The X Factor - Volume 10 (1996) by silent-realm

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,llead of fditorial: Martin Annable ldiror:BrendaMarshall ,ilitarial:GrahamColeman, ::.,:1t",t Glenday,Felix Lejac, ;1;;r8en Way

Pidur€ Research: SophieMortimer [ditorialAssistant: Georgina Stewart leniorProduction Controlhr: TerenceStrongman /endy Kwok, Harkering: John Balmond Humphreys-Davies, HeadofCirculation:

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ChrisJenner

ACKI{OWLEDGFMEIITS authon: Simon Richmond, Karl Shuke6 nny Randles. InsrtQuest Publications. hben lrvrnr.0scarBurnel/ladn ltock/lcience Photr x wuuldliki to thankall rholewhohelped in the Ilin $searchUnit.lf youan i lody Hotline on ,c1l!{e.Iwin

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t was like looking in a mirror. They rvere both 1.8 metres tall, and had the same weight, build and -facial features. It is what you rr'ould expect of identical twins. But the similaritieswent much fr.u-therthan that forJim Lewis and Jim Springer. Apart from their olvn shared name, both of the Jim Twins' had married women called Linda, only to divorce them and both marry \\'omen called Betty. Subsequent researchuncorreredcountless other remarkable similarities befir,een the nvin brothers. But one mystery remained. \{rhv d i d they hav e s o m u c h i n c o mmo n . when - since they were born 39 years ago - they had lived

completelv iridependent lives, having been separatedat birth? Tl-relirrks benr'eenidentical nvins bror,rght up together are often causefor mild amazement, b rrt l a l e l v chal l engeour vi ew son life. Orie misht reasonably ask why nlo indir-iduals, born at the same ti m e . a n d shari ng l he samegeneti c material, should not also have the s a n rep e rsonal i tytrai tsi n common. It seemsthat when identical twins are separated soon after birth and meet,vears later to find thev have led strikingly similar lives, the implications are not only intriguing but also potentially revolutionary. Such casesof separated twins are very rare, especially as adoption practices have improved

A Reseorch inlo twins hos implicotions for medicol knowledge. The results oJ studies qt 5t Thomos' Hospitol in ., London (inset) moy help to prevent diseqses such os osleoporosis, diobetes ond heort conditions.

over the years. Only 68 are known worldwide. l n B ri tai n i n 1979.rw o other i denti calrw i nsw ho had been separatedat bi rth w ere bei ng reuni ted after 34 yearsapart. \{4ren they met researcherDr Tom Bouchard of the Universiw of , ri:.i, Minnesota. USA. Bridget Harrison of Leicesterand Dorothy Lowe of

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;1i,: Burnley, Lancashire, both wore seven rings, had two bracelets on one wrist and a watch and a ,bracelet on the other. ' They soon found out that they ,had both stopped taking piano .lessonsat the same age, both had a lcat called Tiger and while one of itheir sons was named Richard Andrew, the other was named Andrew Richard. Strangest of all, in 1960, Dorothy and Bridget had both kept a diary. They had both chosen exactly the same brand and colour of diary and had even left the same days blank during the year. Today, scientists around the world are studying identical twins, not only in an effort to understand what makes them so

similar in behaviour and appearance, but also to cast light on the forces that shape all human beings and the powers that we may all be prir,y to. TWI N

F E A R .S

Down through the ages, and across cultures, the 'strangeness'of twins has caused people to fear them. Some native American tribes killed twins at birth, a course of action also followed by lnuits in Greenland and aboriginals in Japan and Australia. Sometimes the mother was also killed, or at least subjected to a purification ritual, since it was believed she must have had sex with two men for two children to be conceived.

Attitudes towards trr-ins and their parents have moved on considerably since this time, but our understanding of their special powers remains incomplete. The most influential study of twins in modern times is being conducted by Dr Tom Bouchard. Since 1979, Bouchard has interviewed and tested hundreds of identical twins in one of the largest research programmes of its kind. Bouchard's tests usually take a week to complete and involve personality assessmentsand medical examinations. Blood samples are compared, fingerprints taken, allergies evaluated, even { Twins Andrew ond Sleven Rofhery both developedlhe some rqre medicol comploint. Doctorssoy there is no genefic reqson why fhe l8-yeor-olds should hove been offected ond describeit qs q million to one chonce.

same time, 650 kilometres a\4iay i:::'.: '' in California. Martha Burke of California as i f she ' had been cut i n tw o', dayi n 1977,asaburni ng tore acrossher chest and abdomen.H ours l ater,she discovered that her twin sister died in an aeroplane collision-, halfiatavacross the world. Even more horrific is the case four-month-old iden tical nvins Samantha and Gabrielle Connolly. On 8 October 1983, their mother'

-z. 9 :

intimate sexual histories compiled. At the end of over 50 hours of tesqng, Bouchard's team will know nearly everything there is to know about the twins, from their tastes in food, literature and music to the way they walk, talk and sleep. Bouchard's work may suggest that a person's character is shaped more by genetic factors than social ones, but it seemsthere is another factor involved. EMB RY O NI C

environmental factors will have a role to play in forming personality and shaping what happens to us. Despite the wealth of information from this study and others, the phenomena associated with identical twins are still not fully understood. For example, why do such similar things happen to separated twins at the same time? InJuly 1975,Nita Hurst suddenly felt an agonizing pain in her left leg and witnessed bruises spreading spontaneously up the left side of her body. The mystery affliction became clear when she later discovered that her twin sister.Nettie Porter, had been involved in a car crash at the very

Somewhere in the .',li r eg:on of I O to 15 per cent of us qre wolking:',,i: oround thinking we cilii:ji singletons when in,fu we/re only the big ChorlesE. Bokloge,Biologist

E\ ,} Linda discovered that both had ' : : ,'': suffered cot deaths despite being asleepin different beds on :,-,,, different floors of the house. , ,: .11.1,,.i.,::: These'psychic' connections-.,:: between twins are proof to so*iiâ&#x201A;Ź!. people that all human beings shar the abiliry to develop and use extra-sensoryperception (ESP).

SP T IT

The work of RichardJ. Rose, Professor of Psychology and Medical Genetics at Indiana University, USA, has shown that the degree to which identical twins are actually identical is linked to how early the embryo in the womb splits into two. Rose found that the earlier an embryo splits, the less alike in personality identical twins will tend to be in the future. This conclusion suggeststhat

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to each other, they did no better than ordinary brothers and sisters. But when the twins chose their own images, they scored higher th a n n on-rw i nsi bl i ngs. IN

.. A one-yearstudy on rwins and ESP at Bristol University in the early '1990s, however.provided no conclusiveresults beyond demonstrating that rwins had a re m ar k ableabilir y to th i n k a l i k e . When the researchersprovided the s).,rnbols for twins to 'transmi(' ::i.

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T HE

S TA R S

Even more radical is the view that our fates rest with the position of the stars on the day we are are born. Dr SuzelFuzeau-Braesch, director of the National Centre for Scientific Research at Orsa\,',near Paris, has surveyed the astrological birth charts of twins. Since thel' are usually born within minutes of each otheq twins will have very similar birth charts. Two short character. descriptions, summarizing these small astrological differences between each set of rwins,were sent to their parents, who had to choosewhich description best fitted which twin. Chance would dictate an equal number of right

and wrong responses.But, out of 218 parents, 153 matched the descriptions to the right fivir-rwell over the 109 expected to get it right. Despite the similarin'of the charts, parents rvere able to match the fine differencesto each of their nr-ins. \\het1-rer or lroi astrologv proves an insight into tl-recharactersand destiniesof nlins is a side issueof researchin t].risarea. Scientists generallr'remain perplexed by even the biological similarities beh\:een hr,ir-rs. For example, it is knor'r'nthat twins are more likely to have symmetrical teeth and be left-handed than singletons. But it is not known why this should be or what it means. Every day, though, technological advancesare helping the scientists come closer to an understanding of the complex area of twins. A Jready.thanks to rhe i ncre asing use of ul l rasound l o moni l or

lf .

embrvos, it is knorvn that twinning is far more commor) than rvas pr-eviousl,vthotrght. At least one in cieht L,f a ll na llll:rl p lc qr r ar r c ic s begin as trvins, even though onlv about one-tenth of these actr-rally rnake it tlrrotrgh to birth Because there is considerable elidence thirt one fir'in can suffer intcnsc suilt rr'hen the other twin dies. this thlorr's a u'hole new light ol] the sense of loss sorne single people feel tl-rrougl'ror-rttheir lives, as if pz,rrtof them is not there. Plofessor Charles E. Boklage, a clerelopr.nent biologist at the East C.nr-olinirUniversity School of \Ieclicine, USA, conservatively

33 .1Rre

We qre reolly

one PersoJl...we know exoctly whqf eqch other is t h i n k i n g . b e co u se w e o r e i u s t o ne l w i n /:.^+^ ^-l

a d

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estimatesthat around 10 to 15 per cent of people may have had a trr'in that died in the womb. Irr a smzrllproportion of cases, iclenticalnvins do not completelv separatein the rvomb. The most f:unous conjoinecl,or 'Siamese', nr'ins rvere Chang and Eng Bunker, rrho toured rvith Barnum and

Bailey'scircus in the USA in the 1 8 0 0 sT . h el ' l ' ere born i n 1811i n Thailand, then calleclSiam. Today, conjoined tu'ins like Chang and Eng. rvho u'ere.joined at the chest bv a thick band of tissne,could be separatedby surgery. But evelr thor-rghthe twins spent all of their 63 r'earstogether, they' both married ar-rclfatherecl 21 children between them. Thel rvere luckr,',since fen' conjoined nvius s rrrv i e r b el ond i rtfartcr' .

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ProfessorLuigi Gedda's 'clock of life' theory is one of the f'err scientific attempts made to explain the nvin phenomenon. Gedda, of { Bridger Hqrrison qnd

the Gregor Menclel Institute ttt ..., Rome, Italr', studied more than .:-* 15.000pai rs of tn i rrsbetw een 195: and 1978 and came to the corrclusiorrthat errcodedwithin us all is a genetic blueprint

for our

lives - the so-called 'clock of life'.

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Gedda found that this is especially

true for twins, and may account for the many uncanny similarities l between them in their lives.

A DESIGN

FOR IIFE

But, despite the ach'ancesmade,.: urrrarel l i rrgthe secl etsof our g e n e s . G e c t d a 's t h e o r i e s r e m a i n

highl,v controlersial. \\hile it mdyi easilvexplain u'h1'theJim Twins both suffered heart attacks and haemorrhoids - even why they are both healy smokers - it is not so clear why they should marry ' , -

Dorothy Lowe did

\ v o m e n w i t h t h e s a m e n a m e or

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were twins unfil

beach in Florida. M i g h t t h c r e b e a f o r c e w i t hi n

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i rrdi vi dual ' sbl rrepri ntof l i fe? For now t'wins remain a conundrum

for rvhich scientistscontinue to searchfol arr arrsw er.

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COMPI.]TE,RS Onr SIMPIEERRoRcAN cAUsE .;

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BESTFRIENDTO WORST ENEMY.IS ! '1 ,

O UR I NCR E A S I N GD E P E N D ENCE ON CO MPUT E RT E C H N O T O G Y M ISCUIOT O?

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concerns the inability of computer programs that work on a six-digit date system(i.e. 01-01-97)to recognize the change in century. Unless corrected by the time the year 2000 comes around, many computer programs will record the year as '00' - the start of the 20th century, instead of the 21st. The result could be that over 80 per cent of computers around the world go ha;nvire or close down automatically. At worst, the Mi l l e n i um B ug coul d tri gger an unintended missilelaunch, as in the scenario above. The strong possibility of s u c h a n i nci dent occurri ns was made clear in December 1995 when a message,originating from the office of the US Secretary of Defense, was published on the Internet. It warned the US Na\y to ensure that all relevant personnel knew about the Year 2000 problem and that 'corrective actions, if not currently under way, should start now.' It is not just the US military that is worried. Businessesand governments

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plane is on patrol. A foreign r craft comes into view and the pilot of the F-22 needs to verify who it is. As the clock ticks round to midnight, the new millennium l o o m ing. he ins t r u c tsth e o n -b o a rd strategic *"'b'systemto send a warning -"^ signal,expecung slgnar, expecting a posltlve positivereply within a couple of seconds.

Unfortunat.ly, a programm i ng glitch has remained buried within the F-22'scomputer system.The foreign plane has responded immediately, but the computer does not recognize this and is already arming the weapons systems.The Year 2000 is abour ro begin with a bizarre and horrific i n ter nat ional inc i d e n t. MIT I . E NNI UM

BUG

Incredible though il may seem. this is not a storyJine from a Llollywood disaster movie - it is a catastrophewaiting to happen. With the millennium fast approaching. the world is facing an enormous - and potentially disastrous- technological p roblem . Dubbed th e ' M i l l e n n i u m Bu g' ( or ' B om b' ) , th i s p ro b l e m

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arolrnd the rvorld have set up project teams to tackle the probl em. \\' i th computersused in virtually e\rery aspect of modern life - in manufacturing, banks, hospi tal sas w el l as l he service i ndustri es- the overal leffecro[ the Mi l l enni um B ug coul d be catacl ysmi c. It has heen esl i mal edthat t o fix it could cost more than f400 bi l l i on. w hi l e doi ng nol hi ng could. according to Simon Reeve, co-aul horol rhe Mi l l enni umBnm b, 'destroy entire economies'.Worse still, it could put the lives of millions of people at risk. The Millennium Bug has become a programming error due to the march of time. In the 1950sand 1960s,when few people o foresaw the massiveinfluence that o o computer technologt' r'vould have E on our lives, computers were ; hulking monsters that ran slowly, o 3 = performed few tasks and had limited memory space. Shortening .9 the year by two digits freed up ? expensive space, and became

standard practice by rhe 1970s.But this is not the only area where programming errors have come to lisht. The rapid development of technology has shrunk the size of computers while at the same time increasing their computing power by a phenomenal factor. A comparison was made by Alex Trotman, head of Ford Motors worldwide in March 1996: 'If car design had developed as fast as computers, a Ford would be an eighth of an inch long, and go 3,000

on a teaspoonful of petrol.' At such a rate of development it is hardly surprising that errors have occurred - and are still being made. In particularj many experts feel that programming standards for software - the instructions which enable computers to do different taskshave not kept pace with the engineering standards for hardware - the physical structure of the computer itself. LETHAI

E R R OR S

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difficulties. The ambulance took two and three quarter hours to arrive at the Swan's home. Their daughter died on route to hospital - something that probably would not have happened ifa back-up systemor the old manual means of dispatching ambulances had still been in place when they had made their emergency call. Where engineers can see there are potential dan'gersahead in Ietting computers take over, the svstemsdeveloped are often termed 'safety critical'. For example, transport is one such area where safetyis a priority. In the thousands of aeroplanes that dailv fly around the world, comDuters have become essential

33 ri,

how much various parts of the plane have to be adjusted to make the right manoeuvre. Still, despite vears of testing and use. there have been at least fir'e major accidents involving planes rvhose fly-by-wire systems have gone wrong. In fact, 1996 was one of the worst years on record for aircrashes,involving the loss of hundreds of lives. Some of the disasterswere due to on-board computer systemsbreaking down. Concern is running high among experts. Mike Hennell is technical ng d i rector oI softr,vare-testi company Liverpool Data Research Associates.'I'm particularly

The problem with control softwqre is thot people write it SystemsExpert SteveCollins,Sofety-crificol

,, components. All use software with safety-criticalprogramming, where at least one back up system- and so met im esas m any a s s i x - a re rrse dt o double- c he c ko p e ra ti o n s . such systemsare vital in aircraft, such as the Airbus 4320, 330 and 340, and Boeing 777 which are 'flr'by wire'. This means that when the pilot moves one of the flight controls, the computer calculates

A The officiol explonolion for the Eurotunnelfire in November1995 wos orson. Bul some experls cre concerned thot the funnel'scompulerizedsofety syslemmoy hove olso beenot fqult. concerned that some planes have four engines being controlled by i denti cal sofhvare,'H ennel l p oint s out. ' Thi s i s madness.There need to be different approachesdilferen t computer chips. different programming languagesand so on - so rhat if one systeml-ailsthey don' r al l fai l .' tOW

S TA N D A R D S

Hennell's comments underline w hat S teveC ol l i ns- managing director of Real Time Associates, a company inVolved in developing' safety-criticalsystems- has known ,' for some ti me: that standard sand w orki ng practi cesi n thi s cru cial area of computing can be woet-ully inadequate.' I ncreasingly.sofftvare i s the w eak l i nk i n the fi nal product.' C ol l i ns says. However,Hennell. who once w ent to court to try to stop the Airbus A320 from taking off because of his concerns about its computer programmi ng, i s n ow more w orri ed about the i mpact of

) lnodequote computer controls were o moior

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'We don't reolly underslond whqt we're d o i n g , s o i t ' s i mp o ssi b l e for onyone to soy whqt is sofe' Mike He nnell, Directorof SofiworeTestingCompony

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foctor in the Chernobyl disoster on 27 April 1986. Public concern oboul fhe sofety of Sizewell B (insef) eventuolly forced Nucleor ElecfricUK to moke chonges io lhe sofeiyconhol softwore.

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goes wrong here, the death toll lrom the worst air crasheswould p a l e int o ins ignif ic a n c e- a s rh e Iong-term victims of Chernobyl continue to remind us. Yet. many i n the c omrput ing i n d u s try h a v e seriousdoubts about the saferyof

some nuclear installations. A particular focus of concern in the UK has been the Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk. In 1993, the software responsible for shutting down Sizewell B in the event of an emergency was run through over 50,000 tests.It failed more than half of them. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) said this was entirely due to faults in the testing equipment, but compounded general fears by refusing to release results of earlier tests or asking for a re-test. That there were problems with the Sizewell B software is hardly surprising, considering that it is made up of well over 100,000 lines of code. 'Any piece of software longer than 20,000 lines is too complex to be tested exhaustively,' saysBrian Winchmann, an expert on safety-critical software from the UK's National Physical Laboratory. AJl the while, though, computers and their programmes are becoming more complex, and, therefore, less easyto test. At the same time, the accident rate due

to technologv failure contrnues to rise. The onlv ansrver,according to Ste\,eCollins is for software writers to improve the quality of their work. 'Until writing software for control s)istemsbecomes a proper science,rather than a quick way of making money, then we are all at risk,' Collins warns. A TA R MIN G

IN C R E A SE

In fact, a number of experts believe that computer bugs are virtually ever).rvhere.In 1995, Programming Research,a safetycrtitical systemscompany, ran checks on millions of lines of code for governments and organizations across the globe. They discovered that even safetycritical software contained, on average,one glitch in every 55 l i nes.The company esti mates that roughly ten per cent of these errors will lead to 'catastrophic failures'. With technology becoming increasingly complex, and ever more dependent on computers, the margin of E::l

erroris likelyro expand.

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nersunr.rymorning in the 1960s,local' hunter.l Nicolas Mondongo .was standingon the bank of the Likoualaw au;-Herbes River, amid the vast swamplandsof the People's Republic of the Congo, when he experienced a very close encounter o[ the cryptozciological kind. Suddenly,to his astonishment,a small head borne upon a long slender neck broke the water surface like a living periscope. Mondongo stood petrif,ed as.a massive creature emerged, revealingan enormous, sturdy body with srriooth, reddleh-brown skin, four bulky legs, and aivery lengthy, p o wer f ul t ail. T his e x tra o rd i n a ry a n i ma l , approximately nine metres long, remained in view for at least three minutes before submerging out of sight igain. ' , If science confirmg the existence of this aniriral - known locllly as the mokelembembe - it may well be one of the"greate st z oologic al dis c o v e ri e s o f a l l ti me .

Although its description does yrot recall any known living creature. it corr,esponds precisely with ttrat of a rnedium-sized sauropotl dinosaur! H ID D E N

tIFE

Literally translated as 'the study of hidden Iife', cryptozoology is specifically defined as the investigationof unidentified animals t hal are apparentl y w el l know n to thei r Iocal human nei ghbours, but w hi ch have yet to be discoveredand formally described by scientists. Few people doubt that many species of tiny insect or other inconspicuousanimals .may still await discovery, but some might considerit unlikely that, in the 20rh cenlury, "'there could also be large.spectacularanimals remai ni ng undetected. One notabl e cryptirzOological iceptic was palaeontdlogist George Gaylord Simpson, who claimed: 'The many new'animals being discovered

A The swomplqnds of

the Congo ore iust the sort of ploce thot new

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onimols, unknown lo

science, moy be found. For over 2OO yeori

o hunlers, missionories ond explorers in the region hove reporled seeing o beosl known locolly os the mokele-mbembe. A Joponese film crew even purported to hove filmed it (inset, mognified).

-9

nowadays are rarely very novel... it is si g nif ic ant t hat t h e d a te s fo r i n c re a s i n g l y novel discoveriestend to recede in time.' Yet thip,issimply not true. As Karl Shuker revealedin his book The LostArk: Newand Rpriisrouered Animals oJ the 20th Ccniurl'. an impressive list of dramatic creatures hitherto u n known t o s c ie n c e h a s b e e n s te a d i l y u n fo lding t hr ough o u t rh e 1 9 0 0 s . T hes e inc lude th e o k a p i . Z a i re ' s s h o rtn e c k ed f or es t gir a ffe , d i s c o v e re di n l 9 0 l : mountain gorilla (1902); komodo dragon, the world's laigest lizard (1912); coelacanth, a large lobe-finned fish believed'to have b e e n ex t inc t f or mi l l i o n s o f y e a rs t 1 9 3 8 ): ( 1955): megamouthshark Flecker'ssea-wasp (1976); giant, tube-dwelling, sea-wormswith huge,scarlet tentacles (1977); Queen of Sh eba' sgaz elle( 19 8 5 );V uQu a n g o x ( 1 9 9 2 ): bondegezou, a tree kangaroo (1994); plus ma n y ' new' whales.d o l p h i n sa n d p o rp o i s e s . And these are just a handful of this century's freshly-found anirlals. Clearly, therefore, there are plenty ofprecedents for uncovering major new speciestoday. MYT HS

A ND

.T,**TF "e#

M IST A KE S

Some mystery beastsare evidâ&#x201A;Źntly imaginary, fantastic animals - just like fire-breathing dragons. Certain others are hoaxes,*or misidentified known species like th. rnermaid-like ri of New Ireland, near New

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Guinea, shown in 1985 to be the dugong -, a familiar sea-co\\.But lhere are alsosevera{ hundred t1'pesof m1'sterious,unidentified beastsrepolred from around the world. that may indeed be ralid new speciesstill eluding sci enti fi cdetecri on.These can be gr oDped i nto l our categori es. The first of these are prehistoric survivors. Karl Shuker's book In Searchof Prehistoric Suru.iaorsis devoted to this category mystery bdasts (including the mokelembembe) that may be undiscovered living relatives of creatures believed to have died out in prehistoric times. Take, for instance, the Loch Ness monster, reported by eyewitnessesfor many

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centuries. Their descriptions, co u p led wit h s o n a r a n d u n d e rw a te r p h ot ogr aphicev ide n c e .s u g g e s t" l h a ti ts s ti l l unidentified speciesis up to 9 metres long, w i th a v er y s lender n e c k a n d s m a l l h e a d . a burly body, two pairs of diamond-sMped flippers, and a long tail. This description is re m ar k ablys im ilar to th a t o f a p l e s i o s a u ra large aquatic reptile that officially became extinct around 64 million years ago. Plesiosaur-likebeastshave been reported fro m olher f r es hw a te r l a k e s a ro u n d th e worlcl too. and also from many oceanic expanses.where they comprise the 'long n e ck ' c at egor yof s e as e rp e n l . A very different kind of aqu4tic prehistoric survivor is rypifieclby the migo. a se rpent inewat ermo n s te ri n h a b i ti n g L a k e D a kar auain New B ri ta i n a n d fi l m e d b y a Ja p anes et elev is io nc re w i n J a n u a ry 1 9 9 4 .

'; "s t t r e . There is more sworn : evidence for the seo-serpenl's exisfence thqn q court of low . wou'ld,,need to prove ony oidinory cose Heuvelmons, Dr Berncird Zoologist

The film shows a very elongated beast me as ur ing about I I me tre s . u n d u l a ti n g ve rti c allyas it s wim sa c ro s sth e l a k e .T h i s i s highll significanl.becadserhe only creatures of compaiable size that could move..likethis rvere a group of specializ& whales known a s zeuglodont s whi . c h s u p p o s e d l yd i e d o u t a ro u nd 25 m illion y e a rsa g o . Severaleminent anthropolbgists, such as Professor Grover Krantz from Washington State Universiq', believe that the tall, hairy ma n- beas t sr epor t e d l ro m N o rth A m e ri c a (the Big Foot or sasquatch) and the Himalayas (the yeti) are shy modern-day desc'endantsof a giant $sian primate called Gigantopithecus, which rhysteriouslyb€came e xti n c t about 300. 0 0 0y e a rsa g o .

In the early 1990s,explorer Ivan Mackerle led an expedition to the Gobi iri search of o ne such creature- the al l ergorhaihorhai . of Mongolian death worm. Allegedly resemblinga fat. dark red wormomeasuring up ro l .l met.es tong. * i $r poi ,-rr.i p roj ecti ons at both ends of i ts body. the d eath w orm spends much o[ the vear hidden in the desert sands,but occasionalh' fests upon the surface.

There hove been

hundreds of sighrings of rhe creoture known os Big.Foot. ln 1967, film wos foken of the beost of Bluff Creek, €olifornio.

KILTER WORM The N{ongolian death worm is greatly feared by the region's nomads, because it can squi rt a corrosi vepoi sor{ .and can ki l l hrrmansand livestockvia a strangeprocess resembling electrocution. The recent Gobi expedition failed to unearth the death worm. Peruvian zoologist Dr Peter Hocki ng i s currentl ypursui ng two mysdq/ing types of big cat, one of them striped and the other marked w i rh fi ne grey speckl es. reputedl y lurking in Peru's remote riinforests. Neither the cats n or thei r skul l s matches an) recognized species. '' The. iatzelworm has been reported for centuries from the AIps of central Europe, but sci encehas sti l l to exami ne a speci men. E yew i tnesses l i ken

Sceplicsinsisi thol the so-colled dpemon is reclly o mqn dressed in onimol skins.

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the creature to a one-metreJong serpentine lizard with two small front less. Freakish mystery ir"utt. well be nothing more than abnormal -oy indiriduals of known species. The enigmatic.h{orped jackals of Sri Lanka seem to be normal jackals that fbr some undefined reason bear a small horn at the back of their head. "-',EQuallll Fu-jian's elusive blue tigers are ,probably just an unLrsualgenetically-based col our vari etvof the-ordi rrary ti ger. Such mvsterv beasts are known species erlcountered outside their normal di stri brrti onl arrsc.rrsrral lcompri \ si ngexolic animals that har,e escaped from captivity.

## .u The vyorld's greof deserfs q n d n e q r-limit le s s o c e q ns qre the qreqs where s p e c t o c u lq r n e w s p e c ie s could sfill be conceoled Dr KorlShuker,Cryptozoologist |i@Rr "F This wo.uld seem to be the explanation for I-rke q u e f f i r e p o r f s o l 'b i g c a r s ' r e s e m b l i n g pumas

or black panthers stalkins the c o u r r t r y s i d e i n B r i t a i r r . c o n t i n e r r t a l E ur o p e . and Australia.

HIDING

FROM

SCIENCE

Even if we assumethat many of the mvsterl' ani mal s on fi l e real l y are urrdi scor cr ed species,how can we explain the secr-etof theirluccess in eluding scientific scmtinv for so long? There are still unexplored regions of our world and it is from these areasthat reports of unfamiliar beastshave emerged. A prime example is Vietnam - for so long a war zone whose rnountain forests rvere off-limits to sci enti sts. These A reas are now b eing intenseh' explored and, during the 1990s, have rei eal ed a reri tabl esl ampedeof lar gi. . ne\\'rnarr)mal s. i ncl rrdi ngthe V u Quar r gox. the hoi-vgoat, and severalhighly novel deer. The dense rainforestsof New Guinea and the Mato Grosso, the Congo's fbrbidding swamplands, the battle-torn coul]tries of Cambodia and Rwanda, the drug-traffickers' jungle strongholds iu Colombia, as rvell as the world's largest lakes and vast oceans,are the areas where explorers mav firrd lascirrating lle\v crea[ures.

&- * ilE

CONTRACT

ON THE NEW EVIDENCE DEATHOF WPC YVONruT

FlrrcnrRsuecEsrs THAT HER KIttER WAS

nru Ml6 oR CIA

AgsAsstN.DnvtoGuvarr THECASE R E -EXAM I N E S

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\, ---. normally serene StJames'sSquare in V x London. The ll-rouncl burst, from a Sterline automatic assaultweapon, felled a nr*b.*. of Libyan demonstrators protesttng against their leader, Mu'ammar Gaddafi, outside the Libl'an embassy' Killed outright was \4bman Police Constable (\ ?C) Yvonne Fletcher. shell-casings on the first floor of the embassy - the Libl'an People's Bureau. And later, intelligence sources revealed that they had intercepted a message from Gaddafi 24 hours prior to the shooting, authorizing officials inside the Bureau to open fire on the demonstrators. Public o ut r age ens ur ed th e e x p rrl s i o no f L i b y an diplom at s fi o m Bri ta i n . E ight een m on th s l a te r. o n 5 April 1985, the 'La Belle' discotheque in West Berlin was razed b1za terrorist bomb. One US servi c em an and a ) o u n g T u rk i s h woman were killed outright, and ? 3 0 people inju re d . Pre s i d e n t Ronald Reagan claimed to have

TTTB ITBMO

Margaret Thatcher. R efl ecti ng the continue- , publ i c hosti l i ty agai nst Li byans.Thatcher order ed l arrnchof F-l l l bombers f r om a US Air Force base in East furgl i a. A sl eep i n a B e douin tent i nsi de Tri pol i ' s Golden

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Gate barracks as the bombers slr llck.

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i nj rrrr. H i s nr' osons.however . rvere badlr r'r'ounded, and h i s I 5-nronth-ol d adopr ed daughter rvaski l l ed.

DYNAMITE

; .:+

DOCUMENTS

In 1992.B ri ti sh aurhor and researcher Joe ' V i al l s w as rummagi ng around i n his old fi l es l ooki ng for materi al for a book he was rrl i ri us..U rhough he rrasl i ri ng i n A u st r alia at thc ti me, V i al l s had heen resi d enr in Britain rvhen Fletcher \\iasmurd.ered, work-. , irrg for the Hughes Tool Company - an organization tnat orgarlzauon that olten often lronteo fronted tor for LIA CIA personnel.

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t wer e ' dy n a m i te ' .T h e y the existence of what to be an 'ultra lowTool Company at 8 S t J am e s ' s Sq u a re . Libyan t to the

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t r ue c ons pi ra c y th e o ri s t, began to wonder if there a link between the secret, possibly ClA-operated. office and

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Scrutini zing a BBC film taken t..'in StJames'sSquareat the time of the murder, Vialls theorized that the fatal shot had f r om t he H u g h e s b u i l d i n g . H e w a s he pos s e s s e d a mn i n g e v i d e n c eo f r B r it is h- US int el l i g e n c ec o n s p i ra c yto k i l l Fletcher, but, in every respect except Ifialls' was wrong. However, his belief B r it is h and U S i n te l l i g e n c e w e re Fletcher's murder is now borne out â&#x201A;Źvidence. T--

R.EOPENING

THE CASE

Vialls had sent a letter to Channel Four :;::r:: Television in London, who considered the i^ f^ --^t i^t^ an,,i-a enough information convincing to rrequire ^^- . ; - ^; - --^,,^h d e t ailed inv es ti g a ti o n . Ex e c u ti v e s a t F our c o n ta c te d F u l c ru m tions, a highly regarded documencompany, who set about a coms iv e inv es ti g a ri o n . T h e a l a rm i n g ! -ir'.,.-'-

.' of their meticulousresearchwere

in the Channel Four Television programme Dispalrhes in April 1996. Fulcrum first attempted to compare Fletcher's original autopsy with the official inquest report, and contacted coroner ul K napm an, w h o p re s i d e d o v e r th e

A The corner of 5t Jomes3 Squore outside rhe Libyon embossy (inset, building on left) oppeored ro ploy hosf to o Libyon civil wor in 1984. New evidence,

inquest. Knapman refused tl.refilm makers accessto the autopsy findings. despite the request being routed through X'onne Fletcher's mother. Receirirrg advice from Professor Bernard Krieht. a leading British consultant pathologist,Fulcrum resubmi tted thei r reqrrr.l - noti ng it conformed to requirements of the Coroner's Act - and the report u'asdtrlr.released.

though, suggests lhot fhe 'profesterg' were poid by the ClA.

A U TOP S Y

C ON FIR MA TION

Immediateh'. a nnmber of inconsistencies were evident. Foremost was the original findings of the pathologist, Dr Ian West, who rvrote in his autopsy report: 'The angle of the builet wound track indicates that [\{?C Fletcher] was shot in the back by a person situated at a considerably higher 1er,e1...the track would indicate that she had been shot from the upper floors of an adjacent building [to the Libyan People'sBureaul .' Dr West noted that the bullet's entry track was at an angle of 60"-70". During later evidence given at the inquest, West changed his mind. Now he agreed rvith police investigators that the bullet had come from the first floor of the Libvan

= 3

are even more pronounced following the remor,al of part of the bullet's propellant, slorving its speed and, equally importantly, creating a less audible discharge. The latter is a knorvn technique of British SAS snipers. The damage caused by a bullet doctored in this rr'avis horrific. The tumbling bullet tears throush the bodr,, ripping tissueand vital organs bevond repair. \{lhoer,er shot \\'onr-reFletcher rras arvareit was a death shot in everv sense. The automatic rveapon used inside the Libvan Bureau - a 9 mm Sterling submachine gun - was not silenced. The sharp sounds of its 11 rapid-fire rounds being discharged were caught on BBC videotape and analysed by an audio expert for the Dispatchesdocumentary. An additional

-6 o

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People's Bureau - signifying an entry wound of only 15'. This unusual revision was to prove vital. Fulcrum then had a number of experts examine the evidence in the nvo reports, including Hugh Thomas, a former Chief Consultant to the British Armv in Northern Ireland - and an acknol'ledged expert on gunshot wounds. Thomas stated that Dr West's testimony at the inqi.restrvas 'rubbish', concluding that the updated scenario West painted for the coroner was 'impossible'. Backtracking over the postrnortem report, Thomas was conrinced that the bullet that struck \APC Fletcher must have come from the upper floors of an adjacent building. Totalling five floors, the Libyan building simply did not have a high enough elevation for the fatal shot. TU MBT I NG

of Fletcher being hit oroved rhqt 12 shofs hod been fired in st Jomes3r':- . Squore, nol I I,

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B U IT ET

Forensic examination also showed the bullet's energy was depleted and the round was 'tumbling' as it hit the police officer. The tumbling effect and the 'terminal velocitv' (the velocity of the bullet as it strikes its target) are consistent with the use of silencers. Significantly, these effects

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t the sound of a'duller' gunds after the Libyan gunman The evidence was irrefutable bullet had been fired. team next learned

that

and US I nt e l l i g e n c ew e re ru n n i n g a rveillanceposl on the upper floors :James'sSquare.nvo doors awayfrom Libyan People's Bureau. Tom Peile, a er security officer at number 3, :aled that as many as 40 intelligence were active at lhe surveillance post

week spr ior to th e s h o o ti n g . illance techniques included readne and telex traffic, the use of m ic ro p h o n e sto p i c k u p c o n and, where possible, physically ibugs' inside the Bureau itself. In MI6, MI5, CIA and the Special had huma n ' s o u rc e s w i th i n th e who were providing regular r . S ignif i c a n tl y . MI5 k n e w th e a. cache of guns sealed in a

on t he f i rs t fl o o r o f th e B u re a u . wer e all 9 m m c a l i b re w e a p o n s- l h e 'â&#x201A;Źalibre bullet that killed Fletcher.

A A memoriol stone in 5t Jomes's Squore morks the spol ot which Yvonne Fletcher fell. As she loy dying, her fionce, Constoble Michoel tiddell, crodled her in his orms. She died 9O minufes loter in hospirol. lronicolly, the slight 25-yeor-old WPC hqd been foo

TETTIGENCE

PRESENCE

and knowledgeable source The X Factor that the fatal shot :rainly came from 3 St James's - location of the secret MIS,/CIA lce post. The operation was engi-

short to loin the police, but hod been given speciol dispensotion becouse of her drive ond

The XFactor was also told that the architects of the plan \{ere concerned that deaths of Libyan protesters by Gaddafi's own assassinwould not be enough to outrage the British public. Consequently, an additional target was chosen that rvas certain to inflame public opinion. Yvonne Fletcher was the sacrificial lamb. By 1984, Reagan-administration insiders believed victory in the forthcoming elections relied on the downfall of Gaddafi. However, US officials found no appetite on the part of their NATO allies to sr.rpportUS militarv action against Libra. \\-ith the killing of Fletcher. the British attitudes to Li bva hardened. and the gover nm ent allorved US bombers to flr' from British bases- an option previouslvunthinkable.

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enthusiosm.

S H OOT

areate public outrage that would ned the existing 'soft' view of b y the Ltrltr s h gov er nm ent . E

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K ItL

P OLIC Y

In a House of Cornmons debate in the summer of 1996, the British government dismissed the nerr' facts disclosed about the Fletcher shooting. \\'hy? It would appear that thev do not nish to addressthe unpalatable fact that elements within Britain's own securitv serrices are out of control. Four vears after Fletcher's death, another atrocity was to occur which again involved Libya, Britain and the US the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. This case also

;t*i,rut*ffilitT"i'$@ In the next isszz, INSIDE STORY ln uesligates the CIA's role in the Lockerbie disaster, and the real reason Pan Amflight

103 was bombed.

ffiX#K 0r tffi

RTCHRND WISEMAN IS THE MEDIA,S PARANoRMAL SCEPTIC OF THE MOMENT. BUT THERE IS A MORE SERIOUS SIDE TO THE AcADEMIC'S RESEARcH INTo PSYCHIC CI-AIMANTS he concrete campus of the University of Hertfordshire is an unlikely place to find one of the IIK's foremost research centres into the par.rnormal. But it's a location that, since the iffi Perrott-Warrick Research Unit was set up in 1992, the media has beat a regular path to, in search of the down-to-earth comments of Richard Wiseman. The 3O-year-old psychologist became known to TV viewers in the summer of 1996 with his regular spot on tlre BBC's Out Of This Wmldprogramme. Wiseman's role as the debunker of psychic claimants upset many people, but the mild mannered academic remains unrepentant. fle's all for raiiing the standards of testing psychic claims and to this end has published two books outlining guidelines for such research and sits on the investigation committee of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). His latest book, Deception and Sef4eception: Irwestigating Psychia, is a collection of his ovr'n research fiodirtgr. In his spare time Wisemano an Associate of the Inner Magic Circle, likes to entertain himself and others with magic tricks. In facto it was his childhood interest in magic that set him on the trail of fake psychics.

W @ I was about sevenwhen I began with those little boxed magic setsyou can get - I used to bore everyone at school with it. I think it was those experiences, when you have a simple trick and you realize that you can fool people, that made me think, 'I wonder what's going on inside people's heads that th a t c an happen. '

Did you olwoys think much of the pqronormql wqs iust trickery? I'd watched the Arthur C. Clarke shows as a kid and wondered whether the things I saw were real or more like the tricks I was performing. But I didn't really thi nk too much about i t.

When did you consider it more seriously? At university, I studied psychology.At the end of the course, I wanted to concentrate more on this area of paranormal deception. That's when the University of Edinburgh was advertising a Ph.D position in the psychology ofdeception and parapsychology.So I did that for four years.

Whqr did your reseqrch involve? It was looking at the psychology that magicians use to fake psychic ability - how they get an audience to look in a certain place at a certain time, make certain assumptions or misremember the trick. Civen that that's how you can cheat, how can you test somebody who claims to be psychic so they can't do those sorts of things, so you can seewhether they're genuine?

Whqt psychic clqims did you exomine? We tested the SORRAT fSociety for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis] group in America, who are best known for the 'Mini-Lab' phenomena. They take a fish tank, turn it upside down so it's a sealed, clear

box, put some objects inside, and film it while the whether somebody else has got to it? Well, you can 'spirits' allegedly move the objects around. It's really use sealing wax, envelopes, all this kind of stuff. But hokey stuff. the fact is that there are manuals out there on how Their claim was that if we sealed up a deck of ESP to get into envelopes so they don't show any signs cards, sent them acrossto SORRAT, the spirits would of tampering. The CIA release such a manual called Flaps and Seals.Scientistswho did the other studies, I write down the order of the cards. So we thought: how would a magician get into these without showing suspect,just didn't know about that sort of literature. how any signs of tampering, and would you block that. In the end, we encapsulated the cards in about Whot hoppened ofter you got your Ph.D? 500 grams of resin with chemical traces in it so that it I moved down to the University of Hertfordshire to couldn'tr be couron De melted mereo clown down ancl and set up a research unit, similar to # .s reconstituted.\,!'esent the cards & 6 the one in Edinburgh, but doing â&#x201A;ŹF =across.They came back a month things differently in that we would If psychicpowersexist at later, the spirits having written take a slightlv more sceptical all - and nd it's it'. a big if down their guesses.Out of 25 cards stance to the paranormal. We then it'.'sa small ability ,L?ty they had only got eight right, which rvoul d al so exami ne cl ai m s t o which wouldn't is what you would expect by chance. psvchic abiliq'. )ou

notice in eaerydryllfe

How did SORRATreqcl to your conclusion? They were fairly annoyed. They had done similar testswith scientistswho hadn't gone to such lengths to seal the decks, and SORRAI always managed to guessthem correctly. They said maybe the resin stopped the spirits seeing inside the deck.

Do you think some pqrqpsychologisfs hove poor stondqrds for their tesfs? Sometimes. I think things have changed fairly recently, though. \A4ren I was doing the SORRAT study, which was in 1991, there wasn't a huge amount of understanding of deception and magic techniques among most paiapsychologists.For example, how do you wrap up a deck of cards so that you can tell

â&#x201A;Ź:: = F

How mqny of these clqims hove you exqmined since? Well, there are only a few people

who can produce sufficient anecdotal evidence of their powers to convince me that they are even worth investigating. And there are even fewer of them who are prepared to be tested properly. 5o who hqs come forwqrd? We tested Chris Robinson, the psychic detective, and Carol Everret, the psychic diagnostian, lvho claims to be able to tell what's wrong with you just bv looking at you. We went to India and tested a couple of the local gurus. We've also looked atJavtee, the psl'chic dog who knows when his owner is coming home - the biologist Rupert Sheldrake'spet project, as it were.

Hqve ony convinced you thof they hove psychic qbiliries? No. The pattern is alwaysthe same. j- lir"t come along with anecdotal i er"idence.\Arhenvou rule out self ] deception, other deception and put ! them to the test. their experiences f look pretty ordinary. That's why I'm very much convinced that if there are psychic powers, they are not large. They are not the sort of things that people can produce a demonstration of and you go, 'Oh, wow, that's absolutely incredible.'

Whof obout the results of pqst porqnormql fests, by SPRmembers for exqmple? The problem is knowing that what's written down is what actually happened. You're trusting the

memory of the people who wrote these reports. As a magician, I know that people easily misremember a trick you have performed. It's the same with the reports into psychics. I did a retrospective study into Eusapia Palladino, who was supposed to be one of the best physical mediums at the turn of the century. She was investigated by the SPR in an incredibly detailed way. The report's about 250 pages. \A/hen looked at closely,though, it's not as good as people think it is. If that's the best evidence, I'm not convinced.

Whot oflrqcfed you to investigote Swomis? It was the fact that these are living claimants who seem to able to do something extraordinary. I met Professor Erlendur Haraldsson from the University of Iceland. who's done a lot of work with the Indian mystic Sai Baba, and he told me he'd seen a lot of stuff that couldn't be explained away as magic tricks. He asked if I'd like to go with him and test Swami Premananda under more rigorous conditions.

Whqf wqs fhis Swomi doing? Premananda was materializing objects in his hands during religious services - rings, trinkets, that sort of thing. I saw him materialize things informally, and it was very impressive.

As o mogiciqn, couldn't you tell whether he wos using sleighr-of-hcnd or not? Magicians don't know the answer to everything. They'll go to magicians' conventions and be fooled because there are new techniques coming out all the time. It was the same with the Swami. To rule out sleight-of-hand as much as possible, the procedure we came up with was to examine his hand, wash it, place a clear plastic bag over and seal it round the wrist and then ask him to materialize an object inside the bag.

How did the Swomi's tests go? Every time the bag was placed over Premananda's hand, he didn't produce anything. As soon as the bag came off, he started producing things again. We concluded it was probably fraud, because when we looked back at a video recording we'd made, his hand always went out of view before objects materialized.

On TV, yovtre presenfed qs q sceptic. How do you feel qbout being cost in this role? I personally quite like it. I don't want unbalanced programmes going out. For the most part, the public believe what they see on TV and if they're only being told one side of the story I think that's unfair. I'm not saying that they should be told these things aren't paranormal, just that both sides should be presented so that the public can make up their own mind.

Whor do you recommend if people wqnf fo tesl psychic cloims? It should be done under conditions that are fair to the claimant and which don't preclude cheating and self-deception. We're pushing people to consult with magicians or security experts as the appropriate source of expertise. We also suggest running informal pilot studies, videotaping them, showing the tapes to the claimants, asking what they think. Simple things like that improve the quality of research in this area.

Are more people qpplying fo do reseqrch with you qt Herffordshire University? More people know we're there, so we get a lot more applicants, which is fine. I think people should be interested in these things. But what we want is good evidence and investigations in this area because that's the only way to work out if there's anything to it. tr S

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t had been a routine nvo-hourjourney. Flight BA 5061 from Milan rvas nearing the end of its rr,rn and was e+ffi#s! descending through the darkness over the south Pennines on its final approach to Manchester Airport. The time rvas6.48 p.m. on 6Januar,v1995 a n d t he B r ir is h Ai rrv a rs B o e i n g 7 3 7 w a s about 4,000 feet, preparing to turn toltards runway 24. Captain Roger Wills u'as at the controls, battling a strong north-westerh' wind, and first officer Mark Stuart rvasmonitoring the instruments. Both were unprepared for r,hat happened next. 'I sau' something out of my peripheral vision,' Stuart explains. 'M,v instinct was to grab the controls as it seemed to be coming towards us. But I was unable to move more than an inch before it was upon us and past us.' The object flew past at high speed to the

ri ght of the ai l cl ri t - possi bl rrr' i thi nj trst a metre of them. In r.rnderthree secondsit had gone. The first offrcer turned ashen faced to his Captain and asked, 'Did vou see that?' Roger Wills had seen the object, although none of the passengersappear to have been r,vitnesses. This is perhaps unsllrprising given their restricted r,'iervfrom the small side windor,r,s.

A Meleorifes entering eorlh's otmosphere con eosily be misloken os olien croft, ond moy well hove been behind

s o E o o o

the BA 5O6l encounler (insef)over

-I 6

Monchesfer. The foct thqt the newspopers

got the heighr of the .c._Lo==1..t__F_Il=-e_"_!t_ty:!_.1"=-*

The creu' immediately called Manchester' and asked if there r'ras a radar fix on anr' other craft in the vicinit)'. Control reported that there w as nothi ng on screen. Explaining their close encolrnter, the tr.vo pilots were asked r.vhether ther, rvished to file an 'air miss' report. Thel' decided to wait and think about it. Upon landing a felv minutes later, the men comDared notes and made sketchesof

neor collisionso wildly incorrect is on indicotion of the desire for o good story, rolher lhon octuol focls.

-9 rc o

\1hat they had seen. These were broadly :imilar. Stuart drew a silver-wedge shaped craft u'ith streaks along the side. Captain \\-ilIs thought it was less concrete and drew ir more as a series of lights, but agreed that it rtas still wedge shaped. The similarity clecided the two men - thev would file an ;rir miss report. The Civil Aviation Authority C-\\) would then have to find out what had nearly knocked them out of the sky. I N V ESTIG A T I O N The case gained instant notoriety. \A4rile both Wills and Stuart declined to give interrierr's at first, the story was leaked to the press. Even as the CAA struggled to get to erips with the incident, the tabloids were har-ing a field day. The CAA investigated every possible explanation for the near collision, but cor-rld find no answers. Eventually, they began speculating about UFOs - mentioning, possibly for the first time in an official air miss report, 'extraterrestrial activity'. A cautionary note added:'Fascinating though it may be, it is not within the lair miss] group's remit and must be left to those rihose interest lies in that field.' The fact that the CAA was entertaining the possibility of UFOs was like a red rag to the media. Many took it as an admission that the plane had encountered aliens. L'n fo rtu nat elyB . A 5061 ' sre p u ta ti o n ma y riell be unjustified. There are many naturally occurring phenomena that can be mistaken as some kind of intelligent alien craft, and this could have been the case in the \Ianchester near collision. The pilots could, for example, have observed a bright

v Sighrings of fhe UFO involved in fhe BA 506l neor-miss were olso reported from lhe ground. A reconslruclion of the croft ollegedly seen by Monchester studenl Mork Lloyd mqintoined fhe triongulor shope, but

fireball meteor, known as a bolide. The illusion of an alien craft is created when space debri s enters the earth' s atmosphere and burns up. Invariably these strange lights are high in the the atmosphere. and therefore out of radar range, even though they appear to be close by. From what is known from eyew i tnessdescri pti ons of vari ou s other fi rebal l events.the accountsgi ven by the experi enced B A 5061 pi l ots cl osely matchesthat of a bol i de si ghti ng.

differed in size. According ro Lloyd, it

MID .A IR

MY S TE R IE S

wos obouf 'the size of Wembley Slodium'.

Strange, naturally occurring phenomena have a l ong hi story i n U FO si ghti ngs. During World War II there were thousands of aircraft in flight over Europe and the Pacific on bombing raids and reconnaissance missions, and there were dozens of sightings of strange lights that appeared to dog Altied aircraft. The US Air Force gave them the name 'foo fighters' after a comic strip cartoon figure. \A4rat they did not appreciate until later was that the Axis pilots were seeing them too. These glittering lights littered the skies as if they were observing the battles, yet never interfered. After the war had ended, US military aircraft continued to report a number of encounters with UFOs. Indeed objects very like the foo fighters - small lights only half a metre or so in diameter - continued to be

,-#

seen to this day. It is barely appreciated even by UFOlogists that these sightings still continue, and the possibility of naturally occurring phenomena is also routinely overlooked by the military. MI T I T A RY ' IAA D N ES S Not all UFO encounters can be explained away as atmospheric anomalies, and in some situationsthe military are prepared to respond with force. In August 1956, there were two separateUFO encounters over the UKwithin a week. Radar systemsacrossEast Anglia detected a strange object moving between Bentwaters and Lakenheath. A USAF transport plane fllng at 5,000 feet saw the object - a smudgy yellow light from above. Two RAF Venom fighters were scrambled and intercepted the object above 'tr Ely. To this date, the crew remain adamant = o that they had a clear radar target of a sta- 5 tionary object which, try as they might, they o could not lock on to. I A few days later, Flight Officer Wilbur Wright was one of twoJavelin pilots over the u sea between the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth when they were ordered to pletely disappeared. Was this a genuine sighting, or yet another example of bizarre break off their practice mission to intercept a target picked up by a secret radar site atmospheric phenomena? There have been other similar casesthat nearby. They quickly locked on to the object and then saw it with their own eyesdeny rational explanation. In September 1976, an Iranian Air Force Phantom rr'as a bright disc reflecting the sun and sitting sent lo intercept a UFO on the out,--"skirts of Tehran after it was -rnn-,.& seen by many people on

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{ Foofoge shor by Quentin Fogorty on 3(F32 December 1978 showed o formofion of up to six UFOs. These brighr lights oppeored lo hqve o dom e d 'c o b i n 'o n d on eslimoted length of 3O mefres. More importontly, New

the ground. The pilot noticed a small object eject from the glowing light and judged that he was under attack. Instinctively, he powered up his computercontrolled equipment and prepared to Iaunch an air-to-air missile. As he pressed the button to fire ilhat might have been the first shot in an inter-planetary war, all power drained from his aircraft. The object then returned into the UFO and the Phantom's power returned to normal. In casessuch as these, there appears little alternative to suggest that some sort of intelligent craft with superior abilities to our own 'primitive' defences is evident. Natural phenomena new to science, while not ruled out, seem less likely than in cases such as the foo fighter type of sighting. PROO F

LA ST ?

Despite the rising number of mid-air encounters, the 'big case' which married the credibiliq' of public sightings to pilot testimony and radar trackings was still missing. The world waswaiting for first classfilm footage of the UFO phenomena, and this ideal was finally fulfilled in December 1978 above New Zealand's south island. In the early hours of 21 December, the crew of a Safe Air cargo plane were asked to

Zeolond rodor (inset) olso confirmed lhe presence of UFOs.

V A Brirish Airwoys promofionol video unintenfionolly copfured o UFO, opporently 'ploying tog'with o Concorde. The behqviour of the UFO - especiolly its exfreme occelerqfion - suggesled il wos o 'foo fighfer'.

look for unusual radar targets being tracked at Wellington Airport. John Cordy, an air traffic controller. stated that the targets were unlike any he had ever seen before. Captain Vern Powell took his Argosy ,: into the area and saw a strange light which: paced the aircraft forjust over 19 km along-.: the coastbefore disappearing. This sighting, and others in the area, attracted the attention of an Australian TV, channel. They contacted one of their reporters. Quentin Fogarty. who happened to be on holiday nearby. After the TV company gave him the details, Fogartyjumped at the chance. He began his report by interviewing the UFO witnesses, and then

The first officer... looked up in time fo see q dork obiecr pqss down rhe side of fhe qircroff ot high speedi if wqs wedgeshoped wirh q block stripe BA 506l Pilots'Neor Miss Reoort

persuaded Safe Air on rhe night of 30-31 December to let him fly the same route. . However, Fogarty and the new Argosy erâ&#x201A;Źw:.i. headed by Captain Bill Startup did not l'l expect what happened next. Once again, radar picked up UFOs and,:, strange lights flew alongside the plane.. 'Let's hope they're friendly,' Fogarty wryly commented as the uni i enti ded' light s danced nearby, filling the TV camera lens. The film evidencewasextensivelyinvestigated by optical physicistBruce Maccabee, who flew out from Washington to New Zealand. to study the case. Maccabee was

convinced that something truly inexplicable was recorded. and the case is widely regarded as one of the most convincinc' examples ol UFO realiry. Ilowever, there ale those who disagree. Sceptics have attempted to prove that the UFOs were many things, from stars and planets to moonlight shining off a cabbage

{S rB They've tested our defences lo see if we con withsfqnd qn in v q s i o n . . . d t so me ti me i n th e fufure we cqn expecf UFOs ro become increqsingly hosfile CIA lnformont, os fold to Journolist WorrenSmith

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A Luminous oblecrs were sighted ond photogrophed in the middle of o formqtion of

patch. The air crew, who flew the route on a r egular bas i s . p ro fo u n d l y d i s a g re e . Fogarty also remains completely baffled as to what he enc ou n te re do n th a t n i g h t. S o do t he UFOs s i g h te d i n th e s e c l o s e encounters represent a physical threat? In evaluating the Manchester Airport case the CAA appear to have thought this was possible. But they were also aware that this case was far from unique.

Tqhikowo Ki 36 reconnoissonce plones in 1942. Nicknomed'foo fighrers' by rhe US, the stronge lights olormed ond confused enemy ond Allied forces olike. Alien inrelligence wos suggested, but

craft rvasable to fly on to Schipol, Holland, u'here it made an emergency landing. A hole rvas found in the tail fin where something had passedright through. It was not a bird strike, as metallic frasments were discovered there. The C-\\ rr-ereunable to solve this case. Thinking that some kind of military technologl might har-ebeen involved the MoD n-asbrought in. and l'as equally mystified. Thev even speculatedthat space debris reentering the atmosphere from earth orbit could hale protoked a million-to-one freak collision. The truth is that something struck the aircraft ar-rdit snrrived. The next time an aircraft might not be so luckv.

modern science now

FOE?

rhinks ir con exploin

GtOB A t

T h e p rospe ct of a c ollis ion is not m er elv

these phenomeno os

In August 1984, a Kondarr . . *::r.rl.al. Trislanderon a cargoflight from Stanstead to Amsterdamwasstruck by an object with such force that it lost an engine.The air-

nolurol occurrences.

Close encounters have also been recorded around -\uglst 1984 br aircraft crew over Tasmania. Brazil. France and Russia, and there are doubtlessmanv more unreported. The rise in mid-air encoLlntershas reached epidemic proportions and mav rvell be considered alarming bv anvone planning to travel br-air. Numerons airlir-res have been involved and, rvhile most prefer their pilots not to talk about the episodes for fear of undermining passengerconfidence, no airline is more prone than any other. As such, despite the commercial interests of airlines, and despite the ridicule about little green men that inevitably attaches itself to these stories, lve simply have to take mid-e

FR I E ND

S IGH TIN GS

:*#Hdffi'*mm In the next issue, UFO FILE inaestigatesthe strange sightings reported lry l,lASA astronauts returningfrom manned spau flights.