I was led to write this article by a rather unusual encounter with which I believed to be military police on what I thought was public land in Wiltshire.

On the 15th of June two of my friends and I decided to take a trip to Wiltshire, this was mostly to take in and admire the local sights, and also on the off chance of seeing any U.F.O phenomena. After a few hours driving up the M4 motorway, we turned off at Hungerford, which then took us into Marlborough. Once we came to the outskirts of Marlborough, we arrived at West Kennet Long Barrow, which is opposite Silbury Hill. I have been a visitor to the Long Barrow many times in the past, but my accompanying friends had not, so we parked in the lay-by and went to have a look around the barrow. (For readers who do not know, the Long Barrow is an Iron Age burial chambers open to the public.)

Before we took off on our walk to the Long Barrow, we decided to take with us some essential video and photographic equipment, as most experienced investigators know that any U.F.O activity occurs just when you least expect it to happen.

Once inside the Long Barrow, we saw that people had recently attended the site, as at the far end of the tomb, laid out on the floor was a name spelt in stones and two candles burning against the wall. This had us all puzzled, but knowing that what the tomb had been used for, so many centuries ago, (i.e. a burial chamber), then we thought maybe the stones were for someone who had passed on and this was some kind of bereavement ritual. By the time we made our way out of the tomb it was about 10 p.m., but being summer it was still quite light.

I then began looking about with my binoculars in all directions, when after about seven minutes I noticed in the western sky a single pulsing light, which was pulsing a greeny blue and red. I observed the pulsing light for another two minutes, when I then noticed that the first light had been joined by another two lights pulsing with similar colours. Upon seeing this, I then called for the attention of my two friends and asked them if they were able to observe the lights.

They could and then what ensued was a sighting that most, if not all investigators would find strange but very exciting. This sighting lasted for approximately fifteen minutes, a sighting which we were fortunate enough to capture on camcorder.( The image being poor but viewable.) (For the record I would like to state that the lights we had seen that night were some distance away, so we were unable to make a positive ID on what the lights were. But I can categorically state that the lights defied any conventional aeronautics) But it was what was to happen after the sighting that intrigued us the most.

The light(s) we had been previously viewing seemed to disappear over the Savanake forest between Hungerford and Marlborough. When from the same direction as the first light (which was a westerly direction) we could see an R.A.F Lynx helicopter followed by what we think was a Tornado jet from the north. It seemed that both the aircraft were heading towards the direction of the lights were observing, which by this time were disappearing over the Savanake forest.

Being in the position that we were, atop the Long Barrow, I believe that we were easily spotted by the helicopter passing over head. The time was now 10.25pm. It was just after the helicopter had passed overhead that a vehicle pulled into the lay-by where our car was parked. Looking through my binoculars, the vehicle that had parked had "POLICE" written on the side in bold black letters. It was a white ford escort van with a large searchlight centred on the roof. Upon seeing this I suggested that we get back to the car to find out if there was any problem, when we arrived at the car, the police vehicle was parked with its engine running and its lights on full beam.

I asked my friend Darren to open the boot of his car so we could put all our equipment away. It was when we had put the equipment away that the officers suddenly turned their engine off and got out.

When I saw the officers, I realized that they might not be who we thought they were. Firstly, what made them stand out was a microphone headpiece they were both wearing. Secondly, they had lapels with no identifying insignia, and thirdly their boots were of military type, and their uniform was of an R.A.F type dress. I noticed that in the back of their van they had two alsatian guard dogs. Just to note:-I or any of my colleagues have never been stopped by a police officer wearing this type of uniform or equipment. Also at this stage I would like to remind readers that we were on public land and had not broken any laws.

The officers (I shall call them this for the moment as I still do not know who they were) started to enquire as to our reasons for being in the area, and asked such questions as I quote : "What were you doing up on the Long Barrow?" unquote. Answer: "Looking at the night sky." Quote: "Who else is up on the Long Barrow?" unquote. Answer: "No one as far as we know." The questions carried along a similar path. To us it seemed that we were being mildly interrogated. After about five minutes of questions and answers, I tried to find out via a trick question if we were actually dealing with some form of local police.

I then asked the officer (Illustrated opposite) who seemed to be asking all the questions, if he would be able to tell us the way to Alton Barnes. With this the officer turned to his companion with a puzzled look, turned back to me and said quote: "Sorry we can't tell you the information you require as we are not local to this area." Unquote. With this they abruptly ceased the questions and left.

With the officers gone, we decided to make our way to the Barge Inn, which is situated in Alton Barnes and no thanks to the mysterious officers, we were late for our evening drink, as the pub had stopped serving for the night. So having no luck in the pub, we decided to drive around to find a decent sized hill on which we could continue our nights sky watch. We drove around for an hour, eventually finding a car park at the base of a large hill. Getting out, we started to climb the hill. The time by now was 1.15am. As we got halfway up the hill, I spotted what seemed to be either a listening post or tracking tower of some kind.

As I mentioned this to the others, a van appeared at the base of the hill and began scanning the hillside with its searchlight. We all ducked down into the undergrowth and hid from the light, which they scanned for about five minutes, then they abruptly left. Upon them doing this, so did we, deciding to head home, as we did not want to give any military/civilian police an excuse to take us away for further interrogation.

This whole incident startled me so much, I decided to investigate further. So I managed to get in touch with a contact that is much admired and respected in the field of UFOlogy, having done so much for the U.F.O cause. Well I can tell you that I am now glad I made the call, after explaining the whole incident, and describing the officers to X , I found his vast knowledge of the U.F.O and U.F.O cover up scene to be invaluable. In no uncertain terms, he told me these were definitely not your run of the mill police, being involved with the police for some years before leaving the service, I knew if anyone should know, X should.

He put forward two theories. Firstly, that myself and my friends had been accidentally caught up in military observation/tracking of the U.F.O(s). Or secondly, that we had become caught up in secret military exercises. X also added that these kind of military type encounters are becoming more common place with public reports from most U.F.O hot spots around the country on the increase. Apparently some of these military type personnel have been noticed wearing some kind of facial shield/visor.

What can this mean to us all in the U.F.O community? Well, to myself it seems clear that the government / M.O.D has had a sharp U-turn in policy concerning its own U.F.O agenda, and public reports of the U.F.O phenomena. The whole increase of M.o.D. activity has come about after the very much publicized account of COLIN ANDREWS military harassment incident, which was on June 21st, 1994. This incident recorded that Colin and several of his friends while filming crop circles were buzzed, to say the least, by a Lynx helicopter. Looking at the video footage, it seems to me buzzed is a mild term. To me, it seems they were dive bombed!

It is clear to see why the M.o.D. did not appreciate their presence in the area, because as Colin clearly recorded later, an R.A.F Lynx helicopter hovering over a white pulsing light in the centre of a crop circle. This footage re-inforced to me the conclusion I had already reached. That is that a recorded U.F.O phenomenon has increased four fold in the last decade. It is well known that the government has been keeping a close eye on this, and us, and having its own agenda for the U.F.O phenomena. Is it possible that certain parts of the Government are doing its utmost to intimidate and keep the public and foremost, U.F.O investigators away from these sites.

The very presence of officers arriving at places of sightings of UFO's can be no coincidence, and it would not surprise me in the least that our government(s) have learnt many lessons in how to deal with the U.F.O subject and the handling of the U.F.O community from its U.S counterparts. Using threats, denial, witness intimidation and scare tactics to silence or debunk witnesses into withdrawing their claims.

This leads me to say one last thing on this matter, and that is recently someone who works within the M.o.D. has come out and declared "YES! There are UFO's coming here." But this same person also says that there is NO government cover-up in progress. Well I have only one thing to say to this person: And that is he should try spending a weekend investigating UFO's in Wiltshire and surrounding counties, convenient how it is that this man from the M.o.D. has just come out and declared the above, as it is the very fact that the government tries to cover these issues up that keeps most U.F.O investigators researching deeper into the subject.

Just as a final note, one of my colleagues, who was with me on the trip received a very strange phone call the following day, relating to our visit to Wiltshire. The following are some quotations from the call, made at about 2pm, June 16th 1996. As he wishes to remain anonymous, I will call him Mr. Y . He described the voice as an "expressionless, obviously American voice.."

The call begins as follows:

VOICE: "Hello Mr. (Y), I believe you were in Wiltshire yesterday? Can you tell me what was your purpose there?"

MR Y: "I won't talk to you unless you tell me your name."

VOICE: (hesitation) "Err, BUD HOPKINS here -"(I now know it definitely was not Bud Hopkins, but I had not heard of him at the time, so he caught me out.)

MR Y: "Ok, Thank you, well, if you know where I was, there is no point in me denying it."

VOICE: "Mr. (Y), who was you with in Wiltshire, name them."

MR Y: "No, sorry, I can't do that, you must know who they were if you know me."

VOICE: "While you were in Wiltshire, did you see any UFO's?"

MR Y: "No, I had really bad footage. (This is somewhat an evasive answer, I did not want to say
anything implicate myself or my colleagues) And for all I know they could have been plane lights."

VOICE: "Yes, that's right." (Seemed pleased.) "Tell me, Mr. (Y), do you believe in UFO's?"

MR Y: (Dodging the question) "Err, Some people just like a bit of a day out. We only go for a
quick tour of old sites. It's not as if hey, they're going to land or anything. We're not interested in Military bases and we don't hoax crop circles or damage peoples land."

VOICE: "So, you're not objectively convinced?"

MR Y: (Blatant lie) "No, I don't believe in all that stuff."

VOICE: "Thank you Mr.(Y)" <CLICK> Hangs up phone.

Mr. Y summarizes the conversation: "I felt the questions were being read off a list, and spoken into some sort of microphone/effect unit I know this sounds a bit of a cliché I felt very uneasy as the voice felt alien to me."

I would like to thank the following people for their assitance with my research on this matter. Mr. X for his inspiration and help, and to Mr. Y, for sending me the text of his conversation, to all my colleagues who are dedicated to researching the UFO phenomena, and all the magazines who are trying to get the message across about UFO visitations and cover ups. Keep up the good work.

You can contact Roy Hale by Direct E-mail:roy@thelosthaven.co.uk

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