MUFOB ARCHIVE/01 BUFORA Conference at Bristol, July 1968.
John Harney
Merseyside UFO Bulletin, Volume 1, Number. 4. July-August 1968.
_This report of a BUFORA conference in Bristol in 1968 gives a good impression of the sorts of issues that were being discussed by the ‘scientific’ end of the UFO research spectrum in 1968. The dismissive refrence to ‘ban the bomb’ campaigners, ‘jingling bells’ and ‘esoteric aspects’ hints at the antagonism between the ‘scientific’ and ‘New Age’ approaches to the subject which were arising at this time._
The Conference was held in the Grosvenor Hotel, Bristol and our hosts were the members of the British Flying Saucer Bureau, Britain’s oldest UFO organisation.
The formal business began at 2.30 p.m. with an address of welcome by the President of the British Flying Saucer Bureau Captain E. L. Plunkett. Captain Plunkett described how the BFSB was founded in 1952, with the assistance of Albert K. Bender, of the International Flying Saucer Bureau. Then in 1953 came Bender’s famous announcement that he was closing down the IFSB, on account of the “three men in black.” However, the BFSB carried on, thanks to the help of the late Dr R. Irving-Bell, and many notable people joined. By the end of 1954, the BFSB, which had by then amalgamated with the Flying Saucer Club, had about 1500 members throughout the world, Later, membership declined as the Bureau’s officers found they had insufficient spare time to devote to it. It was hoped that the Conference would initiate a revival of the BFSB.
Attempts had been made to contact Richard Hughes who was in the early nineteen-fifties Secretary of the Flying Saucer Club and producer of the excellent _Flying Saucer News_, but his present whereabouts remained unknown.
Mr Graham F. N. Knewstub then took the Chair and stressed that the Conference was concerned with the physical side of the UFO problem, as opposed to the more esoteric aspects, Mr Lionel Beer (Vice-Chairman of BUFORA) then gave an account of this year’s BUFORA National Skywatch. A number of groups of observers had reported sightings of UFOs and one unidentified light in the sky was photographed at Guildford.
This Skywatch produced at least two somewhat bizarre stories. A group in Northamptonshire noticed strange lights in the distance and some of the watchers went to investigate them. On getting near enough, they discovered that some sort of “black magic orgy” was taking place A group from Worthing (not connected with the BUFORA Skywatch) were said to have been skywatching at Chanctonbury Ring, near Worthing, when they experienced difficulty in breathing and suddenly feeling waves of cold air passing over there.
A revealing light was thrown on this incident by Omar Fowler , Chairman of the Surrey Investigation Group on Aerial Phenomena, writing in the Groups SIGAP Newsletter. Five SIGAP members drove down to Worthing on June to meet members of the new group. Mr Fowler records:
> “However, upon arriving at Worthing it was immediately evident that the new group consisted of young people who, after ‘Banning the Bomb’ and ‘Protesting at Porton’ had decided to try their luck at UFO watching. Any scientific results of their skywatch at Chanctonbury would be difficult to imagine. The SIGAP members immediately voted to ‘go it alone’ and left for the site in two separate cars, rather than endure the jingling of the bells around the Worthing watchers’ necks.”
Mr Stephen Smith, B.A. (BUFORA Research Director), gave an account of the communication arrangements for the skywatch, which included a ham-radio link-up, organised by Colin McCarthy. Mr Smith said that he devising of a rapid and efficient communications system was one off the more important aspects of such exercises.
Several people brought along UFO detectors and described and demonstrated them. It seems that most of the present work on such devices is devoted to improving on the simple magnetic needle detector and the McCarthy coil detector. However, some experiments are being made with devices which respond to heat, light and radioactivity.
Lionel Beer and Stephen Smith described the BUFORA Research Vehicle, which was on view outside the hotel. This vehicle is intended for use on skywatches and on field investigations of important sighting reports. So far it has been used on two national skywatches and has toured Britain, visiting various UFO groups. It was also used during investigations of the Devon ‘flying cross’ sightings last autumn.
Mr G. F. T. Knewstub gave a talk on the elementary mathematical treatment of UFO sighting data, and the most technical talk. of the Conference was given by Mr T.Wright on laser holography in connection with UFO photographs.
The last item of the Conference, was an open forum. The panel consisted of Lionel Beer, Omar Fowler, Graham Knewstub and Stephen Smith, and Captain Ivar Mackay (Chairman of BUFORA) took the chair.
The Conference was well organised and was generally agreed to have been a success.
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_For a further impression of British ufology in the 'sixties read Andy Roberts’s essay ‘A Saucer Full of secrets’ which appeared in Magonia 87, February 2005._
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