Burnham Scraps Digital ID

 

Thank goodness! Our new prime minister has shown himself to be a great moral and conscientious leader on his very first day in office! He has announced he is scrapping Starmer's flagship digital ID scheme. I was totally opposed to this Big Brother plan. How wonderful it is that Britain finally has a prime minister we can respect and admire. He's a true patriot and freedom fighter, just like Trump and Boris were originally, but Andy Burnham will not be corrupted like they were. He will remain true to his noble cause. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y08z25q8eo.
Er... no! I'm afraid not. I do not really think for one moment that our new fearful non-leader, the Tweedle-dee to Starmer's Tweedle-dum, is doing this out of the goodness of his heart or his love for freedom. Burnham's appointment is simply the excuse to cancel a legislative drive to introduce a database state that was unworkable and grinding to a halt, as I explain in the background links below. In this week's Third Rail Radio show I assess Burnham's new government in more detail, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/07/third-rail-radio-programme-247.html. The fast-tracked steamrollering of Burnham into power is simply a regrouping of the WEF/EU/Deep State's agenda to turn Britain into an island prison camp, a giant Alcatraz. He is a cardboard cut-out protégé of Tony Blair. I have no doubt at all that he has something already arranged to replace the Digital ID bill. I am ready to resist when it comes to light, just like I did before; and so should you.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/01/digital-id-debate-unlisted.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/04/digital-id-mp-reply.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/10/id-petition-response-omissions-and.html.

Shining a Light

 

A week ago, on Monday the 13th, I had a very distressing experience, but shortly afterwards I was given a wonderful gift. It began when I entered a post office to deposit some cash. This is one of those small post offices embedded in a grocer and attended to by the shop's staff. I approached the counter and went through the usual procedure counting out the money and putting my bank card in the machine. I handed the cash over and said "There should be £120 there." The staff member then counted it out himself and replied: "No, there's only £100." I nodded, not challenging him. Although at the same time another part of my mind was yelling at me that he was plainly holding six £20 notes in his hands. As soon as I got out of the shop it hit me like an earthquake. The cashier had just paid in £100 when I gave him £120. He obviously thought he would try and see if he could fool me into being conned. He no doubt slipped one of the £20 notes into his pocket afterwards before putting the rest in the till. A series of horrible emotions ran through my head. Firstly, anger at him for his theft. Secondly, frustration at knowing that the moment I completed the transaction there is probably no way to correct it (although I have written to the Post Office to try). I also felt rage at myself. Why did I let it happen? Why was I not on my guard? This is not the first time I've been short-changed like this, far from it. In fact the number of times I've been ripped off in various ways are too numerous to list. A client still owes me £50 for a pub clean I did last year. A nightclub doorman once tricked me into paying double the entrance fee by telling me my friend had already gone in and not paid. I could go on for pages and pages. Despite all this, I still generally deal with strangers in good faith. This is the dark side of my genial nature, my "pathological bonhomie", my extraversion, my cooperative instinct. The cashier had exploited these; he had taken advantage of my personality. He is somebody who has served me numerous times and so has probably assessed me as a pushover; and is he wrong? The way I always smile and thank him, wish him a pleasant day... which I obviously will never do again. After a few minutes my anger turned to sadness. I know that I live in a society in which I will be considered the bad guy in this situation, not him. I will be chided for being so vulnerable and naive, for allowing myself to be conned; in fact I know some of you readers are thinking that right now. Those same people would probably not criticise the cashier if they ever met him; they might even congratulate him for a job well done. After all it's a "dog-eat-dog world!" isn't it? "Law of the jungle!" "Survival of the fittest!" See here for details: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2025/09/bullies-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html and: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/02/humiliation-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html. My sadness was then topped up with a terrible sense of isolation and loneliness. The violation I had just experienced in the form of barefaced theft reminded me of how different I am to most people. I would never do such a thing to anybody else; but this doesn't make me more valuable a person in my society, it makes me more worthless. I was reminded of other betrayals I had suffered; not financial this time, but personal, for example see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/10/am-i-gate-child.html. Alienation swept over me. I was walking down a familiar street, but it suddenly felt totally foreign. I felt like I was lost, like a man in a lifeboat in a rough sea. What followed next was something I very rarely feel and hope I never feel again: despair. Maybe the nihilists are right, I thought. Maybe I've been kidding myself all these years that life has any meaning. I always believed there was some kind of non-physical intelligence around who knew who I was and is concerned for my welfare. I now found myself doubting that. Maybe nobody is out there who is on my side. I am completely alone. I am doomed to be a helpless plaything of indifferent fate and the human malevolence, that only I am so stupidly sentimental enough not to practice myself, for the rest of my pointless existence.
 
I sighed and continued walking, heading for work to do my usual jobs, but at that moment I felt I was really now just a robot, acting out a program. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my mobile phone; and, lo and behold, the torch was on! That was strange; I hardly ever use the torch and when I do, I always make sure I switch it off afterwards. It has never turned on by itself before. I stopped walking and gasped. Was this some kind of answer to my subconscious prayer, my silent cry for help? Was somebody up there shining a light on me? I didn't allow myself to continue that train of thought straight away; I had work to do and so had to remain practical for the day. I switched off the torch, put my phone away and continued my walk to work. When I got home I began researching. I looked up the technical details of my mobile phone, using Google AI to help. Sometimes my phone does things I don't intend. I have occasionally suffered the very embarrassing problem of "pocket dialling". I always keep my phone screen-locked in my pocket, but it once dialled 999 by itself simply from rubbing against my leg. The emergency number can be accessed despite the screen being locked behind a passcode. Luckily the police just called me back to check I was alright and didn't punish me. An app that often goes off accidentally is the camera; this is because I have the shortcut as default on factory settings. I would need to disable it manually and have never bothered. However, there is no shortcut for the torch on my phone. A user can add one, but I never have. In fact the only way to switch on the torch is so complicated I sometimes forget and have to search for it. I have to swipe up from the display then swipe right and then press the correct button. I am careful to keep that page open while I shine it so I can turn it off easily when I'm finished. If I don't, then a temporary shortcut does automatically appear to remind me; but this is only if the torch is already on, not when it is off. I had to check my modes and routines in settings. I only have three active modes, apart from normal function: theatre, aeroplane and sleep. None of those three have the torch listed. This means there is no way in any of the workings of my phone that the torch could possibly have gone on in my pocket. I was stunned. Strangely enough, Google AI took an open mind to the possibility of psychokinesis. Had my mental turmoil somehow caused my mobile phone to trigger the torch? To be honest I had started the dialogue by asking the AI about Dean Radin, so I had prompted it a bit. Dr Dean Radin is a parapsychologist and author who researches "mind over matter" psi phenomena at the famous Institute of Noetic Sciences. He is featured in the film What the Bleep do We Know!? talking about his work, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfqjyTRDj8A. He has done experiments which indicate that direct mental intent can alter the output of random number generators. Did I do something similar with my mobile phone? Possibly, if so that alone would be amazing. However, unlike Radin's system, a mobile phone is not designed to be altered by any kind of external influence; in fact it is specifically shielded against outside interference. Also, the effect Radin discovered was small compared to actually moving a hardware switch, which is necessary to turn on the torch. I did my due diligence as a researcher and eliminated "rational explanations"; so in the end I have to conclude that this is likely to be a piece of synchronicity. In the links at the bottom I give other examples. If this is synchronicity then it is the most extraordinary example I've ever experienced. It scores high on two factors. Firstly the unlikelihood, even impossibility, of the event occurring by normal means; and secondly, it happened at a moment of extreme personal significance. It was literally just a few minutes after I had left the shop and the first time I had looked at my phone following that incident. As I finished my investigation I leaned back in my chair and muttered "thank you!" Whoever, or whatever, did this for me is forever in my debt. Call it "God" or a different name, it's up to you. This is what I mean by it being a wonderful gift. If it had not happened I would have been on a downer for weeks, maybe permanently. I might have been seduced into a misanthropic and social Darwinist frame of mine myself, and decided that if I couldn't beat them I might as well join them. I could have become a thief myself; after all, why not? What does it matter? It's my victims' fault, not mine. I have been saved from that. Not that I feel total joy and delight about what was done to me. I will not be embracing the man who stole from me or blowing him kisses in the checkout queue. I am still angry and, as I said, I have written to the Post Office to complain. Actually I don't think these gifts are intended to make us appease injustice or ignore malevolent actions. However, my gift has made my torment much easier to live with. I am now £20 poorer, but I'd gladly have paid far more than £20 for this experience! This is the first time I have told anybody about what happened. I'm quite surprised at myself. Why have I not been yelling it out? I think the answer is that for me this experience is very precious and sacred, almost an intimacy between me and the universe. I felt I had to wait for the right time. It felt like the wrong time before now. I don't think I will ever forget last Monday. Its message will always be an influence on my life.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/01/twopence-bag.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/02/lets-just-help-each-other-out.html.

Ben Emlyn-Jones on the Paranormal Peep Show 35

 

I have been on the Paranormal Peep Show again. This programme features an interview with Stephen Sakellarios. We discuss the life and works of the Brazilian spiritual researcher and author Chico Xavier.
See here for the audio version: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/paranormal-peep-show-aspects-of-the-afterlife-stephen-sakellerios--73020953.
And here for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt68WxZdAso.
See here for my previous appearance on the Paranormal Peep Show: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/05/ben-emlyn-jones-on-paranormal-peep-show.html.

UFO Disclosure Game

 

I'm pleased to say somebody has decided to create a board game called the UFO Disclosure Game which is about what its name is. This is a tabletop knowledge trivia strategy game about historical UFO cases and how the information on them can be published. In this world of endless cyberspace entertainment I'm happy to see somebody go back to our entertainment roots. This game has good old-fashioned boards and cards. It is for three to six players and usually takes forty-five minutes to complete. It's perfect for a family evening or a group of friends having a night in. It reminds me of David Hodrien's UFO Wave, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2023/04/hpanwo-show-504-podcast-dave-hodrien.html. A game is a great way of spreading serious information, like a book or film. This is why I think Disclosure Day is so groundbreaking, see background link below. The problem is the game has not yet been finished and so needs our support on Kickstarter. I'd like to ask all HPANWO readers to help out as much as they can, see: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uapedia/ufo-disclosure-game-by-uapedia-trust-your-knowledge/.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/ufo-disclosure-portal.html.

Reed is Back!

 

Somebody has just reappeared in the UFOlogical media whom I never thought I'd see again. In 1996 Dr Jonathan Reed from Washington USA supposedly had an encounter with an alien in the woods where he was walking his dog. The dog was killed by the alien and Reed attacked the alien knocking it unconscious. He then took the stunned being home with him and made a series of videos of it. He also filmed the scene in the forest beforehand. In 2014 Reed totally disappeared off the scene shortly after appearing live in Felixstowe, Suffolk. I provided a video recording of the event for HPANWO TV, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2014/11/dr-jonathan-reed-at-rendlesham-forest.html. I feel a lot of distress dealing with this subject for two reasons: firstly, it led to me experiencing some of the worst internet abuse I've ever had; and, as regular readers know, that's really saying something! Some of what people said about me bordered on criminal. I also had the video given multiple false-flags that almost cost me my channel. As a result I have privatized the YouTube upload, something I very rarely do. However, the recording is still available on all the HPANWO TV alt-tech pages. The second reason is that the video features my good friend and comrade Derek Savory who has since died, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2024/04/hpanwo-show-545-podcast-derek-savory-in.html. He organized and funded Dr Reed's tour.
 
Perhaps because 2026 is the thirtieth anniversary, Dr Jonathan Reed has released a new documentary called Contact in the Woods- The Dr Jonathan Reed Story. This one hour documentary was allegedly created by anonymous filmmakers who are hiding their identity for the sake of their own security, because the government are still persecuting Reed and anybody else who helps him; however, according to its IMDB slot, the film is directed by Dr Reed himself. Google AI states that in secondary sources the producers are named as Brent and Blake Cousins, a pair of brothers who are well known characters in "UFOwood". They work closely with figures like Dr Steven Greer and Jaime Maussan. In fact Maussan is also credited in Contact in the Woods. The film does not provide much new information for anybody familiar with the case; but it presents the story with a series of new fictionalizations, including original animation. This brings the narrative to life very vividly in a way previous productions have not. Despite claims that Reed has never changed his story, in this film there are a few details that were not mentioned in previous publications, including his book Link- An Extraterrestrial Odyssey. According to the book, Reed told nobody about the alien in his freezer except his girlfriend; in the film he states that when he got back to his home in Seattle, he called his friend Gary and Gary came round and helped him capture the first footage of "Freddie" the alien. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CReSF8MOKc. A lot has changed since Reed's last engagement with the public twelve years ago. Robert Raith has died. Reed himself has visibly aged in this documentary, which you would expect considering the passage of time; however, he also does not look to be in good health. His voice has become weaker and his body is constantly trembling, as if he has a neurological problem like Parkinson's disease. His comeback has been accompanied by some interviews, like with Caspersight, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsDxJyoP1c. Many other pundits have had discussions about Reed. Not long after the incident originally happened Royce Myers, one of the first ever backslappers, published what he called an "exposure" that Dr Jonathan Reed was a fraud, see: https://www.ufowatchdog.com/jonathan_reed.htm. I did not believe Myers at first. At the time several other researchers were supporting Reed; but since then, especially after watching this new movie, I am fairly certain Reed actually did fabricate his experience. I'll probably go into more details in a future post. Obviously I'd love to be proved wrong on that!

Blogger Unbanned

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/10/shadowbanned-be-damned.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/01/fake-stats.html.
Something strange has happened, something not altogether unwelcome. For some reason the frustrating algorithmic shackles on HPANWO Voice have mysteriously disappeared. As you can see in the illustration, which is a current screenshot from my stats log, at some time, traffic to HPANWO Voice radically increased. It has even cleared its pre-shadowbanning initial levels. This boost is confined to the Voice. I've not yet enjoyed such a blow up on HPANWO, HPANWO TV, Ben's Bookcase, HPANWO Radio or the HPWA. When exactly this cage door was opened is unclear. I just happened to look at my stats a couple of weeks ago and saw that when previously my articles were topping out at around fifty hits they were suddenly clearing a thousand within a fortnight. From the graph you can trace this increase on posts dating back to around mid-March. That doesn't mean the change happened then, only that posts after that time period are the ones benefiting. I suspect it happened more recently because I regularly look at my stats. Why has this happened? Is it necessarily a good thing? Well, this could simply be a change in Blogger's analytics system so my views are being counted more precisely than before; meaning the problem I raised in my article Fake Stats above has been solved. Then again, it could be that I've swum into the net of some tracker bots and that all my extra hits are not real people. To be honest, this makes sense because the number of comments I'm getting has not gone up in proportion to my views. I certainly have no reason to think anybody I know is helping share my online work more than they do already. Still, whatever is going on it's nothing to complain about. Thank you to every real user who takes the time to read HPANWO Voice. Much appreciated.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/01/unstruck.html.

LHC Shutdown

 

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), has decided to switch off the Large Hadron Collider. On the 29th of last month it powered down all the particle beams. The reason is to carry out major maintenance and an upgrade. This is called "LS3- Long Shutdown 3" and the work is scheduled to take around four years. Parts of the seventeen mile circular device will be dismantled and engineers will replace older components with new magnets and cryogenic lines. After the refit the machine will be renamed the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, HiLumi LHC. With all its new capabilities the beams will be narrower and focused more tightly. This will increase the volume of particle collisions tenfold. Many people are wondering what effect this will have. Seeing as operations at the LHC have a timeline that matches perfectly the emergence of the Mandela Effect; presumably, if the LHC really is the cause of the Mandela Effect, that pattern will continue. Could it be that until the new collider is started there will be no new Mandela Effect experiences? It's interesting that examples of the Mandela Effect did not all appear at the same time. The original one in which people recall Nelson Mandela dying in jail in the '80's, which gave the phenomenon its name, was published by Fiona Broome in 2009, just a few months after the LHC started operations. Since then several hundred others have been collated, but not all at once. The original ones, Loony Tunes and Berenstain Bears etc, emerged soon after; but others, Mr Monopoly, Fruit of the Loom and KitKat, came later. I personally had never heard of the Blue Riband one until I saw this old TV advert on YouTube about three years ago, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQnRgVipDTA. The comments section is full of people who remember the product as Blue Ribbon. I do too and I remember this very advert with its catchy song on TV as a child in the 1980's. Even though the video is seventeen years old, the comments are generally much more recent. New ones are popping up all the time. Is this because the people who experienced them never reported them earlier, or is it that they just appeared at that time because of something going on in the LHC? Interesting to note that when Run 2 began in 2015, with the collision power almost doubled from 7 TeV to 13 TeV, new Mandela reports skyrocketed. One of the stages of scientific inquiry is prediction; so if CERN is the cause of the Mandela Effect we should quickly see a decrease in new Mandelas until the machine is switched back on. It's worth bearing in mind that doing the Long Shutdown 3 other particle accelerators are continuing their collisions as normal; Fermilab, KEK, Brookhaven NL etc, are still smashing atoms and some are even upgrading at the same time as the LHC. Two of them are at CERN, the SPS and ISOLDE. It's as if there is some kind of global coordination at work so that in a few years these machines can come back to life and work as one for a collective enterprise. What kind? Who knows? The next four years will be revealing and I shall be doing my own study about what happens.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2025/09/cern-portal.html.

Ben & Colin at Bases 2026

 

The recording of Colin Woolford and me at the Bases 2026 International Disclosure conference is now available, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqPYcDFsrME.
As before we were booked as "Dr Colon Woolly-Ford (Alien-optologist) and Dr Ben F. Luent-Jones (Respected academic ologist)". Colin and I have a discussion about the state of UFOlogy and conspiratorial matters during 2026. See here for more videos: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/06/bases-2026-videos.html.
See here for my own HPANWO TV coverage of the event: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/bases-2026-disclosure-conference.html.
See here for last year's event videos: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/01/bases-2025-videos.html.

Will Tomorrow be Disclosure Day?

 

How many times have I written those words? I first raised this issue back in 2007; this is the first published post I can find, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/09/stephen-greer-article.html. Since then I've returned to it again and again, and it's become one of my favourite subjects. At the bottom is the huge portal where I've collated all my work on UFO Disclosure. I've even written three books about it. So I understand if readers groan at the title of this article; "Not again, Ben, please!" Bear with me! The reason I am bringing it up this time is because of some statements made by Mark Christopher Lee, a filmmaker who specializes in UFO documentaries. Back in February Mark made a stunning announcement, that President Trump was going to make a Disclosure speech very soon. He was given a specific date, the 8th of July. This happens to be World Disclosure Day and the seventy-ninth anniversary of the Roswell Incident. He said there would also be a revealing hearing on Mayday. He knew this because of an "insider at the White House". Mark would not name his source although there has been some suggestion that it is Bob Bigelow. Mark made this statement with so much confidence, putting his reputation on the line, that I and many others did sit up and take notice, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/02/what-week-in-ufology.html and: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/02/third-rail-radio-programme-234.html. It even reached the mainstream media. Obviously the skeptics and backslappers did not take this prediction seriously; and they were apparently vindicated when a couple of weeks later Mark published a full, unconditional retraction and apology. He said that he had made a mistake and might possibly been used to spread disinformation. He did this in a very dignified and mature way. He did not qualify his apology at all and I respected that, despite my disappointment. Source: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1EAJKbgbsBD4MkR4fsD4wL. True to form, the backslappers would not let it go and continued to dwell on the matter long after it was necessary in my view, but that's backslappers for you.
 
However, since then there has been a major development. Mark Christopher Lee has renewed his prediction for July the 8th. What's happening is that President Trump is currently in Turkey and tomorrow he is scheduled to attend a major NATO summit. This is the first time a US president has visited the country in over a decade. This is a high stakes event and Turkey's own President Erdogan will be in talks with him. Trump says he wants closer ties with Turkey to lure it away from Russian influence. However, when he takes to the stage in Ankara tomorrow he has the alien speech prepared. He may well deliver it after his main address, in a separate event at the end of the NATO proceedings. Turkey, a powerful nation on the cusp of Europe and Asia, would be a good strategic place to reveal the truth about UFO's. The fact that it is the Roswell anniversary will add pathos to the event. It also means that the PRG won't have to shift the date, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/07/happy-world-disclosure-day-2021.html. Mark has made a new video about July the 8th 2026, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWYUsf8GbiA. Will it happen? Well, Mark sounds extremely confident, and that really means something when you consider his past U-turn. If he were even the tiniest bit uncertain then he would no doubt show some caution after being bitten before. This alone gives Mark's new forecast extra validity. We shall see what happens tomorrow, but it has been in my diary for a while and I will be watching closely. Should anything significant happen I will report back immediately.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/ufo-disclosure-portal.html.

Botley Road (Non-Woo-Woo)

 

Today I have a non-woo-woo article for you, very rare for me! It's one of only about a dozen I've ever written. It concerns Botley Road in Oxford. Something I seriously suspect that many people in the city have forgotten ever existed. This major throughfare is the principle traffic connection between West Oxford and the rest of Oxford. Anybody who lives in North Hinksey, Dean Court, Chawley, Cumnor and Botley are cut off from the city by all motor transport. It has played havoc with the bus routes and a number of services that normally terminate at Gloucester Green are currently tucked into a row of overcrowded and unsheltered stops by Osney Island. For example, see here for my recent trip to Swindon: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/bases-2026-disclosure-conference.html. To drive to the city centre from West Oxford is possible, but only via a massive detour all the way north along the ring road or south Redbridge and to Donnington Bridge. This situation has been going on for so long I had totally forgotten how and when it started. I had to look it up; April 2023. The original plan was a joint endeavour by Network Rail and Oxon and Oxford City Council to expand the railway station, build a new railway bridge and lower the road level so double-decker buses could pass underneath it. This was estimated to take "just a few months!" It has now been over three years. The worksite has been a mysterious collection of hoarding, direction signs and weird tunnels and pathways that keep shifting, depending on what part of the place is being attended to at the time. Every time I pass by there I have to start anew finding the correct route through the chaos. The problem was that the project hit unexpected obstacles that caused massive delays. This does happen occasionally, for another example see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/12/mysterious-object-in-seattle-tunnel-dig.html. I regularly joke on HPANWO TV that they must have found a crashed flying saucer, but the reality is nothing so exciting. A series of water pipes had to be diverted along with sewers; these had to be kept separate to prevent contamination. There were also gas mains and electricity cables that "had not been mapped" which means nobody knows exactly where they were. That sounds strange. Were there no records? Surely the people who installed them originally could have told them. In some cases this happened a long time ago, over a century, but it is still odd to think that nobody knew where these utilities were despite the people of Oxford using them every day. No wonder it is perfectly plausible that strange creatures might live in them, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/10/monster-in-sewer.html. 

The contractor, with the inopportune name of "Keir" wasn't even sure if the cables were isolated and could therefore be removed safely. Strangely, the electricity company didn't know either. To work it out a number of controlled discharges were tried. All this work had to be negotiated with Thames Water and this took even more time and money. The excavation of the road was hampered by a "Victorian arch", a very old brick structure designed to protect the road from the water table. Again, there was no information available about how big this construction was and how it could be removed. The deeper dip will also require special drainage. But even the darkest night ends with the dawn and now it has been announced that Botley Road will reopen at the end of next month. It will be improved too, apparently; with proper cycle tracks and even, eventually, an extra platform at the station. The cost of the original operation was said to be £161 million but have risen to £237 million, all funded by the Department of Transport... which means we, the taxpayers. Source: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26251483.update-network-rail-botley-road-will-reopen/. I'm glad this huge construction venture will soon be at an end. Buses can once more travel to the city centre and people can drive to and from West Oxford. This saga is testimony to the old saying: to err is human, but to screw things up completely requires a committee.

The Most Reluctant Convert

 

Ever since I began following the work of David Icke I've become fascinated by people who experience a "kundalini" or spiritual emergence crisis, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/08/david-icke-portal.html. For these people, the experience is often not as it is depicted by the New Age. It can be unpleasant, chaotic and disturbing; but after it has happened I've never heard anybody say they wish it hadn't. One of the most interesting people to have undergone this process is CS Lewis, mostly because he is also a prolific and articulate writer and described his feelings in great detail. He wrote about it in a book called Surprised by Joy. This has been adapted into a stage play by Max McLean called The Most Reluctant Convert, and he has now made it into a film. It stars Max in the eponymous role, something he does very well. For an American actor his accent is perfect and he really gets inside the personality of his subject. I was familiar with CS Lewis as a child because his Chronicles of Narnia series were some of my favourite books; but when I grew up I took more of an interest in the man himself. In this movie Max McLean's portrayal of Clive Staples Lewis carries out a fourth wall monologue combined with drama; and often a blend of the two. He sometimes appears as an unseen character in the flashbacks to his childhood in Northern Ireland, or at school or as a student and fellow at Oxford. Living in Oxford myself I recognized the locations; The White Hart Pub on Broad Street, Queens Lane, the University Parks and Lewis' home in Risinghurst. Lewis' background was devout Ulster Protestant, yet he lost his faith as a child when his mother died and he fought in the Great War. He was a complete atheist and didn't start to question his disbelief until he was given private tuition by a very wise teacher whom he loved, William Thompson Kirkpatrick, nicknamed "The Great Knock". I expect the character Prof. Kirk in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is inspired by him. This is one of many intrusions of his fiction into his life story that I spotted. Despite having a very detailed and comprehensive conviction that atheo-materialism was true, he started to entertain alternative ideas. He had always described the world as full of misery and cruelty, but wondered why he thought that when there was nothing to compare it to. "I can't think of a line as crooked unless I know somewhere deep down there must be a straight line somewhere." as he puts it. At Oxford he had long discussions with his friend Owen Barfield and another he called "Tollers" who was actually JRR Tolkien, a fellow author, mystic and Catholic gnostic. This raised more questions in his mind.

It was obviously a strange experience, but CS Lewis describes this upheaval almost as a chase, with God trying to catch him and him trying to run away; this explains the title of the play and film. At the same time, paradoxically, he called this new revelation "Joy", hence the title of the book. This word distinguishes it from happiness or contentment, something that emerges from inside us instead as from outside; in this way it reminds me of my thoughts about melancholy, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/03/being-sad.html. At the same time as feeling joyful he was also sad. He felt that something else he valued about the universe as he saw it was being worn away. The film does not cover it and I have not read the book, but like most people in his position, at that time, he was probably not easy to get on with. He may well have fallen out with friends and found his relationship with family become very rocky. Some of his mental breakthroughs came in strangely prosaic situations. One burst of revelation came when he was riding on a bus up Headington Hill. I've done the same many times and I've never had any sudden insights. It's a very pleasant part of Oxford, an avenue of great oaks and chestnuts with parks on either side; but I don't consider it transcendental. The final change came when he was travelling with his brother Warren to visit Whipsnade Zoo in 1931. He was sitting in a motorcycle sidecar and realized he was a Christian believer. (Lewis' biographer Alister McGrath claims this journey happened the previous year, 1930, but that the author got it mixed up. This comes from the chronology of Lewis' letters and chapel records from Magdalen College Oxford. Lewis was writing in 1955, many years later.) After that he was a regular in the congregation of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry for the rest of his life, a short walk from where he lived. He was buried there when he died in November 1963. Oddly enough this happened on the 22nd, the same day as the Kennedy assassination, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2023/11/jfk-portal.html; and amazingly another esoteric writer, Aldous Huxley, also passed away that day, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/07/everyone-knows-what-happened-on.html. What an intriguing coincidence! The Most Reluctant Convert- The Untold Story of CS Lewis is short for a feature film, just an hour and a quarter, but it is very entertaining, well acted and has great production design. It can be rented or bought on the usual platforms (but of course I recommend getting the DVD if you enjoyed it, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/06/memory-holed-movies_0503601583.html) See: https://cslewismovie.com.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/skeptics-portal.html.

UFO Truth Magazine- Issue 79

 

UFO Truth Magazine Issue 79 is now available. It can be purchased on this page as a single copy, but please subscribe and save money if you want to read it regularly, see: https://www.ufotruthmagazine.co.uk.
Issue 79 includes an article in my column entitled Who or What Were They? Written by Alan Godfrey- a Review.
 
Also you will find in Issue 79: A review of Disclosure Day by the editor, Australian UFO documents by Bill Chalker, "There's no going back", Lue Elizondo and much much more.
Also in this HPANWO Show programme I interview the UFO Truth Magazine's editor Gary Heseltine: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2023/06/hpanwo-show-514-podcast-gary-heseltine.html.
See here for details on UFO Truth Magazine Issue 78: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/05/ufo-truth-magazine-issue-78.html.