Intergalactic Tourists Hit Cork?

In ‘The Examiner’ (Cork) of Saturday 10th May 1997, Áilín Quinlin reported a ‘UFO’ had been filmed by a British film crew who were in Bantry, Co. Cork, researching sightings of alien spacecraft.

Apparently the area has been plagued with ‘UFO’s’ for the last two years. The ‘sighting’ filmed by the Carlton TV crew is due to be shown on ITV in a two-part documentary entitled ‘We are Not Alone’ on June 24th and 26th next at 10:45pm GMT.

A bunch of researchers known as ‘The Irish Centre for UFO Studies’ were also on the scene, and reported that the aerial activity was clearly the work of “vehicles from extraterrestrial sources”, and one of their number, a local man by the name of Eamon Ansbro was “transmitting their thoughts through crystals in an effort to make contact with aliens”. People in the Bantry area had apparently reported seeing alien vessels shaped like ‘cigars, cylinders and diamonds’, and on some occasions, ‘balls of light’.

The filming of the ‘UFO’ took place while Alan Sewell of ‘The Irish Centre for UFO Studies’ in Craigavon, Co. Armagh was being interviewed. The camera crew suddenly noticed a flashing disc rather conveniently *behind* him. Mr. Sewell mentioned that much of the ‘UFO’ activity was taking place around areas of ‘high energy ley lines’ and near megalithic monuments and tombs.

Oh dear (puts on Skeptic Hat, dives behind sandbags). Nowhere in this article, and especially not in the statements of Mr. Sewell does it mention how the Examiner came to the conclusion that these sightings were in fact of extraterrestrial origin. In fact the whole debacle became hilariously suspect in the first paragraph where the assumption was made that a UFO is in fact, an alien spacecraft. If anyone thinks I’m picking nits, let me explain — UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, therefore, when someone says they have witnessed one, I would *like* to think that they mean they saw an aerial object, which was unidentified, and apart from a description (e.g. disc, big egg-shape or whatever), they can draw no conclusion as to its origin. Referring to a UFO as being an alien spacecraft changes the description of UFO to IFO (Identified Flying Object) without any thought to what is actually being said. Are all UFO’s, by default, ‘structured’ extraterrestrial craft? Are all extraterrestrial craft ‘UFO’s’ by default?

I did a little bit of research, so I did. I rang a good friend of mine, Tom, in Bantry (population 3,000), in fact he was the one who sent me the Examiner article. He’s been a resident in Bantry all his life, and had never heard of *any* UFO sightings before he read the article. He made some discreet enquiries, and no one had heard of Eamon Ansbro, and more importantly no one in the town knew anything about any of the reported UFO’s, or knew of anyone who did. If it didn’t smell a bit before, now the whole story started to stink.

Consider the name of the forthcoming ITV documentary, ‘We are Not Alone’. To me, that sounds like what I would call “pro-space brother”, in other words, its main aim is to produce final and damning evidence of the existence of aliens. This, it would seem, is what people want to hear. Ask any tabloid journalist. Ask Rupert Murdoch. On the other hand, a television documentary ‘proving’ the non-existence of extraterrestrial life would probably be a failure from a ratings point of view. Who would be interested?

(Notwithstanding the fact that it would be extremely interesting for someone to prove, at this point in time, that the rest of the universe is, in fact, devoid of life, as we know it, Jim.)

If two documentaries, one ‘proving the existence of alien life’, and one ‘proving that no extraterrestrial beings have visited earth’ were being aired on television simultaneously, both claiming to have ‘the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life’, which would YOU be watching?

I advise viewing ‘We are Not Alone’ with healthy scoop of scepticism, and large shares in a salt mine.

Thanks to Tom Vickery for his help. The author would appreciate any further information concerning the Bantry UFO flap . . .

Yes, I know I was supposed to mention poltergeists, but this UFO flap really deserved a full article!

Dave (daev) Walsh
28 May 1997

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