UFOs in Reality (18 page)

Fig. 31

The Aldershot Encounter, 1983

A little-known but fascinating CE3 is related by Timothy Good in his 1987 book,
‘Above Top Secret’ [9]
. A detailed account of the happening is given by the book. The story goes that in the early hours of August 12th, 1983, an elderly angler,
Alfred Burtoo, set off from home at 12:15 am. BST, to go fishing in the local Basingstoke Canal, accompanied by his dog. Having set up his fishing tackle and attached the dog’s lead to the detached base of his large umbrella, spiked into the ground, he settled down to fish. Just prior to this, he had heard a local clock strike 1 o’clock. At about 1:15 am BST he decided to pour himself a cup of tea from his flask and stood up to drink it. A brilliant light then approached him from the south. It seemed to be at very low altitude and wavered in its motion as it passed over a railway line. It then seemed to settle and the light went out. Mr. Burtoo decided he needed a cigarette. He put down his cup and lit up. Then the dog growled and he looked up to see two ‘forms’ coming towards him. When they were within five feet of him they stopped and he and they looked at each other. The dog’s growling had been silenced by his master’s command. (Mr. Burtoo’s description of the entities is a bit puzzling given the lack of natural light.) They were about 4 feet tall, wore pale green coveralls and helmets equipped with black visors. By arm gestures they persuaded the witness to follow them and he obliged. With one of the entities walking ahead of him and one trailing behind, the trio walked along the towpath, climbed a fence beside a canal bridge, crossed a road and then continued to progress along the towpath. Then, the startled witness saw a large object, 40 – 45 feet (12 – 14m) in width, standing ahead, on the towpath. Portholes were set into the ‘hull’ and it seemed to be resting on two ski-like runners. The account then goes on to relate that Mr. Burtoo followed the leading entity (or ‘form’) up a set of steps into the craft and found himself in a black octagonal room with a central column. The other ‘form’ stood behind him. He was asked to stand beneath a ceiling-mounted amber light, which he did for about five minutes. A voice asked for his age. He replied that he would be seventy-eight next birthday. After another five-minute time lapse the same ‘sing-songy’ voice then told him that he was too old and infirm for their purpose and that he could leave. He left via the steps and then walked towards the canal bridge. Halfway there he turned and saw the top of the domed object rotating like a chimney cowl. He continued walking until he reached his fishing pitch where, presumably, his dog was patiently awaiting him. The first thing he did was to finish off his now cold cup of tea. Then there was a whining noise. The object lifted off and the brilliant light from it lit up the scene brightly. The object left at high speed over a military cemetery to the west and Mr. Burtoo last saw the light moving out of sight at about 2 am BST. Apparently unperturbed by all that excitement, he continued fishing until 12:20 pm, because fishing he had set out to do and fishing he had been determined to do! The only after-effects were a temporary loss of appetite and weight loss, sleeplessness and a disinclination to go out. It seems that Mr. Burtoo had not taken UFO reports seriously prior to his encounter, but his experience had radically changed his mind. Timothy Good followed up on the story after the witness’ death in August 1986. Mrs. Burtoo confirmed that her late husband had never changed his story and had not been the kind of man to have fantasies. He had been very ‘down-to earth’. It seems almost needless to say that
the AT’s timings graph plot supported the details of his case
, as shown by Fig. 32.

The George Adamski Controversy.

This Californian’s story of his face-to-face encounter with a human-like being, in association with a hovering craft of the disc/dome variety (see PHASE 1), became the object of wonder and ridicule after he had written about it in his co-authored book,
‘Flying Saucers have landed’ [15]
. The alleged happening had occurred sometime between 12:15 and 1:00 pm PST on November 20th, 1952. George and two friends had set out into the desert in the hope that the strange aerial craft Adamski had observed and photographed from his home on the slopes of
Mount Palomar
would return to the area. At a location in the wilderness close to
Desert Center
they had first seen a cigar-shaped craft, high in the sky, at about
12 noon
. Within about a quarter of an hour, they had then observed a silvery disc-like object drop down from the sky and appear to land, out of sight, behind rocks some distance away. George had set out alone to investigate this craft, leaving his companions behind to monitor the scene through binoculars. As he approached the top of a rise he was confronted by a fair-haired man in a one-piece suit. The craft was hovering, noiselessly, over the rocky terrain behind the visitor. The observers later confirmed they had seen this meeting even though the craft had still been out of sight to them. They went on to sign legal affidavits to confirm their sincerity. George claimed he had conversed with the visitor using sign language and symbols drawn in the sand. He’d wanted to know where in space the visitor had come from and drew a picture of the orbits, round the sun, of the planets of the solar system. The visitor pointed to the orbit of
Venus
. For George Adamski that had meant that he was meeting a Venusian.

Fig 32

The craft and its occupant had come from Venus, he concluded. As the visitor returned to his delivery craft, George trekked back to his friends. Then they all witnessed the take-off of the disc and saw it disappear into the bright sky. From the accounts, this departure probably occurred at about 1:00 pm. PST.

Of course, while people without astronomical knowledge were prepared to wonder and marvel at Adamski’s assertions, scientists and especially astronomers, knowing that Venus is extremely hostile to human-like life, either howled in derision or shook their heads in pity. How could any informed person in his right mind believe such a tale? I had to agree.

But aspects of the happening challenged me for years. In PHASE 1 I discussed possible practical features of the Adamski craft as revealed in his close-up photographs of a similar craft. Given an advanced propulsion system, such a craft could have been operable. When I checked out Adamski’s times, I had another surprise. Fig. 33 shows the results I obtained

The witnessed arrival of a cigar-shaped delivery craft at 12 noon is shown by the lower cross in the right-hand top corner of this graph. That time corresponds to an arrival using the No.3, Sunrise track option. The departure at approximately 1:00pm (13:00 hrs.) PST is seen to relate either to the upper cross on the No.1, Sunrise track option; or to the No.7, 21:30hr. RA option as shown by another cross in the lower right-hand part of the graph. This degree of correlation was, in itself, very challenging, but an exercise I carried out during Autumn 1999 led to even more interesting discoveries.

I had noticed that
the AT’s predicted approach and departure tracks, as suggested by the timings of individual events, had seemed to be quite frequently aligned with bodies in the solar system.
The major planets featured most of all, but they were often rivalled by certain comets and minor planets (major asteroids). In October 1999, I produced a report summarising this study, with the title,
‘Astro-navigational links with correlated tracks –- A Pilot Study’.

Just over a year later, I created an Appendix to that report, with the title,
‘Close Examination of all processed CE3 and CE4 cases in the database at November, 2000’.
The Appendix was longer than the original report
. (
The entire report will be given as
Addendum 1
at the end of this book
.
) In the Appendix, twenty eight cases in all were analysed, with the Adamski happening heading the list. The results of the alignments investigation for each event were tabulated on the left-hand side of each page and a marked-up diagram depicting the Earth at the centre of the Ecliptic Plane was presented on the other side of the page. The meridians of Right Ascension were radiating out from the centre of the Earth with spacing adjusted for the 23.5 degree tilt of the Ecliptic to the plane of the sidereal equator. The position of each aligned body was then superimposed on the basic diagram. Fig. 34 is an extract from the Appendix of the report and shows the results obtained for the Adamski happening together with three other documented CE3s.

Fig 33

Fig. 34

The Adamski event is dealt with at the top of this extracted page. Quite significantly,
the Sunrise track options were found to be aligned with Venus and the Moon, in close conjunction. The 21:30 hrs RA (fixed star option) path was aligned perfectly with Jupiter
.
As I had expressed in the main report, I had suspected that solar system bodies might be being used as sighting markers to aid navigation of the probes within the planetary system. The result obtained for the Adamski event perhaps now sheds new light on the visitor’s selection of the orbit representing that of Venus. He could have been implying that he had travelled to the Earth via Venus, or with the aid of Venus as a marker. If so, it seems that his retrieval craft had had the option of returning via Venus or via Jupiter, which was situated in a different part of the sky.