Ben Emlyn-Jones in Fortean Times

I used to read Fortean Times every month, but stopped a few years ago, mostly due to the fact that I was already subscribed to several magazines and had to drop one for financial reasons, see: http://subscribe.forteantimes.com/. Also the journal had changed its style during the period I read it, and this definitely influenced my decision. It became far more cynical and I thought tended to focus too much on the weakest cases, or exploits of successful debunking and exposing fraud. It sought to occupy that strange demimonde between the world of the Skeptic and "buh-leeva" which is today known as "fortean", probably as a result; in that sense it's similar to BUFORA, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/bufora-conference-2012.html. Even today it still features some reasonable material and if it wasn't for budgetary reasons I'd probably still read it. FT is one of the world's principle anomalous phenomena periodicals. It was inspired by the research of Charles Fort, an American paranormal researcher from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been in circulation since the 1960's, in one form or another and with many different publishers. It is based in the UK, but has readers across the globe. It can be found on many a magazine stall in high street newsagents and corner shops. It was from one of those that I bought a copy of the latest issue, number 324- February 2015. The reason was that my friend and fellow researcher, and regular FT-reader, Colin Woolford informed me that your humble servant had been featured in one of the current issue's articles.

That article is part of a regular column called The UFO Files and the authors are the Lighthouse Twins themselves, Andy Roberts and Dr David Clarke. It's a short piece, only a couple of hundred words, and it is their take on my own HPANWO Voice post about the death of Boyd Bushman, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-coxxer-on-alien-life.html. Clarke and Roberts also table their own concerns over Bushman's story. Just as I was writing the post somebody claimed that the aliens in the photo shown by Bushman in his interview are toy ET's that can be bought at Walmart. The question is which came first? I've recently written in detail about how the gatekeepers of UFO secrets sometimes preempt a forthcoming inevitable revelation by cluttering up its path with confusing and diversionary disinformation, see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/area-51-alien-interview-new-research.html. In this case I postulate in my report that they also used a second newspaper article as a damage limitation scheme, the Daily Mail one with Prof. Brian Cox. Clarke and Roberts analyze my ideas in a very tongue-in-cheek tone, obviously dubious about my doubts that the timing of the Cox interview and the Metro piece on Bushman could be coincidental, even though they appeared the same day. I don't think it's sensible to dismiss this possibility, but once again we're getting into the realms of trying to falsify a coincidence claim; as I've said before, that is virtually impossible, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/pan-pareidolia.html. They end the article with the words "Welcome to the club, Brian," in response to my concerns about the unique and sinister role Prof. Brian Cox is playing in the media right now, which I discuss in more detail here: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/prof-brian-cox-watch-this-space.html. The "club" being the group of people who have been accused by those in the UFO and conspiratorial community of being used to spread disinformation. Clarke and Roberts have been nominated as such by many commentators, including this one. They have both retorted to this with scorn, and obviously I'm included in that. To be fair, I've given Dr Folklore and Mr Bolide Meteor some harsh criticism myself over the years, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/berwyn-40.html and: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ufos-back-in-news.html, so you could say they're paying me back in kind. There is a source link to my article which is correct, but in the text of the article they get my name wrong; they call me "Ben Emlyn-Hughes". Yes, that was a great goal, Jimmy. Anyway, the readers of Fortean Times will be able to work out for themselves who's right and who's wrong here. I'm not concerned at all by people disagreeing with me publicly so long as both sides of the story get told. I have confidence in the truth and the evidence relating to it. Anyway, thanks for the free publicity, guys!