LONDON: Mankind has been spotting strange objects in the sky since biblical times, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that terms such as ‘flying saucer’ regularly appeared in the headlines. Footage of an alien autopsy near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 reached an estimated global audience of one billion before being exposed as a fake.

However, it would appear that public interest in UFOs has waned significantly since the 1970s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind suggested we are not alone. A forlorn statement on the website of the British UFO Research Association (Bufora) declares that they are scaling down their activities. “The halcyon days of ufology are over,” explains chairman Robert Rosamond, bemoaning the effects of ‘dwindling subject material’.

It is a far cry from 1951, when the ministry of defence set up the flying saucer working party. Although the committee dismissed reports of alien sightings as ‘optical illusions and psychological delusions’, its findings were not made public until 50 years later, fuelling suspicions of a cover-up. Public paranoia was not helped by the fact that most UFO sightings have occurred near RAF bases, with the result that the MoD has been reluctant to release too many details.

Today, however, rational explanations appear to exist for most UFO sightings. Last October, drivers on the M25 pulled over to stare at what turned out to be Thai lanterns. In December 2004, Southern Electric was moved to persuade its customers that a huge flash of light was due to a power surge and not any extraterrestrial interference. Even the infamous Rendlesham Forest incident in December 1980 was later blamed on a prank-loving American airman. Kites, soap bubbles, feathers, weather balloons, parachutes and tumbleweeds have all been mistaken for alien visitors.

UFO enthusiasts have also suffered by association with their fringe, loony element. The Flying Saucer Review — which bizarrely claims to have Prince Philip among its subscribers — has an online article suggesting HIV was brought to earth by aliens. A documentary in 2004 reported that flying saucers were actually created by Nazi scientists and sold to the American military. Understandably, this kind of press is a deterrent to potential hobbyists. “People don’t come forward because they fear ridicule,” says Roy Lake, the chairman of London UFO Studies.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service