I thought I would do something different today (and for the next couple of days). Namely, to demonstrate how the origin of a UFO investigation can be as intriguing as the case itself. Indeed, it’s very often what goes on behind the scenes that really stands out. We’ll begin with my research into the Roswell “UFO crash” of 1947 and how and why I came to the conclusion that nothing of an extraterrestrial nature crashed on the Foster Ranch, New Mexico. I have to admit that up until the latter part of the 1990s, I was – like so many – a believer that aliens died in New Mexico. Things started to change, however, in 1998. That was the year in which my second book was published by Simon & Schuster. Its title: The FBI Files. As the title suggests, it’s a study of the FBI’s investigations into the MJ12 documents, the Contactees of the 1950s, UFO encounters, and cattle mutilations. One of the chapters in that book was titled “The Oak Ridge Invasion.” It was focused on a wave of UFO activity in the late 1940s at the Atomic Energy Commission complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It wasn’t long after the book hit the shelves that I got a letter from someone in the United States (I still lived in the U.K. then). It was a letter sent to Simon & Schuster’s offices in London from California. And it was then forwarded on to me.

The letter was written by a woman who wanted to share with me what she knew about Oak Ridge – something extremely controversial. She would only share what she knew in person, however. She didn’t want to say anymore by letter and she wasn’t online. And, she lived in the United States. Well, this made things pretty awkward, to say the least. Indeed, there was no way I could afford to fly all across the Atlantic and onto Los Angeles just to do an interview – an interview that might not even go anywhere. As  a result, things were in a state of limbo until 2001. That was when I moved to the United States to live. I still had the woman’s contact information, and I explained the situation: that I could now meet with her in person and we could have a chat. Well, that chat became much more than that. It was one of the most controversial interviews I’ve ever done. Eventually, there were numerous interviews. The woman was pushing eighty in 2001 and she wanted to share what turned out to be a very dark and disturbing story. She had a wealth of material (mainly of old black and white photos) showing she did indeed work at Oak Ridge in the 1940s. There was much more, though.

I assumed – wrongly – that the woman wanted to discuss the UFO reports at Oak Ridge that I wrote about in The FBI Files. What she did want to discuss, however, was something very different. As we sat in a California diner, with a family member along too, she told me something incredible and disturbing: she knew a great deal about Roswell, but not in relation to aliens from faraway worlds. Rather, she said that Roswell was really a series of top secret experiments that revolved around (a) high-altitude testing in craft that are known as “lifting bodies,” (b) huge balloon arrays, and (c) prisoners and handicapped people who were guinea-pigs used in the grim experiments – which all failed. You can, by now, see where all of this is going. The woman said that the UFO legend was a smokescreen to hide what was arguably an even more controversial situation. Even decades later, she was still very concerned for her safety. She was fearful there might be those in government who still might know where she lived, she told me. Her concerns were understandable. Not only that: she put me in touch with several other old-timers – who she knew of way back in the 1940s and 1950s – and who agreed to speak out.

It was after some time – around a couple of months – that I brought up the issue of writing a book. She was okay with that, providing that her real name wouldn’t be publicly revealed. So, when my 2005 book on all of this – Body Snatchers in the Desert – was published I called her the “Black Widow.” It’s hardly surprising that when the book appeared, there was a great deal of debate online (primarily on the now defunct UFO Updates). And, for a few months, I was the ufological Public Enemy Number One, which I was fine with. From there on, I got more and more material on the “human experimentation” angle of Roswell, to the extent that I wrote a sequel in 2017 called The Roswell UFO Conspiracy. Of course, most people in Ufology didn’t buy into it. Some just didn’t want to deal with such revelations: they couldn’t handle the possibility of Roswell not having been an extraterrestrial event. Too bad. I still get threads here and there that add to the story, to the extent there’s a distinct possibility of me doing a third book on all this. And it all had its origins in a solitary letter sent across the Atlantic by a woman who, for decades, had been quietly sitting on a secret of huge proportions.

Part-2 of this 3-part article is focused on how I was able to write what is probably my most controversial book. Its title: Final Events. It’s a book that looks at the secret activities of a small think-tank group within the U.S. government and which believes that the UFO phenomenon is not extraterrestrial in nature. Rather, the group has come to the conclusion that the mystery is one of demonic proportions. As was the case with part-1 of this article, there is an interesting story as to how and why I came across the story and why I decided to write the book. It all goes back to the final days of 2006. At the time, I was looking for a new story that I could turn into a book. As it happened, the story – that I quickly concluded was the one – practically dropped into my lap. It was in late 2006 that I happened to be chatting with Ufologist and priest Dr. Ray Boeche about the Rendlesham Forest affair of December 1980, which – at the time – I thought might have been a good idea for a book. The reason why I gave Ray a call was because he had done a lot of investigative work into Rendlesham throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. It was during the course of the chat that Ray told me he had an even better and bigger story that might interest me. So, I sat back and listened to what he had to say.

Back in late 1991, Ray was clandestinely approached by a pair of physicists who were working on a U.S. Department of Defense program to try and contact what the group called non-human entities. Or, NHEs. Ray had a meeting with the pair at Nebraska’s Lincoln Marriott Cornhusker Hotel. Those who worked on the program, Ray said to me, started off believing that the entities they were were trying to communicate with really were extraterrestrials. It didn’t take long, however, for the group to conclude they were actually dealing with nothing less than demons. Not only that, there had been violent deaths in the program. Ray was shown graphic photos of several people – with their bodies in chairs – who had died while, it was assumed, they were trying to contact the demonic things. Even more controversial, the group was doing its best to try and weaponize the powers of those supernatural creatures. The pair was deeply worried about what they had gotten into and wanted Ray’s advice. That made a lot of sense, as Ray had a background in both UFOs and religion.

This was a fascinating story. I began interviewing (and audio-recording) Ray about all of this on January 22, 2007. Not only that, as time progressed I was able to learn more about the group. They used a nickname of “Collins Elite.” On page 42 of Final Events (which was published in 2010) I specifically pointed out that the name was an informal title created by the group. Almost certainly, the group had a highly-classified title. I never did get to learn what that real name was, however. I was able to speak with a number of the specifically retired staff, though. In the process of digging further I discovered that the group had actually been around for a long time – decades, in fact. But, that there were different levels and tiers within the group, which is why the two guys that met with Ray – and who, in 1991, were new to the program – weren’t aware of much that had gone on in the 1970s and 1980s. “Need to know” was very much the name of the game, which is why they were looking for advice from Ray.

How strange that I would never, ever have heard of a group in the DoD that was investigating demonic activity and supernatural powers had I not approached Ray Boeche about his research into the Rendlesham Forest incident of Christmas 1980. Not at all unlike part-1 of this 3-part article, this saga of aliens and demons is one that could not have been foreseen

If you’re going to call yourself “Alien Mountain,” you’d better have some extraterrestrials, UFOs and other strange stuff. Welcome to Danigala Mountain in Sri Lanka, which has earned its nickname “Alien Mountain” because of its cylindrical shape, numerous UFO sightings, spiritual connotations and now … mysterious petroglyphs.

“In 28th July 2020, we have documented a new discovery of Petroglyphs that have been found in caves on the northwest slope direction of Danigala inselberg. Those bind runes are dominantly compared with other archeological sites in Sri Lanka and South Asia region. The type of symbols (bind runes) and petroglyphs found are quite new and for the first time discovered in Sri Lanka during archaeoastronomical and geological preliminary survey conducted by The Central Cultural Fund (CCF- Polonnaruwa-Alahana Parivena Project) with the corporation of South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Sciences Research unit of Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka.”

Heading for a hike on Alien Mountain?

In a new paper shared on the ResearchGate scientific networking site, Aravinda Ravibhanu Sumanarathna, an astrobiologist and exo-geologist at the South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Science Research Unit : Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka who is “researching fundamental of extraterrestrial life which corresponding to paleontological and pretological factors as a astrobiologist,” describes a new discovery of large petroglyphs on Danigala Mountain in the Uva Province of Sri Lanka. Sumanarathna calls it an “inselberg” because the cylindrical hill is isolated in a plain. (Photos here.) The name “Alien Mountain” may have come from UFO sightings by local villagers, although specific accounts don’t appear in searches. However, it may also be because Sri Lankan mythology says Danigala was the location of the Royal Airfield of the mythical King Ravana – the demon king often depicted with 10 heads.

So, are these petroglyphs human, mythical or alien?

Oh, yeah … back to the petroglyphs. Sumanarathna describes Danigala as a place with “distinction of environmental elements relevant to archaeology, astronomy, biodiversity, and cultural factors makes this land unique.” That now includes the newly-discovered petroglyphs found in the Edakkal Caves, which were discovered in 1894 by British Officer F. Fawcett. (Photos of the petroglyphs here.)

From inside to outside view of Danigala Chithra Lena Linear chamber Image © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa.

Image © EASL/CCF-Polonnaruwa

Left; Danigala Chithra Lena - Linear chamber entrance and left wall representing sections of the Petroglyphs, includes anthropomorphic figures. (Image © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa) Right; Left side wall of inner chamber representing anthropomorphic figures like human and a bow & arrow.

(Image © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa)

Left; Left side wall at the dead-end of the linear chamber representing anthropomorphic figures. Image © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa. Right; Left side wall at the dead-end of the linear chamber representing anthropomorphic figures.

Image © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa

Here are some of the Edakkal Cave engravings, with obvious similarities to those studied at Danigala

(Vengolis / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Left side wall at the middle of linear chamber representing anthropomorphic figures like Human and bind code of mastermind. 

(Image: © EASL | CCF-Polonnaruwa)

Burial pits, pottery fragments and other artifacts put the age of the occupation of these caves at around 4,500-5,500 years ago, although the region itself was occupied as long as 125,000 years ago. The petroglyphs were discovered during a preliminary archaeoastronomical and geological survey conducted by The Central Cultural Fund (CCF- Polonnaruwa-Alahana Parivena Project) with the corporation of South Asian Astrobiology & Earth Sciences Research unit of Eco Astronomy Sri Lanka.

According to Ancient Origins, the petroglyphs are of humans, peacocks, plants, dogs, ladders, arrows, bow, and geometric signs and some measure up to 7.5 meters (25 ft) in length by 5 meters (16 ft) in height, and the paper states that they “are systematically not similar to any of the rock arts found in Sri Lanka.”

Were the caves once like this?

But are they aliens? Are there any UFOs? Ten-headed beings? Nine-headed beings? Eight …

OK, we see where this is ‘headed’. The study concludes these petroglyphs are “a lost astronomical counting system” created by the Neolithic hunters, not aliens. While that’s not as exciting or game changing, it’s a big deal for the Sri Lankan government, which plans to open the area for “Geo tourism, Astro tourism, Archeo tourism and Adventure tourism via a multidisciplinary approach that enhances the well being of the local communities.”

And line their pockets with tax dollars?

Now you’re starting to sound like the demon king.