Robin Cole is someone who, from the mid-to-late 1990s, spent a great deal of time investigating reports and rumors that the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, England was secretly deep into the UFO subject. For those who may not know, GCHQ is the U.K.’s equivalent of the United States’ National Security Agency. It was at the height of his investigations that Cole began to experience what can only be described as “secret surveillance.” With that said, over to Cole himself of something that happened in 1997: “I had just got home after a Sunday night out. I had some stuff to dump in my office and didn’t switch the light on. I put the things down and just glanced out of the window. Well, outside my window there’s a street light and beneath this was a white van. At first I just registered that the van seemed out of place. You know what it’s like: you tend to recognize the various cars and vehicles in your own street. But then I thought: well, it wasn’t there when I came in ten minutes ago. Why is it outside my flat under the street light? As I looked at it, I noticed that on top of the van were these two, weird, silver domes one behind the other – as if they were a part of the roof, built in. I thought that was odd, particularly when it occurred to me that where they were parked was also right next to the telephone junction box.”

Cole continues: “At that point, I grabbed my camera and put the light on in the office. But as I did that, the van suddenly started up and went quickly down the road. Well, a couple of weeks later, the van turned up again. This time, I ran down the steps outside my flat and dashed into the road; and again the van started up and shot off. But it was enough for me to get details of the van’s registration and make, which was a Bedford. Then I set about trying to trace the van. It so happens that I got a friend, a retired police officer, to pass the details on to a serving officer who put the details through the police computer.”

‘Well, a few days passed. But on getting home one evening, I found a few messages on my answer-phone from [the retired police officer] in a very excited state. As it was about 11 o’clock at night, I thought: it’s too late to phone him now; I’ll give him a call tomorrow. I went to bed, but at 12.15, the ‘phone rang. It was him. He said: ‘That vehicle – you were right to be suspicious about it. The registration regarding who actually owns it is blocked, but the address that it’s registered to is a Ministry of Defense post office box in Wiltshire [England]. This was heavy stuff. But I’ve not seen the van since – and this was March 1997. But this was real proof that I was under some sort of surveillance.” Heavy stuff, it certainly was. In addition to detailing the story of how he began his investigations of the link between UFOs and GCHQ and the apparent surveillance of his activities, Robin Cole has an equally bizarre account to relate concerning the acquisition of the photograph of GCHQ that appears on the front cover of his GCHQ and the UFO Cover-Up report. Back to Cole:

“‘I rang GCHQ up and told them that I was a freelance writer. I said that I was working on a piece about GCHQ and the possibility of the staff there having their trade union rights restored – this was heavily in the news at the time. ‘Can I come along and take some photographs?’ I asked. GCHQ responded by saying that they wouldn’t allow that, but they did have their own photograph which they would allow me to use. Now, they didn’t say that right away; I had to ‘phone them on several occasions. Well, they wanted to post the photo to me, but I didn’t want them to do that because they’d have a record of my name and address. In response to that, I said that I needed the photo that day to finish the article. ‘Can I come and collect it?’ I asked. That was okay; they had no problems with me doing that. So, I jumped into a suit, walked up to the main gates and up to the security booth and said: ‘Hello, I’ve come to collect a photo.’ ‘Ah, you’re the journalist, aren’t you?’ the chap said, adding while pointing his finger: ‘You want to speak with those two guys sat over there in the white Rover.’

Aerial view of GCHQ

Cole reveals what happened next: “I walked over to this car, somebody presumably pressed a button and down came the electric window of the car. It looked like the classic spy scene! The guy in the passenger seat was just looking forwards and the other one was looking straight at me. I repeated: ‘I’ve come to collect a photo,’ and they passed me this brown envelope. I didn’t really know what to do at that point and just said: ‘Oh, thanks,’ and walked off and up went the window of the Rover with no further words said.” But, as Cole now explains: “Before I put my report on general release, I had proof-readers’ copies done for the members of the group – I only felt it was fair that the members knew about the information before anybody else. I’d like to know if the copy GCHQ have is a finished copy or a proofreaders’ copy. If they’ve got a proof, then I know that someone within our group handed it to them – which wouldn’t surprise me. As I said, we’ve got a few members in the group who work for GCHQ. Now, the only way that GCHQ could possibly have got hold of a finished copy, is to have got into my flat and taken a copy.”

But is that really feasible? Cole certainly thought it was. He said: ‘There have been a number of…well…I don’t like talking about it because people think that you’re losing the plot or getting paranoid. But, yes, there have been instances where things have gone missing, things have been moved, and I tend to have a set place for everything. I suppose the most significant thing is that, just after publication, I held the master-copy of the report in my flat, with the photographs – color photographs – all pasted up in an envelope on a shelf. I went out to do a new print-run about four weeks later, got the report out, and the photos had vanished. Luckily, I’d made back-up copies, which I’d disseminated to various people. I’m glad now that I did, because I hunted my flat high and low.”

As all of this demonstrates, when you dig deep into the UFO subject – as well as the issue of what government agencies know about the mystery – you may well become the subject of extreme surveillance. Be very careful…

What should you do if you see a UFO? Calmly take out your cell phone, steady yourself against a wall or stationary object, photograph or record it with audio details on when and where you are, point the UFO out to anyone else in the area so there are multiple witnesses, report it to the authorities, the media and UFO tracking societies, post on social media. There’s probably more things, but that’s a good list to start with.

Now, what do you do if you’re a military pilot who encounters a UFO? If your flag is the Japanese one, you now have a specific list of procedures to follow, courtesy of Japan’s Defense Minister Taro Kono, who released the procedures to the general public as well. Kono’s list for pilots in Japan’s Self-Defense Forces includes:

• Record on camera any such phenomenon they may detect.
• Analyze the UFO/UAP as much as possible.
• Collect similar reports and information from the public.
• Frankly speaking, I don’t believe in UFOs.

Defense Minister Taro Kono speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Sept. 3. Kono on Monday unveiled protocol for the Self-Defense Forces to follow for dealing with unidentified aerial objects that could pose a threat to Japan’s security.

REUTERS

Wait … what was that last item?

“No SDF [Self-Defence Force] pilot has encountered a UFO. The videos have come from the US Defence Department so I would like to hear their analysis. I don’t really believe in UFOs. We would like to establish procedures in the event an encounter takes place with a UFO.”

Back in April of 2020, Defense Minister Kono requested (demanded?) that the Pentagon share with him any and all things it has on UFOs above and beyond the Tic Tac videos from the Nimitz encounter, even though he himself doesn’t believe in UFOs. That demand by Kono led to a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper in August and the list of UFO encounter protocols in September. What does Kono now know that prompted him to release procedures for witnessing things he doesn’t think he’ll ever see for himself?

Can you hear the Japanese crickets?

What UFO?

Japan Times and The Mainichi appear to be the first media sites to report on Kono’s list (too soon to make it into a movie?) and they refer to a statement released by the Defense Minister, but an extensive search has failed to uncover it. That’s too bad because, unlike the still-secretive U.S. Defense Department, those of other countries have been more open about releasing UFO information and more progressive is setting up departments to deal with them. It would be nice for Japan to do the same – perhaps that might move the Pentagon to do more.

Can you hear the American crickets?

In the meantime, we have people in New Jersey posting UFO videos that send the Internet into a frenzy until a cursory investigation points out that the UFO is the Goodyear blimp. This is what happens when the pandemic shuts down live sporting events – no one remembers what the blimp looks like.

It’s time to hear more than crickets.

Is there a new space race in progress – besides the ones to put humans on Mars and big weapons in orbit? Just days after one group of astronomers reveals they have found phosphine gas in Venus’s atmosphere that is a strong indicator of the presence of life floating around up there, a group of Russian astronomers announce they have clear images of fossils from living microorganisms in a meteorite that came from an exoplanet outside of our solar system – life that existed even before the solar system came into existence. Race over? Or is this just an early lap before the first pit stop?

“The images we have obtained are unambiguous and easy to interpret. However, there will be many debates about it. People who have never worked in this field are the ones who argue the most.”

Aleksey Rozanov, the chief research officer at the JINR Astrobiology Center, told the news agency RIA Novosti that he and a research team from the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research are about to release a collection of high-quality electron microscope images of fossils from “micro-aliens” found inside the Orgueil meteorite which fell in Orgueil, France, on May 14, 1864. Those in the meteorite world know that the 20 stones which were collected are perhaps the most studied meteorite in the world. In fact, stories of organic matter similar to peat being found on it emerged almost immediately after its discovery, along with its unusual composition indicating it was probably not from our solar system. And yet, Rozanov is touting this as a ‘new’ discovery. Why?

“This is not a discovery, but the establishment of a solid fact that panspermia is a real phenomenon.”

Mikhail Kapralov, Junior Researcher of the Laboratory of Radiation Biology of the Astrobiology Section of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, explains that the team used the electron microscope to look inside the meteorite – in its crevices and inner cleavages where evidence would exist that was not picked up when the meteorite landed in France. They found fossilized magnetotactics – bacteria that align along a magnetic field – and fossils similar to coccoid, the rod-shaped forms of prokaryotes, acritarchs, protists, alveolates and armored amoebae. If all of this is real, this is truly a game-changing discovery.

Original painting of an individual fragment from the Orgueil meteorite

Is it real?

Meteorite experts may remember the infamous Orgueil hoax. In 1965, a fragment of the meteorite, which had been kept in a sealed glass jar since it was recovered, suddenly appeared to have a seed embedded in it. An investigation found it was from a European rush (a grass-like plant), that was glued into it and covered with coal dust. The hoaxer was never found. The researchers also reference the works of “American academician Richard Hoover.” Hoover, a former NASA scientist, was the author of the so-called “Hoover Paper” published on the Journal of Cosmology in 2011 which claimed he had found evidence of fossils in numerous meteorites. The controversial (in the scientific world) journal was criticized for publishing it and NASA disassociated itself from him.

Aleksey Rozanov released a few images of the alleged fossils (see them here) and promises that all will be published in November. Will they prove we’re not alone in the universe? That remains to be seen. Will they end the controversies? Probably not.

Is there a race on to find any kind of evidence of life other than us? Roxanov has the best answer:

“Much was found already then, but out of fear it was not so interpreted so as not to frighten people.”

We’ll see.