Whilst reading Mr. Good’s newest book, “Unearthly Disclosure”, we were surprised to come across a passage that related to his own weird nocturnal experiences.  Although at first we thought he might have been describing Nick Pope’s alleged abduction experiences, it is clear that he has experienced paralysis and strange lights himself.  Judge for yourself from this extract:

“Regarding ‘sleep paralysis’, I have experienced this myself on numerous occasions, although seldom in recent years.  Typically, I wake up in the small hours fully conscious, my body becoming progressively paralysed, and/or the bed apparently vibrating, and aware of the sense of malevolence.  Only through a supreme effort am I able to ‘dislodge’ whatever it is.  I have neither seen nor heard anything unusual on these occasions, however.  Abduction proponents maintain that this is the initial stage of a typical alien abduction.  They may well be right, but I have no intention of finding out!  In any case, my feeling is that these particular ‘presences’ are not necessarily of extra-terrestrial origin... In my own case, on some occasions the onset of paralysis has occurred while I am awake, as my girlfriend can verify:  In fact, she too has experienced the phenomenon, which on one occasion, in Germany in 1989, was accompanied by blue light and strange sounds, the source of which could not be determined.”

Mr. Good then goes on to describe Dr Susan Blackmore’s hypothesis that the modern ‘myth’ of alien abduction is simply a newer version of sleep paralysis.  In this way, he seems to distance himself from the possibility that he too is a victim of alien abduction.  The fact that he seems able to ‘dislodge’ the energy or force that binds him would support this idea.  However, we have noticed how regularly the main players within UFOlogy seem to come forward with their own anomalous experiences.

This seemed to start with Jon King, who edited ‘UFO Reality’, a magazine that is unfortunately no longer available through mainstream outlets in the UK.  He devoted almost an entire issue to his own abduction experience.  Little is now heard of Mr. King, despite once having been a vociferous proponent of the ETH in this country. As discussed in our recent review of Mr. Good’s lecture, the UFO phenomenon seems to be following Graham Shepherd around, too, with weird results. Then there’s Nick Pope, who Dave managed to put on the spot on the James Whale Show on Talk Radio, UK, relating to an account in his book ‘The Uninvited’.  Many people believe that the account about ‘Peter’ actually relates to Pope himself, and his girlfriend of the time.  Dave’s enquiry into the truth behind this matter was championed by James Whale and received what can only be described as ‘the run around’ from Mr. Pope

One can understand why researchers in this field would rather not have their own personal experiences come under public scrutiny, but given their interest in these matters, it is surely relevant to recognise their own subjective experiences.  Tim Good, to his credit, seems to be doing this.  As a final point, one wonders whether the initial spark that leads such bright individuals as Good, King and Pope down the gnarly path of UFOlogy stems from their own deep-seated experiences.  Is it possible that more authors and researchers in this field have their own stories to tell?

Tim Good is an author held in tremendous respect by many UFOlogists in Britain, ourselves included.  His research is international, often concentrating on bizarre events that have allegedly occurred in some of the most obscure parts of the globe.  Yet his concentration on the integrity of his witnesses allows him to overcome the barriers that that exist between the reality he reveals, and the everyday world in which we all live.  His high standing within the research field has also given him access to many sources within the military and intelligence community who would otherwise steer clear of the UFO subject.

Tim conducted a series of 3 lectures in England to promote his new book, ‘Unearthly Disclosure’.  A relatively thin tome by his recent standards, it seems to mark a return to a format that has proven highly successful in the past.  One hopes so.  The text is full of well-documented, personally researched incidents of the highest order of weirdness.  Not quite as weird as some of the members of the audience in Birmingham, perhaps, but getting there…

The thesis of the book is that the American Government has shrouded the UFO subject in secrecy to protect its ‘privileged contact’ with alien races based here on Earth.  Good cites many statements from reputable eye-witnesses that corroborate his claims that alien bases exist on Earth, some of which are deep below the sea.  What differentiates Good from his current contemporaries is his focus on ‘contactee’ accounts, where friendly humanoid aliens have imparted a tremendous amount of knowledge to the witness.  He seems to have less time for the ‘Greys’, but balances his humanoid incidents with photos of quite remarkable creatures, including those of Filiberto Caponi of Arquata del Tronto in Italy.  He also touched upon cattle mutilations, the Varginha case and the Chupacabras, including the story of a police officer who fired upon one that was setting upon his dog.  Despite shooting at point-blank range and using a dum-dum shell, the creature managed to escape, encapsulating the physical resilience of this supernatural phenomenon.  Yet, Good continually returns to the contactees as his main source of knowledge, and I imagine that this stance remains as controversial as ever.

Much of his talk was devoted to the plethora of oddities happening on the US Commonwealth island of Puerto Rico, a favourite haunt of Good in the past.  In recent times he has included the ex-British Airways pilot Graham Sheppard within his investigating team.  Sheppard is the level-headed pilot famous for his candid account of a near-miss with a disc-shaped UFO whilst piloting an air-liner. His most recent bizarre event occurred in Puerto Rico, while flying across the island.  He seemed to become mentally affected by some phenomenon and found himself suddenly on the other side of a mountain range.  The effect was instantaneous, and the light aircraft even had the same readings on the dials.  Good’s previous discussion of the magnetic effect caused by an alleged alien base in Antarctica seemed to imply that they believed that Sheppard’s aircraft had somehow been affected by the strong flux emanating from a similar facility on Puerto Rico.  Good cited other similar incidents of instantaneously teleported aircraft in the vicinity.  However, in the Q&A session, members of the audience concentrated instead upon Sheppard’s state of mind during the incident, and did not seem to be drawn towards the Bermuda Triangle-like effect as a cause.  I suggested that Sheppard may have become a multiple UFO experiencer, in line with other people who somehow seemed to attract the phenomenon to themselves, and this was a possibility he admitted to having toyed with.  More likely, he said, though, was that he was always ‘looking up’, but one wonders how many experiences someone is subject to before starting to question their own inclusion in the phenomenon.

Finally, Good described his dealings with the American OSI, and provided anecdotal evidence that the UFO cover-up is alive and well in the halls of the Pentagon.  The sheer technological capability of the aliens making their home on our planet denotes their level as a threat, but also their importance to the US Government in its quest to embrace new technologies.  Good had alluded to the  account of a contactee that certain members of our community were colluding with the aliens, and were being prepared for evacuation, a rather ‘X-Files’-like scenario.  But in the end, he felt that the alien presence was a generally benign one, and that exposure of its extremely long-term interaction with our world would be a good idea.  He seemed less optimistic about the nature of our own species, particularly those involved in the general media, and one presumes that, in his mind, they are not top of the list for alien evacuation!

One thing struck me more than anything about Tim Good’s lecture at the Birmingham Midland Institute.  Where was everyone?  The assembled 100 or so surely represented the core of UFO nuts in the Midlands, ourselves included, of course.  (Is Gloucester in the Midlands or South-West?…an age-old question in these parts).   What was lacking was a broad-section of members of the public.  On the plus side, Good’s lecture assumed a well-rounded knowledge of UFOlogy, and that was certainly not a problem.  But in the year when UFO Magazine released the remarkable NASA footage, it seems odd that the subject has not gained a broader appeal in this country, even given the utter media apathy.  Graham Sheppard’s remarks about the attention span of the media, and thus by extension, presumably, the public, were not lost on us.  Nevertheless, the enthusiasm for the subject was apparent in the lecture hall, and one only hopes that that enthusiasm will eventually pervade into society at large, as it has done so in the US.  Let us hope that ‘Unearthly Disclosure’ will help attain that goal.