by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
This is the third part in a series looking at two separate encounters in Winchester, England, with UFOs and humanoids reported by two friends, 42-year-old Joyce Bowles and 58-year-old Ted Pratt. They reported that as Bowles was driving with Pratt in the passenger seat prior to their first encounter, Bowles’s Cooper Mini Clubman travelled diagonally as if it was floating after the steering wheel locked, and the car came to a rest on a strip of grass (known as a “verge” in England) next to the road. They said they then saw a craft hovering 18 inches above the ground with 3 humanoids behind a window or windows sitting lined up as if they were on a bus. A creature left the craft, possibly by walking through it, came up to the car, and seemed to have put its hand on the roof as it looked in Bowles’s window. It was said to have been wearing what looked like a silver “boiler suit” and to have had long hair that curled up in the back, sideburns that came down to a pointed beard, and brilliant red eyes with no pupils or irises. They said that during their second encounter, they found themselves standing next to Bowles’s car inside what they assumed was a spaceship. The creatures spoke with them, said they weren’t there to invade and that they’d be back. Their case got the interest of researchers from various organizations and there is one article examining it in the March/April 1977 BUFORA Journal and FOUR articles in the February 1977, Vol. 22, No. 5 Flying Saucer Review. In the course of the investigation, it came out that there were after-effects and that Bowles had a history of reported paranormal experiences and well as healing and psychic abilities. One of the researchers, Lionel Beer, reported in his article in the BUFORA Journal that Bowles’s history made him dubious, but he and the others didn’t discount her claims, possibly due to the influence the ideas of John Keel and Jacques Vallée were having on researchers at the time. Leslie Harris makes a reference to Vallée’s 1969 book “Passport to Magonia” in his article covering the case in Flying Saucer Review. Read more
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It greaves me to announce, a wonderful friend, and one of the true icons of the UFO world, Lee Speigel passed away from a short-term illness on August 15.
by Charles Lear, author of 
In October 1970, the publishers of the British magazine Flying Saucer Review put out the first 
In 1966, there was a series of UFO sightings in Michigan that got the attention of the press and the Air Force. There was a great deal of excitement and Project Blue Book (the code name for the Air Force’s UFO study) scientific consultant, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, was sent in to help calm things down. At a press conference, he offered some possible explanations. Due to sightings over a marsh, he speculated that people there had seen ignited balls of swamp gas, some going out and others igniting, and that this created the illusion of movement. The swamp gas explanation made the headlines and outraged many Michigan residents, including Michigan Representative and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. He sent a letter dated March 28, 1966, to the chairmen of the Science and Astronautics Committee and the Armed Services Committee, suggesting that one of them schedule “hearings on the subject of UFO’s”. He mentioned Hynek’s explanations in the letter and, in a press release that same day, it is noted that he described Hynek’s swamp gas explanation as “flippant.” Documents relating to Ford’s efforts and the resultant open hearing are housed at the 
In 1966, John Keel, longtime fortean and author of several books on UFOs, including his most famous book published in 1975, The Mothman Prophecies, was just beginning to focus on the UFO phenomenon. At this time in his life, he was writing articles for the British publication, Flying Saucer Review and sharing his research with Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. He wrote an 
by Charles Lear, author of