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From: Andy Roberts <Brigantia@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 11:22:00 -0500
Fwd Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 17:39:19 -0500
Subject: Nick Redfern Responds to Nick Pope


Nick Redfern (author of 'A Covert Agenda' and 'The FBI Files'
has asked me to distribute the following statement concerning
Nick Pope. In light of what Pope has been saying over the past
few years about his place in the governmental UFO scheme of
things this should make interesting reading.

Nick isn't on email but if anyone has any comments they would
like to have passed on I will gladly do so.

Listers who kept up with the 'Pope On A Rope' thread should note
that his silence on the matter belies his 'behind the scenes'
attempts to cause trouble to a 'leading UK ufologist'.

When will ufologists learn to do things in the open eh?

Nick Redfern writes........

In the article 'The Fall Guy' which appeared in the March /April
1999 issue of 'UFO Magazine', Nick Pope specifically addressed
comments made by myself at last September 17th Leeds
International UFO Conference. Let's get a few things straight:
First, I have never denied that during his time with the
Secretariat of the Air Staff Pope got to see a number of British
military originated UFO reports (he described several such cases
in his book, 'Open Skies, Closed Minds'). What I have
consistently said is that his office got to see very few
military reports.

Morever, on the record sources have told me (and continue to
tell me - see my next book, 'Cosmic Crashes') that the vast
majority of military originated UFO reports (and largely those
filed by military pilots) are handled and investigated by the
RAF's Provost and Security Services (P&SS).

And on a related matter: in 1995 RAF Rudloe Manor (which at the
time was the HQ of the PSS) admitted that up until 1992 the P&SS
had served as the official co-ordination point for UFO reports
for the entire RAF; and morevover, that it had possibily
fulfilled such a function as far back as 1950! However, when I
conducted a tape recorded interview with Pope in 1994, he told
me that Rudloe Manor had no role to play in the UFO subject
(either from an investigative or co-ordination point of view)
and he felt that the stories linking UFOs with Rudloe were
nothing more than 'white elephants'. I submit that if Pope
*really* was at the forefront of the British Government's UFO
investigations, then he should have known about the Rudloe link.
But the fact is, he did not.

The most incredible fact of all, however, is one I have seldom
discussed. But I will now: When Ruldoe Manor admitted in 1995
that the P&SS had acted as the RAFs official co-ordination point
for UFO reports since possibly 1950, I began to make extensive
enquiries to determine the full facts; and when I did do, Pope
asked me to keep him informed of what I found out - the reason
being that he was as surprised and mystified as everyone else by
the P&SS's sudden admission!

On another matter: in 1997 I conducted a lengthy interview with
Pope and he informed me that during his tenure with the Air
Staff he attempted to make contact with his 'opposite number' in
the US Department of Defense, only to be told that the US
Government shut down its UFO investigations in 1969 with the
close of Project Blue Book.

However, via the FOIA, I was able to fully conform that in
precisely the same time frame that Pope was being given the
brush-off by the Americans, the US Defense Intelligence Agency
was sending raw UFO data to the British MOD's Defence
Intelligence Staff. Moreover, when I showed Pope copies of this
material, he confirmed to me on the record and on audiotape that
the papers in question did not reach him - yet he would have us
believe that he was the focal point for all UFO data in the
British government!

And there are two further points worth mentioning when it
comes to Pope's involvement in the UFO issue:


1: When I interviewed Pope in 1992 and asked him if he had ever
come across a UFO report that compromised national security or
the defence of the realm, he told me: 'No. There's no evidence
of a threat to the UK that I've come across.' However, when
'Open Minds....' was released in 1996, Pope made it very clear
that he considered the 'flying triangle'encounters of March
30-31 1993 were of prime defence significance! And these
particular encounters occurred a full twelve months *before* he
told me there was no such defence threat!

Moreover, it cannot be argued that Pope made the 'defence
threat' determination after I interviewed him in 1994, because
in 1997 he admitted to me that following the 1993 sightings he
sent a summary of the events in question to the Assistant Chief
of the Air Staff and, to quote Pope himself: 'I came to the
conclusion that this was of extreme defence significance!'. So
why, in 1994, did he tell me there was no such defence threat?
Was I, a member of the British public, misled by an MoD civil
servant, or had Pope forgotten above the events of twelve months
previously?

2: Pope makes the highly laughable comment that doesn't mind
people 'trying to make a name for themselves'. However, as
anyone who know me well will be aware, I have absolutely no
interest in 'trying to make a name for myself', simply trying to
put across to people the facts as I see them. However, every
time I speak to Pope it is not the latest findings with respect
to UFOs that we discuss; he is rather more keen to discuss his
latest appearance on Newsnight, This Morning, Talk Radio etc!
Now who's trying to make a name for themselves?

Pope is entitled to his views, as am I. This is, after all, a
free country (I think). But if Pope wants us to accept that he
was indeed for three years the British Government's very own
'Fox Mulder', then let's have a few reasonable and complete
answers from him regarding his ignorance of the still-mysterious
involvement in the UFO subject on the part of the Provost and
Secirity Services, and why in 1992 and 1993 certain UFO data
sent to him via the MoD by the American Department of Defence
by-passed him. I await Pope's reply with interest.

A final point to think about: in 1997 Matthew Williams and I
succeeded in tracking down a retired RAF Squadron Leader who
was, in the mid-1960s, attached to an MoD office of a far more
covert nature than that to which Pope was attached. Moreover,
Matthew and I were able to conclusively link the man with the
UFO mystery. He, however, told us that he was unable to discuss
the UFO work he undertook for the MoD three decades ago. How
curious, then, that Nick Pope can speak so publically and
vocally about his official UFO investigations undertaken on
behalf of the MoD in the early 1990s; however, a senior figure
in an elite MoD division is still unable to comment on his UFO
work undertaken more than thirty years ago. Something doesn't
gel........

Nick Redfern March 17th 1999