple of sighting reports in, but nothing unusual. In Wiltshire we are rich in Military air traffic and during the winter we have a lot of ‘formations of white light’ sightings in the sky. These are usually military transport planes flying in or out of the bases. They do look quite spectacular, and the lights can be in different configurations (depending on the orientation of the craft).
My experiences at Littlecote were interesting, but I must say of the ‘happenings’ we had there my objective mind has been racing and I have come to the conclusion that nothing paranormal really happened. (Not a particular shocker there).
I need more research before I can definitely say one way or another about some of the happenings, but so far this is what I think:
Touching: I think most investigators have been touched and there are many explanations as to why people think they are touched when in an alleged haunted building. However I would go with the more mundane explanations for this particular investigation and would rule out a ‘ghost’ in the chapel as the source of two of the team being touched/grabbed from behind.
Baby Crying: Although a baby crying has been reported from several locations at Littlecote and was experienced by the team on the Sunday I would be letting the side down by saying it was a human baby crying. The stories of course support this, with burning babies and the curse that was believed to be in effect on the family. (The Chapel has the remains of baby clothes in a chest). All this talk of babies and then hearing something that sounded ‘like’ a baby would be enough for some to be proof. However, not long after we heard the baby crying I went outside on my own for 5 minutes. When I was outside the house in the gardens, there was a cry from the surrounding woods which I must say, sounded very much like the cry we heard in the chapel. I would therefore suggest that without any further evidence, the crying we heard and that has been reported by guests at the location is nothing more than an animal cry in the woods.
Onwards and upwards though… Next month Weird Investigations are running another investigation at one of my favourite locations in Warminster. I both love and hate this building as it is a fantastic location, but there are certain parts that just ‘spook’ me out…
This weekend I am recording the Xmas special of Clear Air Turbulence and looking forward to interviewing the January guests over the next couple of weeks.
I have a week off in January so the plan at the moment is to update the Weird 10 site with the full speaker list and get each onto CAT as a special guest to talk about their work and of course what they will be doing for Weird 10.
All the best,
Chris
Another day...Posted by Sufor Fri, December 11, 2009 07:15:07Well an interesting week to say the least. Ended up in Hospital at 7am on Monday and finally got out again four hours later with two sets of anti-bio’s and an urge to crash in bed for a week! Feeling back to normal today, so really nothing has gone on as such this week.
Did a special ‘show’ for Heart FM on the MoD closure and the lantern wave expected over the festive period. Listened to a lot of good ufologists discuss setting up a UK wide reporting centre and decided not to get involved. I have enough work with my reporting centre, never mind getting involved in another project on the same lines.
If you are interested in my opinions on the MoD closure, listen to the CATchup episode of CAT where Mike and I discuss the subject. (www.clearairpod.co.uk).
On the subject of CAT, the next ep. is out on Sunday (13th of December) with our special guest Peter McCue. As a quick hint, I may be talking about why reporting UFOs and setting up a national response line in place of the MoD is a waste of resources.
Have a great weekend.
Chris.
Another day...Posted by Sufor Thu, December 03, 2009 19:24:11Which did liven up an otherwise normal day. Two very charming, but very excited ladies called me at 9:15pm to report a UFO sighting near the M50/M5. I'm looking into that for them.
I then saw a perfect UFO at about 11:45pm. It was fantastic and reminds me to keep my video camera close in future. We see a lot of UFOs (well Ok they are really IFOs) from my house, but this was brilliant. The sky was clear, with a cloud bank to the North that was slowly enveloping Swindon. I was on my way to bed, but looked out across the town and there just above the rooftops, was a perfect orange shining sphere. No flame flickering, just perfectly round and glowing madly. It rose slowly vertically into the sky and then appeared to hover for 30 seconds before moving horizontally and vanishing behind the cloud front.
Perfect IFO sighting!
Of course it was a lantern, the hovering was an optical illusion as was the horizontall movement - caused by the cloud front moving rapidly in.
What a way to end a night though.
Cheers
Chris.
