Nick Pope

Nick Pope with Bridget Grant

Nick Pope with Bridget Grant Leeds Lecture 21/9/01

Where Dr Mack’s lecture seemed to be devoid of examples from his research, Nick Pope’s entire slot was devoted to a single case. Nick introduced us to Bridget Grant on the Friday evening session, and she had appeared understandably nervous. On Saturday, however, she had evidently overcome much of her anxiety and delivered an excellent account of her remarkable experiences. Perhaps much of the credit for this must go to Nick, who facilitated the ‘interview’ format with a degree of sensitivity that was a credit to him.

‘Cosmic Conspiracies’, in common with many others in the UFO field in Britain, have been a little suspicious of Nick Pope, given his MoD background, but he certainly proved himself to be an able researcher and advocate of the abductee. We were impressed.

Too often, the UFO subject has placed the spotlight on the researcher rather than the experiencer. Nick Pope took a back-seat, talking only when there was a need to clarify, support or move the discussion on. His listening skills are excellent, his body language appropriately reflective, and he has evidently learned the client-centred approach used in counseling. As Budd Hopkins later noted, to investigate an abduction case is to necessarily become a therapist of sorts, and Pope clearly showed the skills needed to successfully manage a therapeutic relationship.

Bridget is a young, informally dressed woman who appears to have come to terms with her extraordinary experiences. The effects of an abduction encounter, or series of them in Bridget’s case, is often compared to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Perhaps there is a recognizable set of emotions to be worked through before arriving at the point where the abductee can share their feelings and personal experiences with the rest of the world. But the nature of this subject, and the Denial that the rest of the world chronically suffers from, must make the decision to emerge from the shadows of Ufology a very difficult one.

Perhaps such a move is itself part of the therapy Hopkins speaks of. I hope so, because the Leeds audience was attentive and mindful of the difficulties. A lesser audience might have easily wrecked the delicate atmosphere of the session.

The Experiences

Bridget’s weird experiences encompassed a range of paranormal phenomena, as well as a dramatic UFO encounter. She described odd events during her childhood in her home village in England that, at the time, were acceptable to her as a child, although bizarre. But it became apparent to her that she was experiencing things that other children did not. Her father had been a big help in dealing with these events, if only because he was not overtly dismissive of them. She encountered strange individuals, including an enigmatic man at the bottom of the garden, and a Chinese girl who lived in a gazebo-like house in the village that, it emerged, did not exist. A lifetime of encounters, interlaced with paranormal experiences, is not unusual explained Pope. Some of the encounters seemed to be screen memories and, with the help of Budd Hopkins and others, the lid was lifted on the underlying reality: More about that in a moment.

After that, Bridget turned to her main encounter, which took place in Los Angeles several years ago. She was driving on a road over the Freeway towards Brentwood when a ‘Billy Meier-type craft’ appeared close to the car. There was a passenger next to Bridget who also witnessed this incredible sight, but she has since disappeared from Bridget’s life, despite attempts to track her down. Bridget made a lot of her description of the time, place and circumstance of the encounter, seemingly verifying to herself the way it was grounded in reality. She cannot believe that a broad daylight encounter with a 30-40’ UFO could not have been witnessed by more people in Los Angeles, although she said that there was a more general spate of such sightings reported at the time.

Following the UFO encounter, Bridget was very shaken. She described two subsequent observations that held some significance for her; the sighting of 5 unmarked military helicopters and the appearance of a distinctive classic car, a personal interest of hers. But she was shaken deeply by the event itself, and needed ‘time out’ from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. She left with a friend to a retreat of sorts, and then encountered the UFO subject in other forms; posters in shops requesting sighting reports, and an enthusiast who seemed to understand her troubled reactions.

(Strangely, when she described a book called, I think, ‘Bringers of the Dawn’ describing the Pleiadians, I experienced a strange reaction myself, becoming suddenly aware of everyone in the auditorium simultaneously. This shift in awareness is a rare event for me, but not unique. Why that should have happened then, I don’t know, but her own descriptions of synchronous events seemed to resonate with something within me. Perhaps it means something, reflecting my own reality in some way. Either way, I’ll have to get that book!)

Regressive Hypnosis

Nick Pope had hinted throughout the interview that some of the memories seemed to be screens for deeper, hidden experiences. Through the help of a researcher called Delores Cannon, the technique of regressive hypnosis had been used to fill in some of the gaps. Bridget saw ‘stagnant green eyes’ in the shape of those of cats. The dark dressed man in the garden had been experienced ‘gliding’ towards a barn there, which made Bridget realize why she had been so wary of this building as a child. Finally, the dwelling of the Chinese girl, remembered consciously as a bizarre gazebo (out of place in an English village) turned out to be a Gulf Breeze-type UFO. For Bridget, these recovered memories simply allowed her to piece the jigsaw together, and enhanced the general picture that was emerging from her conscious memory.

Finally, when applied to the Los Angeles incident, further experiences emerged. She felt that she had been somehow ‘dragged through’ the front casing of the car, and had come into contact with an alien being who appeared semitransparent. She recalled that it appeared to have hair-implants, a bizarre detail in itself, and that it was carrying a baby. Despite the analysis of Pope and Hopkins that this experience was a typical baby/foetus-focused event, Bridget insisted that the being had been the central issue for her, not the baby.

At this point things came to a close. In later discussions with Nick Pope in the foyer, it became clear that they had had further material to impart, but had run out of time, which was a pity. Nevertheless, those present had been allowed to share an incredible story. Bridget was evidently not disturbed, irrational or anything of the sort. This was an ordinary person who had been subject to extraordinary experience. Nick Pope had made it all look so straightforward, but one suspects that many hurdles had been overcome for Bridget to reach the point where she could describe these personal experiences with the 750 delegates present. I, for one, was glad that she had.

Rating: 8/10