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Speaker 1: Remembering Nick Pope by UFO history buff and author Charles

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Lear last week. Nick Pope full name Nicholas George Pope,

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passed on April sixth at the age of sixty. A

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fixture in the UFO scene, Pope first gained notoriety with

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his nineteen ninety six book Open Skies, Closed Minds. Besides

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providing an overview of UFO history up to that point,

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the book has an autobiographical account of his time as

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the head of the UFO Desk at the Ministry of

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Defense from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety four. After

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the book came out, he became a go to UFO

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expert whenever an authoritative comment was needed to punch up

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a news story. He maintained his interest and a media presence,

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and was sought after as a speaker at conventions and

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a commentator in various documentaries. By the time of his passing,

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he was a well known personality in the ufotainment industry,

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having appeared regularly on Ancient Aliens and at Contact in

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the Desert. In the midst of his notoriety, in association

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with the more sensationalistic aspects of eufology, his commentary seemed

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to be heartfelt and true to his actual beliefs. According

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to Pope in his book, he was a skeptic before

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he was assigned to the UFO Desk in Secretariat Air Staff,

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Department two A at the Ministry of Defense. He had

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been with the MOD since nineteen eighty five, and personnel

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were shifted to different sections every three to four years

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as a matter of policy to give them a breadth

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of knowledge and experience. When he was assigned to deal

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with UFO reports, he took it upon himself to learn

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as much as he could about the subject, and the

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comprehensive historical overview in the book shows the depth of

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his research. Besides studying UFO history, Pope reached out to

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British UFO researchers such as Timothy Goode, who wrote the

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forward of the book, and established relationships with organizations such

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as the British UFO Research Organization. This set him apart

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from his predecessors and helped diminish the US and them

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perception between the MOD and the British UFO community. Pope's

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assignment came when the X files was popular, and he

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describes his co workers calling him spooky and whistling the

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X Files theme when passing him in the hallway. He

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was fully aware how unusual his job was, and when Focus,

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the mod's in house journal started a regular feature on

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unusual jobs within the organization, he was the first person

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to be profiled. Pope presents cases he looked into, and

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the most notable of these was what has become known

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as the Cosford Incident, which involved over thirty reports to

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the MOD of bright lights over the southwest England in

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areas that included RAF Shawbury and RAF Cosford overnight from

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March thirtieth to thirty first, nineteen ninety three. According to

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him in his book, the MOD was asked to take

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part in the production of a central television program on UFOs.

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While such a request would normally have been refused, Pope

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persuaded his superiors that it would be good to explain

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the ministry's policy on UFOs on camera and lay to

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rest a few misconceptions. On April twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four,

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he was interviewed by producer Lawrence Moore and freely admitted

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that many of the cases on file cannot be explained

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today in conventional scientific terms. Just before his book came out.

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Pope made his first BBC television appearance on the Newsnight program.

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A segment was devoted to him and his book and

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begins with an actor dressed like him on a shadowy

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office set reading from the book over ominous background music.

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The actor reads from the section describing cases Pope looked into,

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and witness interviews are presented, covering incidents in Bonniebridge, Scotland

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and Dorset, England. Pope is then interviewed and he is

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remarkably confident and articulate. In this very early television appearance.

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The interviewer, Peter Snow, is noticeably taken aback when Pope

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says that he is con convinced by the sheer weight

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of evidence that some of what are seen in the

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sky are extraterrestrial in origin. After moving on from section

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two A with what he describes in the book as

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a promotion, Pope continued investigating UFO reports in his spare time,

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and there is an early account page fourteen of the

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PDF of one of these in the article by Mike

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Merritt headlined Expert and UFO Probe on Isle, published in

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the November fourth, nineteen ninety six Sun. According to merit

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top UFO hunter Nick Pope is probing a mystery mid

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air explosion which sparked a massive search nine days ago.

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Pope is quoted as saying, this sighting off the Isle

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of Lewis could be a UFO. I would not rule

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it out until I look at the reports I have

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asked for. The caption under his picture at the top

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of the column reads Pope former MOD Man, which is

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inaccurate because he was still with the MOD at that time.

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Pope left the MOD in two thousand and six, and

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in two thousand and seven the Ministry made the decision

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to release its UFO files. Pope describes this on his

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website Nick Pope and the section titled mod UFO Files.

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According to him, there were three reasons for the decision.

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The French had released their UFO files that year, it

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would be good pr and there had recently been a

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huge number of Freedom of Information Act requests for UFO

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related documents. Pope describes the laborious process of review, reaction

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and digitizing which led to the first group of documents

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being released in two thousand and eight, in the final

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group in twenty nineteen. As for his involvement, Pope says

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that the staff at the National Archives asked him to

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select cases to highlight in the media, and that he

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did literally hundreds of interviews across all media and thus

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became the public face of the file release project, as

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can be seen in the section titled Spokesperson on his website.

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Pope embraced his fame as a UFO expert and capitalized

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on it, working in film, television, video games, and advertising,

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besides his appearances on sensational programs such as Ancient Aliens.

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In twenty nineteen, he began appearing as a regular guests

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on the Basement Office with Stephen green Street, starting with

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a first episode which premiered on May twenty nine. While

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still advocating for the extraterrestrial hypothesis and displaying obvious enthusiasm

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when discussing cases that he has a personal interest in,

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his commentary is restrained and well informed. Pope wrote a

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total of six books in his lifetime, which include three

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books on UFOs, two science fiction novels, and one action thriller,

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The Side's Open Skies Closed Minds. His other two UFO

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books are The Uninvited, a book about abductions published in

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nineteen ninety seven, and encounter in Rendelsham Forrest, written with

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John Burrows and Jim Peniston, both USAF retired about the

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reported lights and UFO landing near raf Woodbridge in nineteen eighty,

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that was published in twenty fourteen. Rest in Peace, Nick Pope.

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Charles Lear is the author of The Flying Saucer Investigators

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in its second edition on Amazon dot com.