The UFO Scam

I suddenly realised that I hadn't commented on the passing of so called 'MoD UFO Expert' Nick Pope.  Now, while my condolences obviously go to his family, I feel that it is worth reiterating that all of his supposed insights into the UK MoD's 'UFO Files' were absolute bollocks.  There has never been a 'UFO Desk' at the MoD - there is simply some poor desk officer to whom falls the task of dealing with the various nutters who write in with their supposed sightings of aliens.  Pope and I were near contemporaries in the MoD - he had left just as I joined - and, on a course, I once met the guy who had taken over the 'UFO Desk' from him.  He confirmed that the UFO aspect was only a tiny part of his responsibilities and that all that happened when a report came in from the public was that a form letter would be sent out and report filed and forgotten, (usually in the bin).  The letter explained that the MoD's only interest in unidentified flying objects was when they posed a clear threat to the UK's defences.  Which none of the unsolicited reports seemed to suggest.  But Nick Pope clearly saw an opportunity and was able to conflate his MoD experiences into a whole media career.  I have no idea whether he was a UFO enthusiast before he did that job, whether it 'converted' him to the cause, or whether he simply saw an opportunity to make some money.  

Whatever the case, everything he came out with on the subject were a load of old bollocks.  Which it would have to be - like me, he signed up to the Official Secrets Act, (actually, we're all, as UK citizens, subject to it, but crown servants handling sensitive information have to sign a declaration stating that they fully understand how it impacts on what they can say about their work), meaning that if he really had learned anything really sensational from his job, he wouldn't have been able to report it.  If he had referred to genuine official materials in any of his books, for instance, then he would have faced prosecution. Which he never did, meaning that, basically, he made it all up or simply relied upon cases of alleged alien encounters already in the public domain.  I once had the misfortune to read (or try to read, I can't remember if I finished it), one of Pope's books and, as I recall, it was just a rehash of various well known alleged UFO incidents.  His conclusions seemed baffling to me, defying logic.  But hey, I'm not here to trash Nick Pope's memory, but I can't help but always come back to the fact that, in my opinion, he was a complete bullshitter, a feeling reinforced by the various TV appearances on those whacked out TV shows that clog the schedules on Blaze that he made.  I was always somewhat disturbed by the way in which he would ignore the obvious and omit any anomalous (anomalous to his ideas) facts in order to whip up a conspiracy theory.  I well, remember on one such show, he tried to make an MoD computer installation near Bath seem sinister - as he was, like me, an ex-MoD employee, then he knew as well as I did that it was all tied in with the Naval design bureau based in Bath, (which needed a fair amount of computing power to design warships).  Like I said, an opportunistic bullshitter.  But heck, he made a living out of it, which is fair enough, but it is important to grasp that, far from being an 'authority', he was just another bollocks-spouting grifter.  In my opinion.