Saucers and Special Branch
Well, this is interesting…
Last year, Anomalist Books published my book, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, which was a study of how and why government, military and intelligence agencies in the United States and Britain have - since the late 1940s - kept a close watch on people within the UFO field - such as authors, researchers, lecturers, contactees, abductees, and more.
Some people took me to task for quoting in the book the off-the-record testimony of a source who I termed “the Sandman” and who, in the 1970s, had been employed by an element of the British Police Force called Special Branch. As the Sandman told me, in the mid-70s a number of people involved in British-based UFO research groups were secretly watched by Special Branch.
He also told me that in the 1990s, Special Branch was watching a number of other British-based investigators of all things ufological, including me, Matthew Williams, Robin Cole, and Matthew Bevan. That Cole and Williams were being watched is not a matter of any debate whatsoever: in 1997 Cole was visited at his home by representatives of Special Branch and asked pointed questions about Williams’ motivations. To his credit, Cole surreptitiously tape-recorded the conversation for posterity; thus proving that questions were being asked at an official level about Britain’s UFO investigators by Special Branch.
However, here is the important factor in all this: according to the Sandman, the surveillance of certain elements of the British UFO research community was not undertaken as a direct result of our UFO activities.
Rather, Special Branch had come to the intriguing conclusion that certain UFO investigators were using the UFO subject as a “cover” for engaging in political activities, and/or spying on official installations and bases for a whole variety of organizations, including the Irish Republican Army, and certain animal-rights groups.
The theory was not just outlandish; but utterly without foundation, too. But what was interesting about the Sandman’s revelations was the reaction from the UFO research community. One well-known ufological commentator known for being a pompous moron, and who has had to retract certain claims on at least three occasions, emailed me thus: “Special Branch and UFOs? Nonsense! Where is the proof? WHERE IS THE PROOF?”
Another asserted that the only arm of the British Government in any way implicated in the UFO subject was the Ministry of Defense, and that any claims to the effect that Special Branch was secretly running around clandestinely watching UFO researchers was “wishful thinking by the paranoid elements in the X-Files crowd.”
Well, the evidence that Special Branch has indeed taken an interest in certain players in the British UFO research field is now in.
Yesterday, I received in the mail a review copy of Flying Saucerers, the new book from British-based UFO investigators and authors Dave Clarke and Andy Roberts. I will be writing a full review of the book that will be posted here towards the end of next week.
As their book shows, one organization that Special Branch took an interest in was the Aetherius Society, founded by George King. The roundabout way in which King’s organization came to the attention of Special Branch is a convoluted story in itself (and I urge you to get hold of a copy of Flying Saucerers if you are in any way interested in how and why the world of UFO research can cross paths with that of officialdom), and I’ll be digging into that more in my review next week.
For now, however, consider the following from Clarke and Roberts that concerns the activities of the Aetherius Society in 1958: “…the Aetherius Society was by now very firmly on the establishment’s radar and in May 1958 they once again came to the attention of Special Branch.”
The pair continue that Special Branch’s brief report (copies of which are in the possession of the authors) stated that the Aetherius Society was still “…active in its campaign against nuclear weapon tests, and in this respect its policy is closely allied with that of the Communist Party” - even though, as the authors note, “no evidence of open Communist assocation with the Society” was found.
Clarke and Roberts also learned from now-declassified Special Branch documentation that in both August 1958 and August 1959, Special Branch operatives secretly attended Aetherius Society demonstrations in London. With respect to the former demonstration, Special Branch recorded that: “…it can thus be seen that the Aetherius society is moulding its preposterous claims to conform with the popular concepts of religion…There is a possibility that all this high-sounding talk of ‘Karma’ and ‘Cosmic Parliaments’ is simply a system of financial gain for certain individuals and George King in particular.”
As all of this demonstrates, Special Branch was certainly taking notice of King and Co., but not for reasons that had any direct bearing upon UFOs and/or official, secret knowledge of UFOs. Rather, it was for other, more down to earth reasons and theories - which is precisely what the Sandman had told me Special Branch was doing, years before the King documents surfaced to Clarke and Roberts from Special Branch.
The story of Saucers and Special Branch is not over. In fact, it may just be starting to get interesting…
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Mar 23 2007 
March 24th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Nick,
Understand that I don’t know you. Also I don’t have your private e- mail to ask this question so forgive me.
Just wondering, is one of the reasons your here in the U.S. now the special attention you got from UK authorities?
If you don’t want to answer that I understand and please excuse my prying.
Jess
March 24th, 2007 at 2:06 am
BTW - I just gave in to temptation and purchased both saucer spies and your book on skinwalkers. Skinwalkers having a personal meaning for me.
Thanks.
Jess
March 24th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Jess:
LOL, no I’m not on the run from the UK or anything like that!
The reason I live in the US is a simple one: my wife is American and I moved over here in 2001. As a dual citizen I travel back to the UK regularly, and we were back in England for about 5 months last year, and a few weeks ago too.
My experiences with UK authorities on all this, was basically (as you’ll see from the book) that Special Branch thought that various UK researchers were using the UFO subject as a cover for looking into other official secrets, and then investigated this theory, but dropped it when they found it had no merit to it.
As far as I know, none of the people who were watched by Special Branch in the mid to late 1990s and until around 2001 have been watched since then. There may have been something of course since then, but if there has been, I’d say it has been pretty low level and no-one I know has experienced anything post-2001.
Nick
March 27th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Nick…
Maybe you were being watched as a “known associate” of Colin Perks.
OR, were you the one who fired the LAWs rocket at Vauxhall Cross?
March 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Bill
I did actually wonder about Perks (stranger things have happened!) but it seems it was more to do with me investigating the UFO links at Royal Air Force Rudloe Manor and Porton Down - both, as you know, sensitive facilities in wiltshire, UK; and the official world concluding that the UFO angle was secondary to finding out classified data about the 2 facilities.
To the best of my knowledge, when it was found that I really was just looking for UFO data, they dropped the matter. But I wouldn’t be surprised if occasional low-level “watching” still continues…
March 28th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Nick…
Hmmmm. Well they do have to justify their paychecks somehow. The Perks thing did pop into my mind almost immediately, as he was doing all that talking about the “funnies” getting in his face with warnings to cease and desist in his own researches. Could actually have been a factor, too, even if only as a side issue. People always tend to think in “either/or” terms and real life is never that compartmentalised. There’s typically overlap in everything. Maybe they were worried there was an off-chance of you helping set a gargoyle loose at Porton Down! LOL!!!!