Aerial Phenomena Enquiry Network (APEN) - Uncovered?

a reply to: mirageman

Berwyn and APEN are linked together, for some reason. Someone thought it worth the effort, and someone still thinks it still is. Regardless of what the original event was.

It's worth noting the transition so many ufologists go through, from dedicated and grounded research, to either outright debunking or ideas that border on the lunatic fringe. I think it's at that point "something" happens, and from just such an event, things like APEN arise, compromising them.

In other interesting news look out for Jenny Randles column in Fortean times this month, where she will be revealing new information from one of her originals whistleblowers - an RAF radar operator. He believes he now has a new understanding of what really happened at Rendlesham. At the same time Scott Felton is awaiting a response re the MCA hoax document.

a reply to: Tulpa

Sorry just seen I didn't directly address this. "APEN" supposedly existed to destroy APEN - according to whistleblowers. Yet there clearly a large focus on Jenny Randles and things she was involved in. It's not hard to believe she was the target or primary point, perhaps to drag her off course. A lot of APEN Or "APEN" (not sure here) stuff involved people getting offers of Government insider jobs, directly from Jenny. (they weren't of course).

a reply to: mirageman

It remains a general problem with UFOlogy. When you have no UFO to examine, you're forced to look at all the surrounding circumstances of a reported event. So many loose ends and tempting blind alleys to keep you occupied.

Now, if someone wants to ADD confusion deliberately, its not hard to see researches falling for false leads. Particularly the dogged, persevering ones who are willing to look.

Whoever it was who threw this particularly bone into the mêlée knew what they were doing. If confusion was their intent, they certainly got the required result.

Im just thinking aloud. You guys seem to have a knack for finding lots of new information for your threads and look into things I'd never really considered. There are no wrong questions, though. If no one looks into any new lines of enquiry, we'd get nowhere.

You're totally right about the intelligence mob. They are always on step ahead (or two or three).

a reply to: ctj83

Yes. Jenny Randles was most certainly targeted. I can see why if the intent was to occupy someone with a wild goose chase. As I mentioned above. They were very persistent about connecting with (or to) Ms Randles. Perhaps someone was just trying to add discredit to a high profile UFOlogy "name" at the same time as APEN.

Feed two groups a load of nonsense. Connect both with overlapping interests, light the blue touch paper then stand back and watch the fireworks. Not quite the same as tying two cats tails together but you get the picture.

Adding
Got this months FT but not got round to reading it yet. I wasn't implying that you'd wasted your time, but that the reason for this whole thing was to waste someones time who was closer to the events. I also have noticed a "crossing" point for UFOlogists and tentatively think that someone has usually got to them. The "real" story is too much for them. Interesting you noticed that too. You should start a thread on that change alone and see what others may know. A distinct trend.

a reply to: Tulpa

After further research, I've managed to whittle down the alternatives to these rather disturbing ones:

- APEN never existed - APEN was a hoax, "APEN" was created to control Jenny Randles and other UK ufologists
- APEN existed and was composed of right wingers both ufologists and high ranking members of the establishment. Largely focused on overthrowing / preventing a Labour government. APEN did provide or intended to provide UFO leaks
- APEN existed and was a NAZI Saucer group - and "APEN" was created to destroy this right wing movement.

I say these are disturbing because they indicate one of the following:
- APEN was the source of legitimate UFO leaks, possibly from establishment sources
- APEN was connected to a possible right wing coup in the UK
o-APEN never existed, but rather was a hoax to destroy UK ufology.

Establishment Hoax to destroy UK ufology or the bleeding edge of high level right wing group.

a reply to: ctj83

Interesting.

I don't really have any conclusion I can draw it's all very peculiar to me.

However I am going to throw something else into the mix here.

You may remember that I referred to a possible right wing 'coup' in Britain during the 1970s earlier in the thread. Well the man wanted to head the 'interim' government was an ageing Louis Mountbatten. Both he and his nephew Prince Philip had a keen interest in UFOs. (See : www.abovetopsecret.com...).

Now the stories linking Mountbatten to the coup were possibly just wishful and speculative thinking. Mountbatten was said to have declared a coup "unthinkable". But some of the other names linked to the plot where Airey Neave, Ross McWhirter (Yep the guy off "Record Breakers") and Lord Lucan. Mountbatten(1979) , Neave (1979) and McWhirter (1975) were killed by the IRA and Lucan disappeared in 1974.

Is there any link to APEN? I really don't know. I have nothing to prove it.

The phantom helicopters, the IRA, the right wing extremists, Special Branch investigations and UFOs. They are all in the mix here. It may be all nothing. But it also paints a picture of the times as well.

a reply to: mirageman

I think Norris Mcwhirter died a natural death, his brother was killed by the IRA, Ross Mcwhirter.

Ross Mcwhirter wiki



I could have sworn your post said Norris. I shall leave this here as a testament to the fact that one sometimes reads what one thinks, and not what one sees.

a reply to: Jonjonj

I didn't mention Norris LOL!

a reply to: mirageman

I amended my post!!!

a reply to: Jonjonj

We all misread (or just miss things). I remember him not being on "Record Breakers" any more but had no idea why. I was in infant school back then. I didn't realise how turbulent those times were in 70s Britain until much later.

a reply to: mirageman

I too remember the record breakers, and was quite young at that time as well. The troubles did affect me in a rather direct way though, as a child my parents put me in the orange lodge. Our leader was found to have an IRA cache in his cellar, talk about a double agent lol.

a reply to: Jonjonj

I'm from the North West. Part of England where we have many links to Ireland. I could tell you a few stories but this isn't the place I'm afraid.

a reply to: mirageman

With Berwyn in particular, the phantom helicopters, perhaps Max Burn's Sheffield crash and a few other incidents, there is a huge focus on areas of the UK that are often used for training sortees, etc but nothing else I can see of defence significance.

I do wonder if there are things in those areas that are of greater defence circumstance than is generally known. I'm of the opinion that almost all major UK incidents occur around military installations. Not necessarily saying that they are all experimental craft but just like Rendlesham, the location of the incident seems purposeful.

One thing I noticed, with both your excellent references (thanks!) and the Sandman's testimony to Redfern is that there is a strong connection with Ireland. We're told by the Sandman that the proto-APEN was strongly connected with Irish terrorism, but not the IRA. I found it an oddly specific distinction to make unless it communicates some valuable point.

It could be that the terror group were Republicans, but not the usual suspects. In that case, there are several accepted phrases to accommodate that.

So, I'd suggest a connection between APEN, those supportive of unionist aggression with links to establishment figures who were unhappy with the state of the UK. That's the only narrative I can use to explain the Sandman's testimony, Randles own recollections etc.

I've been looking into the work of Peter Hyatt, who analysis witness statements in an unusual way. I'm intending to examine the APEN letters I've acquired using this approach.

Beyond that, I don't think I can add much more to this. I'm convinced that there is more there but it seems that the trail gets cold at this point.

We either faced extremists, as Sandman claimed, with establishment connections (and possibly leaking genuine UFO secrets) or a totally fake organisation (just "APEN") that was required to destabilise UK ufology. Both seem like desperate moves. I wonder what the urgency was?

a reply to: mirageman

I've taken this from your thread. I assume it's from Flying Saucer review:

Mountbatten later met with Adamski in 1963 where he took him to the site of the Briggs encounter. It seems he strongly believed in the first story but, for reasons unknown, not the second meeting the following day.

Adamski returns. This is troubling, Adamski was referenced multiple times by the author of FSRs tepid Berwyn write up. Adamski style aliens and an Adamski style saucer are referenced by the APEN report on Berwyn, sent to Randles.

Adamski was both a suspected communist and a possible establishment agent. For me, his photographs and encounters were incredulous beyond all measure and totally unsuitable for any sort of right wing APEN.

Now, for no reason other than collecting my thoughts:

APEN -> Ufology
APEN -> Right wing
APEN -> Adamski
APEN -> Berwyn
Phantom Helicopters -> UFO
Phantom Helicopters -> Right wing coup connection?
Phantom Helicopters -> Irish Sectarian connection?
Phantom Helicopters -> Berwyn?
FSR -> Adamski
FSR -> Berwyn
FSR -> APEN printing on same paper
Establishment -> Adamski meeting
Establishment -> Irish Sectarian reprisals
Establishment -> Overtures from coup plotters

Why does a UFO contactee with strong communist connections occur in a document produced by APEN, a right wing organisation?

Does anyone have information on connections with the following:
FSR -> Coup plot?
FSR -> Phantom helicopters

a reply to: ctj83

So, I'd suggest a connection between APEN, those supportive of unionist aggression with links to establishment figures who were unhappy with the state of the UK. That's the only narrative I can use to explain the Sandman's testimony, Randles own recollections etc.

I honestly don't know anything for sure but I also suspect that the Irish connection was with a "Loyalist" paramilitary group. Check out Harold Wilson and the "Doomsday Document".

There is still a lot of stuff stacked up in the National Archives at Kew as well that has not been digitised. We now know Mountbatten favoured a United Ireland but back in the 1970s I don't think that was the case.

This is a UFO thread with very heavy political overtones isn't it?

The Americans want 'disclosure'. I'd love to see one of their guys work out how one of the only two (realistic) UFO crashes reported in Britain have links with a military coup, right-wing political groups, phantom copters, Special Branch etc. etc.......

a reply to: mirageman

Do you mean Mountbatten's views were not known, or that they were different? I'm guessing the former?

a reply to: mirageman

I'd like to suggest that the Doomsday plan worried or angered those already seriously contemplating a coup of some sort.

You're right, this is about the most political UFO thread I've seen.

If things stopped here, I'd be tempted to say the UFO related aspects were a cover for moves made between any of the involved forces.

However. Mountbatten's ufo interest. The Adamski connection. The FSR connection. All of these are enough to make me question if the full story is so straight forward.

Then we move forward to Andy Roberts known Blue Hare Dark Peak hoax. We have to question if his Berwyn mistakes (misnaming witness, wrong mountain etc) are genuine or another hoax or test?

Finally, why is this still going on? Why did Williams push a very different story, why did Kellett pick it up? Where did Operation Photoflash really come from? Why Puffin Island? Who issues the MCA photoflash letter sand why?

In other words, this is still on going but at this point I can see no logical reason for it to continue...

a reply to: ctj83 (and your other posts since)

Maybe we should write a book about all of this. The UFO stories are almost the sub-plot aren't they?

I don't think Mountbatten's views (towards a United Ireland) were known in the 1970s. I might be proven wrong. But he was a 'Royal' and a former WWII Royal Navy Admiral. So would be part of the British Establishment to those of a certain political persuasion. It's so long since I wrote about Mountbatten that I can't recall all the sources. But I did take some of the story from FSR.

Add in Adamski and communism and you then add in another layer...

The Poisonous Umbrella and the Assassination of Georgi Markov!

The Cold War had still not thawed at the time and even stuff like the Litvinenko case occurred decades after the Berlin Wall came down.

And guess what? On a school trip to North Wales countryside one day in the early summer of 1978 I was with a group of class chums and we found a battered case with some strange coins, a very odd looking calculator and papers in a very strange language (which we thought was maybe Russian??). We gave it to the teacher, and later in the day the police turned up and took it away. (I am from the wild border lands where England meets Wales LOL!)

We never heard a word from that day on. But the Markov incident occurred when we returned to school after the summer holidays and for a while we did wonder. Even though our young minds were not really equipped to deal with Cold War politics.

Now I'm not saying this had anything to do with APEN or Berwyn or even the Markov case. I've lost touch with all the people involved and so my memory might be playing slight tricks on me as well.

The Sheffield UFO case involving Max Burns and the later Kellet/Berwyn/Photoflash stuff is all mystifying as well. Although I believe much of the Kellet story to be based on false information.

I guess what I'm saying again is that the world works in ways we are not aware of. Perhaps all this stuff had nothing to do with UFOs at all? Maybe it had a lot to do with UFOs and not a lot to do with political affiliations?

Or perhaps we are digging into something that we can't ever get to the real truth about?

Ha! The ride was fun anyway and at least made me think about stuff in a different way than I could before I reached my teenage years.

a reply to: mirageman

MM, I agree, this is probably the most political background imaginable to a UFO incident. If there were a few more pieces of evidence or breakthroughs it would most certainly warrant a book!

During my research into APEN, I've struggled to reconcile the claims of a right wing APEN, with the focus on Adamski. It seems that the best solution comes from the 'demonic hypothesis'! Unsurprisingly, the best source of this information, is a folklorist, namely Dr David Clarke! From his blog (taken from his Fortean Times article on Demonic UFOs' :

When Gordon Creighton took over editorship the demonic theories were promoted with renewed energy. By 1976 he wrote in a review of one of Vallee’s books that: “Demons…are here already in immense strength.” They were busily selecting those people whose genetic stock was needed for crossbreeding with demons. Even worse, the demonic entities were programming these slaves to commit violence and controlling puppets in Government to do their evil bidding.

I've read that Jenny Randles felt that some at FSR (where she held a lower position) blamed her for connecting FSR with APEN due to the printing press connection. It's also clear that several high profile UFOlogists connected with FSR believed in the demonic hypothesis, leaving the field altogether and becoming far more religious.

It was only when I began to consider how, politically, these beliefs expressed about APEN, by "APEN", by FSR might connect that a very clear pattern merged.

Context: The Cold War. Many worry if the UKs' Left Wing, Labour government harbours a communist agenda. Some suspect Harold Wilson may be a communist agent, and of those in position of power, a coup is considered.

Adamski APEN Progression Of Beliefs Path: Utopian UFOs -> Here To Help -> Communism
Proposed APEN Progression Of Beliefs Path: Threatening UFOs -> Demonic Hypothesis -> Right Wing Group -> APEN

Combined Progression Of Beliefs:
UFOS are 'real' -> Adams's Communist Aliens -> Agents Of Communism -> Born Again Religious Right -> Alien / Communist Government Infiltration -> APEN -> Coup Attempt?

People being drawn into the subject would begin at the start of the path, with some progressing through to the 'next step'. I'd laboured under the false assumption that the Adamski references of FSR, the "establishment" meeting with Adamski, the APEN Adamski Berwyn file were incompatible with Adamski's beliefs that the Aliens were communist.

In fact, it isn't at all.

Adamski believed that UFOs and their pilots were communistic in nature. They told him of the inevitable success of the USSR in the cold war.

A right wing group, with a belief in ufology might reasonably believe that UFOs represented a demonic group, if they are also religious. A demonic force that was promoting communism. A demonic / ufo / communist force (it feels more like an episode of the Simpsons than reality...) had infiltrated the UK.

It's easy to see these beliefs infecting early Rendlesham, and continuing into the 1980s under the Reagan administration.

I think my conclusion has changed now:
- Real APEN was in the shadows. Believes UFOs are communistic and demonic. Convinced the the UK is compromised. Rabidly right wing at the fringe.
- "APEN" acts in a visible way and presents repugnant NAZI - Saucer ideology to drive potential members away

This belief would fit the Sandman's testimony. There's something strangely hilarious about an Alien/ Demon / Communist plot.

One thing that I think this opens up, is that a certain element of UK Ufology was tied to the religious right and also feared the rise of socialism in the UK. As a larger group, with fringe establishment characters, they also feared civil war in Northern Ireland as a consequence of letting the Wilson government remain in power.

What is so intriguing about this alliance is that is provides for the emergence of genuine whistleblowers (Royal Navy?) in positions of power to leak details of actual UFO events as part of an attempt to expose the UFO / Communist agenda.

Conclusion

If the APEN Berwyn report was from them and not "APEN" then it's quite possible it contained leaks from the establishment side of the group that wished to expose the true nature of demonic, communist UFOs.

If the APEN Berwyn report was actually from "APEN" then it seems more likely that the intention was to destroy the influence of APEN to recruit. Perhaps also to silence potential whistleblowers in the establishment.

Final Thoughts: A Cold War Timeline Of A Different Nature

Politics And Ufology

Post WW2. The Nuts And Bolts UFO Invader
1950s: The Red Scare: Adamski & The Communist Aliens - Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis
1960s: The Space Race: Abductees & The Extra Dimensional Hypothesis.
1970s: UK. Airstrip 1 threatened by communist control. Demonic UFOs & Ultra Terrestrials. Berwyn Mountain Incident
1980s: Rise Of The Religious Right: Rendlesham & Reagan's SDI.
1990s: Fall Of Soviet Communism. Decline?

a reply to: ctj83

And there we have an international, intergalactic, interdimensional plotline to the story.

What do we have as proof?

Bits and pieces here and there but ultimately nothing that glues it all together.

Such is the stuff great conspiracies are made of!