Within the world of the paranormal there are often very strange things that people claim to see. Ghosts, angels, aliens, and others, these things have long served to elude understanding and leave us to wonder just what is going on. Among these anomalous reports there are often true oddities, which stand out as the bizarre of the bizarre, and which don’t seem to fit into any sort of known category, their pure oddness propelling them right out past the fringe and into some new territory of the weird. These reports seem to be of things beyond aliens, ghosts, or anything else that populates the paranormal world, and indeed perhaps come from whole other universe entirely.

A really quite bizarre encounter that is hard to classify allegedly occurred in 1973, at the coastal town of Sandown, on the Isle of Wight, in the south east region of England. In May of that year, a 7-year-old girl and another child were exploring the wild areas around a place called the Shanklin & Sandown Golf Club, when they began to hear a shrill piercing, wailing sound off in the distance, reminiscent of an ambulance siren — only off kilter and eerier. Curiosity would get the better of them, and the two kids excitedly ventured off to find the source of the odd noise, a trek that would bring them through brush and trees to a clearing abutting the nearby Sandown Airport, where the sound just suddenly stopped to send silence crashing down upon them.

The two bewildered youngsters took a look around, still trying to figure out where that haunting sound had come from, and as they crossed a footbridge over a creek they soon found it. From the shadows beneath the rickety old wooden bridge under their feet there emerged an outlandish being the likes of neither of them had ever seen before, which crawled out from the dark to stand before them. In an article on the encounter published in a 1978 edition of the British UFO Research Association’s Journal author Norman Oliver described what they saw as follows:

He was nearly 7 feet tall and had no neck, for his head appeared to be wedged straight onto his shoulders. He wore a yellow pointed hat, which interlocked with the red collar of a tattered green tunic. A round, black knob was affixed to the top of his hat, and wooden antennae were attached to either side. The face had triangular markings for eyes, a brown square of a nose, and motionless yellow lips. Other round markings were on his paper-white face, and a fringe of red hair fell down onto his forehead. Wooden slats protruded from his sleeves and from below his white trousers.

Also rather oddly, this clown-like entity was reportedly holding what appeared to holding what looked like just a regular paper book, which he proceeded to thumb through clumsily before losing his grip on it and dropping it into the creek below. The being then jumped into the water, found his book, and crawled up sopping wet back out of the water to go bounding off in a series of leaps that seemed to defy gravity. The bewildered children watched as it bounded towards what appeared to be a small metallic hut and disappear within, after which it emerged once again with what looked like some sort of microphone in its hand that was attached to a black box with a button or knob on it. It was from this odd device that the wailing siren they had heard began to pour out once again, and at this distance it was so incredibly loud that the terrified children began to run away as the monotonous drone reverberated through the forest and their very bones.

As they started their retreat into the woods, the blaring roar of noise abruptly stopped again, followed a few moments later by a voice that tentatively asked “Are you still there?” The kids were scared, but still very much curious, and they warily made their way back to the clearing to see what the surreal entity was up to. When they did he seemed to be almost happy to see them, and excitedly produced his wet book to write within it a message, which it held up for them to read and which said in childishly scrawled letters, “Hello and I am all colors Sam.” He then began speaking with them, although eerily without ever moving his mouth, and since his voice seemed calm and nonthreatening the children drew closer to talk with him.

A sketch of the strange entity

During the conversation the being calling itself Sam claimed that he was not human, and when asked whether he was a ghost he merely replied “Not really, but I am in an odd sort of way.” When pressed on what he was he simply and cryptically said “You know.” He went on to explain how there were others of his kind, and that they were mostly shy and scared of humans, usually staying away from them, and this all culminated with the entity inviting the children into his metal hut, which was completely windowless and seemed to have some sort of flapped opening. Inside there were seemingly two floors, and the place had a metal floor, some sort of dials and knobs on the wall, and simple ratty wooden furniture scattered about. It was more or less a dump. Perhaps seeing the look on the children’s faces he was apparently quick to point out that this was just a temporary dwelling, and that he had a much bigger, more luxurious permanent place in mainland England.

It was here in this strange little hovel where Sam would finally remove his odd hat and produced a berry, which he stuck into a rounded white ear, only to have it suddenly appear in his eye socket and then appear within his mouth with a couple of flicks of his head, like some kind of magic trick. This delighted the children, and now they were fully calmed down, eventually staying in the hut for around an hour before saying goodbye and heading back home. When the girl told her father, rather than outright dismiss it he would actually go to the area to investigate, partly out of concern that there was perhaps some weirdo dressed as a clown lurking out there. Unfortunately, there was no trace of Sam or his weird hut, and no one else in the area had seen anything like what was described, although the children were adamant that the metal dwelling had been right there and that their story was completely true. The so-called “Sandown Clown” has not been seen since. Was Sam an alien, a ghost, a sicko in a freaky clown outfit, or what? We will probably never know.

It is interesting to note that this was a one-off sighting, with the creature not seen by anyone else, and this can also be said about some other equally bizarre accounts, such as one from the site The Crypto Crew. In 1983, a woman known only as Patty was driving along in broad daylight on a rural part of Highway 94, about 11 miles from the town of Murray, Kentucky, in the United States, when she too saw something that defies classification. It made its appearance by leaping out into the road from an adjacent field and then loping across, its movements described as being “like a gorilla,” but this was no gorilla.

Perhaps foolishly, Patty stopped her car and got out to yell after it, which caused the thing to stop and turn around to give her a better look at it and make her sorry she had ever left the car. It was described as standing at least 7 feet tall, and totally devoid of any hair, instead covered with rough pink skin and possessing a long neck, a smallish head, pointy ears, and a snout like that of a pig, with the witness saying, “I would describe it as a cross between a primate, a pig, and a human.” The face of the thing was what made the most impact on her, as she said it stared at her with intelligent, remarkably human eyes. Patty was so unsettled by this sight and its piercing gaze that she backed back into her vehicle and locked the doors as it loomed out on the road in front of her, just staring with inscrutable intent. She got out of there and soon told her husband about it but he wouldn’t believe her.

Another intriguing account was related to Lon Stickler of the site Phantoms and Monsters, and was told by a witness calling herself “Jeni.” The encounter apparently happened at in Hampton Bays, New York in 2006, where one evening she had driven out with her fiancée to show him the majestic spectacle of phosphorescent shrimp glittering in the dark water and upon the beach like stars in the sky. The area was described as rather remote, and they had been alone at the beach at the time, the moon full and bright in the sky. It would have normally been a romantic place to be, but the couple were about to have the shock of their lives, and Jeni would say of what happened next:

As soon as we stepped onto the beach I had a feeling of general unease; that instinctive fear that one would experience in the presence of a predator. I chose to ignore it; occasionally peeking over my shoulder at the long, empty stretch of beach behind me but mostly focusing on the tiny glowing shrimp beneath our feet. At one point I felt a presence and again, chose to ignore it as I’ve dealt with that quite a bit in my 30 years. I had not voiced my unease to my fiancee, so he was completely unaware. About 5 – 10 minutes into our short walk we were both hunched over, his back facing the jetty, mine facing the stretch of empty beach when he started peering over my shoulder, up into the sky. Perplexed, he’d look for a second, then look away – at this point I was still trying to retain my composure and not look. Finally, after a few minutes, he looked over my head and yelled “oh my god! What *is* that?!” – I turned to look and ‘flying’ directly over my head was this huge creature I’d never seen!

It appeared translucent/transparent; no color whatsoever – no visible structure outside of the motion which indicated what it looked like; now, I myself am a visual artist, so this left a very distinct impression on me. This ‘creature’ was shaped and moving in the way a Manta Ray would; yet completely transparent! No color at all; I could see the stars through this thing; the only thing to allow the structure any appearance was the moonlight shining somehow on its’ exterior!

It was larger than a standard sedan. It’s wingspan was at least, from what I could estimate, 10′ in width; while it was ‘flying’, its wings moving up and down. The movement seemed familiar, like that of a gull swooping down and hovering over the shoreline. It was approximately 10 – 15′ over my head; it had no visible ‘head’ or ‘tail’; no discernible limbs or appendages of any kind. It appeared and moved exactly as a Manta Ray without the ‘Cephalic Lobes’ or tail. I was completely awe-struck, but that fear took over and after about 30 seconds of staring at this thing we both turned and bolted toward the car. While running, we both simultaneously jerked our heads to the right in response to a glowing green light which seemed to flash twice (it was not the light from the tower on the jetty, nor was it from any boat; that water was clear).

I never looked behind me. We started heading back on Dune Road when we saw what I could only describe as two, smaller ‘rays’ which moved more like a bat would, flying together from right to left overhead past the car. These two were translucent and had a grayish color to them… strange. They were flying in the direction of the beach, where the larger, more transparent creature was. It was so beautiful and strange! It reminded me of a sea creature more than anything else, maybe our air is like water to them.

What in the world was this thing? Who is to say? If weird clown phantoms, pig-men, and glowing sky mantas aren’t strange enough for you yet, then how about a humanoid apparently made of jelly? That is what was purportedly seen at the mountainous region of Cáceres, Spain in the summer of 1965. In August of that year, a Juan Dominguez and his sister Isabel were out one afternoon walking along in the countryside near the farming village of Fragosa on an errand to bring some bundles of peaches back to their home. As they approached a low wall to a garden they allegedly noticed a dark humanoid figure pacing about in front of it.

Curious, the two siblings approached, and as they drew nearer could hear that there was some sort of humming sound coming from it, which was odd, but not nearly as weird as what they saw as they got closer still. It soon became apparent that the pacing figure was exceptionally tall, nearly 7 feet in height, and that the arms were inhumanly long and thin, but even more bizarre it seemed to be somewhat opaque, and made up of what appeared to be some sort of gelatinous material that pulsated and glistened. Unsettlingly, the thing did not have any discernable face on what should have been its head, yet they still sensed that it was intently watching them. As the two startled witnesses looked on, the strange jelly-man stopped to stand for a moment, before striding right towards them, its intent unknown but not something they wished to find out. The two dropped their peaches and ran away as fast as they could, and the otherworldly gelatinous entity was never seen again.

Joining the ranks of all of this bizarreness is an encounter originally published in the October 8, 2017 edition of Strange Magazine, that supposedly occurred back in 1948 at the shipbuilding port city of Bremerton, in the U.S. state of Washington. One day, a young woman named Virginia Staples was just going about her usual daily household chores, carrying a load of laundry down to the washing machines in the basement of her run-down apartment building. It was a mindless chore she had done countless times before, and there would have been no reason for this time to be any different, but it was to prove to lead to a shocking experience, indeed.

The dim basement was described as enormous, its volumous floor constantly covered with a sheen of water that leaked from the walls and was rumored to come from passageways leading to the nearby sea, but although it all had a rather creepy foreboding atmosphere, Virginia was used to working in this dark and dank place. Yet on this day something was not quite right, as she felt an undefinable sense of unease and dread, as if she were being watched from the ample shadows clinging to everything in there. She tried to cast the odd feeling out of her head, chalking it up to nerves, but it would not abate, indeed becoming stronger the longer she lingered there, graduating to sheer terror for no discernable reason. She would say of what happened next:

It was such a creepy feeling I finally turned around and looked toward the back of the basement and froze. I was so scared I can still feel it. I couldn’t move. In one of the huge holes in the basement there stood this thing. It was horrible! I stand five feet tall and this creature was as tall as I was. It had a bright orange colored body and little spidery thin legs and antennae on its head that kept moving back and in and out. That thing started towards me. I backed out of the basement and got up to my apartment and packed up all my things and moved. I was so scared. I moved over to Seattle to my cousin’s. Really no one would really believe this, but as God is my witness it really happened.

She would say that it looked to her almost like a humanoid shrimp, and that for years afterwards she says she had potent, chronic nightmares. The interesting part of this tale, other than the sheer outlandishness of the entity described, is that this was in the basement of an apartment complex, and not even a remote one out in the boondocks. At the time Bremerton was a bustling Naval port city home to around 80,000 people, so it makes no sense at all that there should be this thing, even if there were passageways to the sea. Where did it come from and why didn’t anyone else see it? The strange abomination was only seen this one time and we are left to wonder just what it could have possibly been or whether it ever really happened at all.

It is difficult to know just how to categorize accounts such as we have looked at here. Are we looking at aliens, ghosts, demons, spirits or something else entirely? They dwell in such a fringe realm of surreal oddness that no clear explanation seems to really stick, and since they were witnessed by so few people one is left scratching their head in bafflement. Obviously these could have been tall tales spun by the witnesses, but what if they aren’t? If they by any chance did indeed see what they claim, then what could these things be? Could they perhaps be visitors from beyond reality as we know it?

One possible answer could be that these fleeting, isolated encounters with the truly bizarre could be the result of some form of interdimensional interlopers from another reality or parallel dimension, who have for whatever reasons managed to phase through the veil that typically separates us to materialize in our world, be it intentionally or otherwise. Such theoretical entities are often referred to as “ultraterrestrials,” and are theorized as being behind sightings of all manner of paranormal phenomena, but they especially seem pertinent to these particular absurdly odd encounters. If they were from some parallel reality then they would possibly be freakishly strange in appearance and beyond what normally exists in our world, and their tenuous hold on existence on our plane of existence could explain why they are only encountered briefly and go on to never be seen again, blinking away. It is easy to imagine an entity from another reality falling through the cracks into ours, only to fall back out again to leave nothing behind but puzzlement, wonder, and fear.

Is that what has happened here? Are these perhaps glimpses of something beyond the curtain between realities somehow bleeding through into our own? It is uncertain to be sure, of course firmly in the realm of pure speculation, but if there is any chance at all that these witnesses really did observe and even interact with these creatures we are left with no other solid clues or connection to anything we know of, and this is certainly an interesting avenue of thought within which might lie the key. In the end there is no way to really know, and when reading these truly weird accounts we are each left to make up our own minds on just how this all fits into our reality, or whether it is even from our reality at all.

Travelers in the UK encountered one of the worst holiday occurrences imaginable last week: a completely closed airport just days before Christmas. All flights in and out of Gatwick Airport in southeast England were halted on December 20 and again on December 22 due to what was initially described as “mysterious drones” flying dangerously nearby.

Multiple unidentified small aircraft were seen in the skies above the airport, and they seemed to reappear each time the airport attempted to open. While dangerous drone activity near airports is nothing new, the investigation following these incidents has only led to more questions which make me suspect something stranger may be in the skies over England.

While drone sightings at airports are increasing dramatically, there are too many loose ends in this case to write it off as another errant civilian-level drone.

The UK Ministry of Defence immediately began searching for the aircraft after the airport closures, bringing in specialized equipment to help defend the airport and identify what the drones may be. Soon after, Sussex Police issued a statementclaiming the drones witnesses described seemed to be “of an industrial specification.” In other words, these aren’t some kid accidentally losing control of a $30 quadcopter – these drones appeared to be large, sophisticated aircraft.

On December 23, Sussex Police arrested a couple they believed were related to the drone sightings, but those individuals were shortly after released and exonerated, leaving no other suspects to be found. Perhaps most curiously of all, the lead investigator on the case then publicly questionedwhether there has been any drone incursions into the airport’s airspace at all. If they weren’t drones, then what exactly was seen in the skies near Gatwick Airport?

Or, what type of unknown drone might these objects have been?

While it might be easy to write this off as a case of amateur drone operators flying unintentionally near an airport – and it very well may be – there have been several other curious cases of unidentified flying objects in the skies over the UK lately. The Royal Air Force scrambled fighters just a few weeks ago to intercept an unidentified aircraft above eastern England, and multiple pilots reported strange objects in the skies over Ireland just a few months back. Could they be related to this airport closure?

Whether they are or not, this incident highlights the growing security threat drones pose. Gatwick Airport’s chief executive Chris Woodroofe called the incident an “unprecedented issue,” adding that “this isn’t a Gatwick Airport issue. It’s not even a UK issue. It’s an international issue.” Anti-drone systems have become a chief priority for both civilian and military airports, and even government installations and buildings aren’t safefrom the inexpensive, tiny aircraft. How can we keep the skies safe from these minuscule nuisances?

Maybe it’s best we all just start shooting indiscriminately at anything flying overhead.

More importantly, what exactly happened in England this week? With no answers to go on, it makes me think something fishier than just a few wayward quadcopters was responsible for this airport closure. 

For advice about living on Mars, who would you turn to? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? Matt Damon? How about someone who has actually lived beyond the orbit of the Earth? That small and sadly diminishing list includes Bill Anders and Frank Borman, two of the first three astronauts to leave Earth’s orbit and circle the Moon on the Apollo 8 mission – an event whose 50th anniversary we’re now celebrating. While Anders and Borman never set foot on the lunar surface, they certainly have more experience with living far from Earth than an electric car driver or a cardboard box mailer, right? So, what does former astronaut Bill Anders think about living on Mars?

“What’s the imperative? What’s pushing us to go to Mars? I don’t think the public is that interested.”

That was one of the nicer things Anders said about sending humans to Mars in a recent interview with the BBC celebrating the Apollo 8 anniversary. He was referring more to the exorbitant costs of human space exploration versus less expensive and safer missions using robots, rovers and other remote exploring machines. He’s probably right about the public’s predicted reaction to the costs, but he saves his stronger words for his assessment of sending humans to work and live on Mars in general, calling it “stupid” and “almost ridiculous.”

“NASA couldn’t get to the Moon today. They’re so ossified… NASA has turned into a jobs program … many of the centers are mainly interested in keeping busy and you don’t see the public support other than they get the workers their pay and their congressmen get re-elected.”

Apollo 8 crew: James Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman

(NASA)

Anders obviously isn’t happy with the organization he worked for as an astronaut and later worked with as the Executive Secretary for the National Aeronautics and Space Council. He knows firsthand the scientific progress that has been made since then and the challenge of dealing with the politics of space, having worked for the Atomic Energy Commission, the joint U.S./USSR technology exchange program for fission and fusion power, General Electric’s Aircraft Equipment Division and as Textron’s Executive Vice President for aerospace. It’s no wonder he says that “I’m not a very popular guy at NASA for saying that.”

“I’m not as critical of NASA as Bill is. I firmly believe that we need robust exploration of our Solar System and I think man is part of that. I do think there’s a lot of hype about Mars that is nonsense. Musk and Bezos, they’re talking about putting colonies on Mars, that’s nonsense.”

Fellow Apollo 8 crew member Frank Borman – experienced in the politics of space as the only astronaut on the Apollo 1 fire review board and experienced in both the costs and benefits of air travel as the CEO of Eastern Airlines – is less critical of NASA than Anders but agrees that the costs of human habitation on Mars far exceeds the benefits to the point of “nonsense.”

Earthrise from the Moon

(NASA)

While he didn’t comment on the Martian colony controversy, third Apollo 8 crew member Jim Lovell – one of only three humans to visit the Moon twice – waxed philosophical about the real purpose of space exploration:

“When I looked at the Earth itself… I started to wonder why I was here, what’s my purpose here … it sort of dawned me. And my perspective is that God has given mankind a stage on which to perform. How the play turns out, is up to us.”

It’s up to us. Who are you going to listen to for advice on living on Mars – the battery and cardboard box guys or three experienced space travelers?

No humans will live on Mars
These astronauts guarantee
Even if Jeff and Elon
Build a fancy B-and-B

The 387-mile (623 km) Bureya River flows southward in the Khabarovsk region of far-eastern Siberia – well, ‘used to flow’ might be a more appropriate description today. At some point in early December, an unexplained force from space slammed into a one-kilometer hill, pushing 800 tons of dirt, debris and vegetation into a mound that now dams the Brureya River. Its remoteness has made the cause a mystery – there are no witnesses to the explosion that some investigators now at the site say could not have been caused by a meteorite. With the usual government denial that it was a wayward rocket or a bomb test, some people are beginning to believe far-fetched claims that it was the result of a UFO crash. Is it possible?

“It cannot be man-made.”

Locals who have nothing to hide have already decided that any explanations other than a meteorite or UFO are impossible, based on what they’ve found at the site that hunters Anton Ivanov and Alexander Makan stumbled onto on December 14th. They have good reason to be suspicious, since the massive and violent event took place in early December, was not found (at least officially) until December 14th and was not revealed to the public until December 24th. Who or what wants this event kept under such tight wraps?

“The height is from 80 to 160 metres above the ice level. There is no radiation. An object entered at a sharp angle, pulled down a mound and spread it along the river bed. It is not clear what it is: maybe an explosion, a bomb, or a falling airliner.”

Local government official Alexey Maslov described the mound of dirt created by something to the Siberian Times. (Photos and video here and here.) There were no official reports of airline crashes, bombs or other manmade events that could have caused such carnage. However, Evgeny Zubko, a cosmic dust expert (nice work if you can get it) from the School of Natural Sciences of the Federal University of the Far East, talked to local residents who had noticed “the arrival of a blast wave” and to the two hunters, who said they arrived to find that:

“It smells like hydrogen sulphide and vapour comes out in some places. We even found a spot on the very top where there are warm stones, we used them to keep our hands warm. It looks like it was very hot there. The ice edges are slim as if they were in boiling water.”

All of that says “meteorite” to cosmic dust expert Zubko, but not to Aleksei Makhinov, regional chairman of the Russian Geographic Society, who believes this was a “seismic landslide” caused by an earthquake.

‘It happens very often in the (Russian) Far East. The entire coast of the Sea of Okhotsk is covered with these landslides when half a mountain falls down.”

However, there’s no record of an earthquake in the matching time-span. Nor is there a record of a meteorite either, says Boris Shustov, the head of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who says nothing was picked by Russia’s extensive network of ground-based tracking systems and thinks it was “just a landslide.”

The mysterious river-blocking mound of dirt is keeping water from this power plant

As of right now, there’s no crater and no debris –just an 800-ton mountain of dirt that wasn’t there a few weeks ago and is now blocking a river that drives the downstream Bureyskaya hydro power station. That means it’s costing someone money – which means it won’t be blocking the river much longer. Will it be cleared before the mystery of its cause is solved? A cause that experts and witnesses say can’t be manmade, can’t be a meteorite, but could be a UFO?

It’s a lightly-populated area in Siberia and the secretive government and big money are involved … what do you think?

Is NASA getting ready for some kind of disclosure of what it and the U.S. government know about aliens, UFOs and the other stuff conspiracy theorists believe is hidden in real X-files? Here’s a sign the answer may finally be yes – the agency announced last week the hiring of a communications department executive whose mother claims to be an alien abductee and recently ran for Congress. Couple that with her connection to another announcement last week that the Pentagon is putting plans in place for the president’s Space Force and the Christmas wishes of conspiracy theorists may be coming true … whether they believe in Santa or are just marginal about it.

On December 17th, Bettina Inclán was named by Administrator Jim Bridenstine to be NASA’s Associate Administrator for Communications. Inclán definitely has the right background for the job with over 15 years of experience as a communications specialist and strategist working with major technology firms and non-profit organizations, and has held senior roles with government leaders at the federal, state and local levels, including one who said this:

“I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes.”

That’s Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who Bettina Inclán calls ‘Mama’, describing the alien spaceship she was taken to at age 7 by “three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male” who continued to communicate with her telepathically at various times later in her life. While she readily admitted to her extraterrestrial encounters earlier in life, she denied them at first when they came out during her recent campaign for a Congressional seat in Florida. Although she finally admitted to the abduction and later encounters, they didn’t prevent her from being endorsed by the Miami Herald but didn’t help her get elected.

Did her mom’s revelations help Inclán get her job with NASA? It didn’t hurt … nor did the fact that her brother-in-law is Jarrod Agen, Deputy chief of staff and communications director for Vice President Mike Pence …

… who last week announced at the Pentagon that President Trump will sign a new space policy directive in the coming days that will lay out plans and a timeline to create a U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces. Pence then received a briefing on space operations and cyber defense and on the proposal the Pentagon is drafting to establish the Space Force.

Is Bettina Inclán, with her family ties to aliens and the Space Force and her new job in NASA’s communications department, the long-awaited focal point for full disclosure of government secrets about aliens and UFOs? Will she introduce her mother’s alien friends to the Space Force or will she warn them to leave town before they start shooting?

To conspiratorially paraphrase a famous Star Wars quote — the dots are close together with this one.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be conducting interviews with leading UFO researchers from countries around the world in an effort to paint a picture of global UFOlogy today.

Piotr Cielebiaś was born in 1986 in Czestochowa, Poland. he holds an MA in history and a BA in political sciences. He is a well known Polish writer and journalist specializing in fringe science and paranormal phenomena. He is co-founder of the infra.org.pl website, which collects UFO reports. He is a ufological publisher and contributor to English-language UFO magazines and websites. He writes regularly for Onet.pl–the most popular Polish web portal–and for “Nieznany Świat,”the oldest Polish monthly publication devoted to fringe science and paranormal phenomena. He is the author of “The True UFOs,” a book in Polish summarizing the UFO phenomenon as a whole, and UFOs Over Poland (2016, Flying Disk Press)

RG: Who have been the defining figures in Polish UFOlogy over the past 70 years (for better or for worse), and why?

PC: UFO studies in Poland emerged in the 1950s, but the most influential researchers began their work in 1970-80s in a time of heightened UFO activity. Krzysztof Piechota and Bronisław Rzepecki are worthy of mention. The former was one of the most prolific UFO writers in Poland; the latter partnered him and co-authored one of best Polish books in the field: “UFOs over Poland” (1996). Originally, Piechota and Rzepecki leaned toward the ET hypothesis, as did Kazimierz Bzowski, another well-known ufologist from Warsaw who assumed that UFOs are “energetical” and informational in nature and that they use “channels” or portals which could be detected by means of radiesthesia (in other words, aliens would be sending their crafts as galactic e-mails). The late Zbigniew Blania-Bolnar, another prominent ufologist, criticised Bzowski’s views and applied more scientific methods.

Among present day researchers I would include Arek Miazga, Damian Trela and Robert Leśniakiewicz. They differ considerably in their opinions about UFOs but they remains the most experienced and prolific ufologists.

Warsaw, Poland.

RG: What do you consider to be the most compelling Polish UFO incident on record, and why?

PC:  It’s hard to choose one particular case. Many UFO enthusiasts in Poland would surely say that the most compelling close encounter is the famous Emilcin case of 1978 when a farmer from Eastern Poland met olive-skinned aliens who took him onboard their strange craft. Others think that the most compelling cases are those witnessed by military pilots. Bronisław Rzepecki wrote a book about such encounters in Poland that were quite frequent, and former pilots often speak about their experiences publicly. The openness ended after Poland joined NATO in 1999. Another case that is worthy of special attention is a close encounter from Bedzienica-Nockowa (described by Arek Miazga) when a family from a small village in South-Eastern Poland observed a strange “screen” with huge, greenish aliens peering from inside. Also quite unique is the 1979 case from the Tropy Sztumskie area when an ambulance was stopped by spherical UFO blocking the road.

An artist’s impression of the alien from the Emilcin UFO case of 1978.

RG: What is the Polish government’s official stance on UFOs? When was the last time it issued a statement on the subject?

PC: To be honest, I have no idea what Polish special services or military agencies know about UFOs. Politicians have never touched the problem, though I’m sure they’re interested. It’s hard to believe that they don’t bother about cases involving unauthorised intrusions in Polish aerospace. The government remains silent about UFOs and that’s a continuation of Eastern, post-Soviet mentality assuming that society shouldn’t be interested what’s going on behind the official curtain. I think that something really unusual must happen for the Polish government to issue a statement about UFOs. But years of research has shown that even the most concerning cases were swept under the carpet. For example, in 2013 flying saucers appeared several times in vicinity of civilian and military airport in Cracow. In 2013-2015 many sightings of flying triangles/boomerangs took place in Poland and there was a suggestion that they were connected with US Army or USAF activity. No one from the government or from the mainstream media seemed interested.

RG: Does the Polish Ministry of National Defence have an official UFO investigations unit?

PC:  No, but reports about encounters with UFOs circulated amongst Air Force officials. Under the socialist regime, any information about unexplained activity in airspace above Poland was shared with Moscow. One man called Ryszard Grundman—who was once a chief of staff in Air Force—gathered reports about unexplained events on his own. It wasn’t an official unit but rather a “private X files.” He collected reports from pilots and military counterintelligence. For example, in the 80s, two counterintelligence agents received reports from concerned locals of Kobyłka (Warsaw region) of strange lights coming out of the forest. Two agents entered the trees encountering a huge flying saucer over a clearing that soon shot up and disappeared.

The Presidential Palace, Warsaw, Poland.

RG: Has the Polish government shown more or less transparency on the UFO subject than the US government?

PC: The Polish political system and culture is closely related with political parties and their members are mostly interested with holding power and sponging from the state budget. They don’t bother with such things as UFOs, or even the future of the country. Crucial for them is to look after their own private interests. Sad but true.

RG: Does Poland have a national UFO investigations organisation today, and how many smaller Polish UFO groups are you aware of?

PC: We have currently a few organizations, but I don’t think they are comparable to professional groups from the past (or to those from abroad, like MUFON, for example). Most Polish ufologists work independently and they get on. Also, our magazine “Nieznany Swiat,” has been gathering reports about anomalous phenomena (involving UFOs) for nearly 30 years.

Rural Poland.

RG: What are the most active regions of Poland for UFO sighting reports (hotspots)?

We tend to call them “anomalous zones.” They can be both local and regional. For example, regions of two big cities in southern Poland—Wrocław and Rzeszów—abound with reports about UFOs, while there are also areas with virtually no sightings. The Rzeszów area is especially interesting because lot of high strangeness events have occurred there which were researched by Arek Miazga—author of very interesting book, “UFOs over Subcarpathia.” Inside the Rzeszow anomalous zone there is a smaller zone in Glinik village where very unusual sightings have taken place (people reported small, atypical UFOs and strange flying beings). I’m also living in some kind of “UFO hotspot” because Częstochowa and the Jura region are known from various incidents, including high strangeness events. A long history of encounters with balls of light and other strange phenomena is connected with Osson’s Hill (Częstochowa). For many years also Warsaw was a prominent UFO hot spot with very interesting cases involving the landing of a saucer in Czerniaków district (1982) witnessed by police officer.

RG: Have you personally had any UFO sightings?

PC: Of course, and so therefore I’m sure that the phenomenon exists. I was 6 years old. I woke up (probably to get something to drink) and soon noticed a funny flying saucer amongst the clouds. It wasn’t big and was probably quite close. I still remember its colourful lights and distinct shape. It just hovered in mid-air and then flew away. I saw it very clearly but at that time I wasn’t a UFO expert and I just took it for a funny aircraft.  As an adult I also saw several interesting things as well as some phenomena that can be easily mistaken for UFOs. But the earliest sighting was the trigger for my interest in paranormal.

Piotr’s latest book, UFOs Over Poland (2016, Flying Disk Press), is available at Amazon.

RG: How long have you been involved in the UFO subject; roughly how many cases have you personally investigated; and what conclusions, if any, have you drawn about the underlying nature of UFO phenomena?

PC: I entered the UFO field in 2005, but it must be said that I’m more a journalist than ufologist, focussing on other “fringe phenomena” too. Since then I’ve interviewed many UFO witnesses. Some were interesting but the best part of it involved just lights/things in the sky. For me, the most interesting aspect of the phenomenon is the high strangeness. I think that cold analysis of those bizarre, grotesque and sometimes funny cases could tell us much more about the nature of real, paranormal UFOs than any military-funded projects. The biggest mystery of the phenomenon is the connection between those objects and human consciousness. But in my opinion there’s no simple answer to the question about nature of the phenomenon which is also probably evolving with us. UFO is just like a huge river consisting of various tributaries.

RG: How can Polish UFOlogy better itself?

PC: Very hard to say. UFOs are elusive and, in fact, all we can do is to describe and analyse their appearances the best we can. Polish ufology would be better if refrained from disinformation and bullshit, but the fact is that for decades we’ve dealt with the same theories and approaches. Ufology is in stagnation and it’s hard to say anything about the future.