Now and again, I find myself crossing paths with what we might well call whistle-blowers. For example, there is the matter of my 2005 book, Body Snatchers in the Desert. It detailed a controversial theory for the Roswell, New Mexico affair of July 1947. It’s a book that suggests the event actually involved not a UFO, but a huge high-altitude balloon with a human crew. Guinea pigs, we might say. One of the criticisms of the book was that, to quote one reviewer, “all of the information comes from anonymous interviewees.” Nonsense. Only two people in the book are unnamed. I refer to them as “the Black Widow” and “the Colonel.” Everyone else appears with their real names. There is, however, nothing at all anonymous about either “the Black Widow” or “the Colonel.” When the book was at editing stage, the legal people at Simon & Schuster (the company that published Body Snatchers) requested that I provide them with the relevant information (names, backgrounds, etc.) on the interviewees, which I did, fully. So, my sources in Body Snatchers were not anonymous sources. They were unnamed sources, which is an altogether very different thing.
One year later, in 2006, I penned a book titled On the Trail of the Saucer Spies. A significant amount of material in the book was provided by a retired employee of the British Police Force’s Special Branch. He was adamant that he did not want his name to appear in the book so, instead, I referred to him as “the Sandman.” He made a number of intriguing (and lengthy) statements to the effect that, back in the 1990s, certain British-based UFO investigators were secretly watched by Special Branch. The reason for watching those same researchers was not for their UFO studies, however. Rather, it was because Special Branch feared they were using their UFO investigations as a cover for far more nefarious matters that might have had a bearing on national security, such as spying on military bases for potentially hostile organizations and nations. Two British researchers, in particular, that the Sandman referenced as being very closely watched were Matthew Williams and Robin Cole.
At the time Saucer Spies was published, certain people in Ufology said it was utterly laughable to think that Special Branch might have been involved in watching Williams and Cole (even tangentially). And, yet again, I was criticized for using an unnamed source. Well, the doubters were finally made to shut up in July 2012 (six years after Saucer Spies was published), when – under the terms of the British Freedom of Information Act – the British Government released certain papers on Cole and Williams, showing that both men were secretly watched by Special Branch in the 1990s and for the very reasons “the Sandman” maintained. Here, below, is the British Government’s summary on the files on Williams and Cole:
“File DEFE 24/1984/1 (p294) contains a 1996 Parliamentary Question from Martin Redmond MP asking on how many occasions MI6 and GCHQ have monitored UFO investigations. This was interpreted to mean ‘have the agencies been keeping watch on UFOlogists.’ A background briefing says ‘neither agency in fact undertakes such activity, though GCHQ cannot rule out the possibility’ they had monitored ‘in other contexts individuals who have made a study of UFOs’. The MP was told the government do not comment on the intelligence and security agencies (p298).
“File DEFE 24/1987/1 (p262-65) reveals that in 1997 Special Branch took an interest in a UFOlogist who became obsessed with rumors of a secret UFO facility beneath RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire. The base had become known as the British equivalent of the secret US military airbase ‘Area 51’ among conspiracy theorists. An internal note said ‘Special Branch…do not believe he poses a specific threat to security, but they are alert to the risk that others may use him as a conduit for their activities.’”
It was Cole who caught the attention of Special Branch and GHCQ and who was duly “monitored” (as the file notes), while Williams was watched for poking his nose around RAF Rudloe Manor. And, note the final words of the summary document on Williams: “‘Special Branch…do not believe he [Williams] poses a specific threat to security, but they are alert to the risk that others may use him as a conduit for their activities.’” This, you will note, is exactly what “the Sandman” told me more than half a decade before these documents even surfaced: namely, that Special Branch didn’t care, at all, about Williams’ UFO studies, but were more concerned he could be used by hostile groups and individuals not having the best interests of the UK at their heart, which is very understandable.
So, what’s my point? Well, I’ll tell you. So-called “Anonymous sources” are rarely 100 percent that. The unnamed people I interviewed for Body Snatchers certainly aren’t anonymous, as their identities are known to the publisher’s legal people. And, for all the criticism I got for using the claims of “the Sandman” in Saucer Spies back in 2006, his story was totally (and finally) validated in 2012. In conclusion, just because someone (a) asks for their identity to be withheld or (b) surfaces wholly anonymously, does not mean they lack credibility, are lying, or don’t even exist. Those who are quick to criticize those of us who do, from time to time and when circumstances dictate, use unnamed sources, can learn a lot from all of the above. Whether they actually bother to learn or not, however, is a very different issue…
from Mysterious Universe https://ift.tt/39FmUoY
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