Paranormal Yakker

Interview on paranormal subject

Paranormal Yakker

Bizarre UK UFO Encounters

August 26, 2025 • Stan Mallow

Britain's foremost UFO researcher, Nigel Watson, pulls back the curtain on some of the UK's most compelling alien encounter cases in this riveting conversation on “Paranormal Yakker” about his book "Portraits of Alien Encounters Revisited."

Unlike many researchers who focus on theories and speculation, Watson has spent decades speaking directly with witnesses who've experienced profound encounters with the unknown.

In the interview Watson traces how Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" created a cultural shift that emboldened witnesses to share their most bizarre experiences, not just distant lights in the sky. He explains how legendary researchers Jacques Vallée and John Keel influenced his approach, encouraging him to look beyond isolated incidents to see patterns of lifelong paranormal experiences many witnesses report. The conversations reveal fascinating connections between UFO encounters and other phenomena like prophetic dreams, missing time, and even apparent guardian angel interventions.

What makes these British cases particularly valuable is their raw authenticity - most witnesses weren't subjected to hypnotic regression, allowing their memories to remain unembellished by potential false memories. Watson thoughtfully examines how our cultural context shapes our interpretation of these phenomena across different eras, from phantom airships before WWI to foo fighters during WWII to today's UAPs, while the underlying experiences remain strikingly consistent.

Listen as Watson shares these extraordinary stories and his evolving perspective on one of humanity's most persistent mysteries. Whether you're a dedicated UFO enthusiast or simply curious about unexplained phenomena, these accounts from everyday people will leave you questioning what might truly be visiting our world.

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Hi everyone, I'mStan Mallow .Welcome toParanormal Yakker.My guest on today'sshow is the UK'sleading UFOlogist,Nigel Watson.I'll be talking with himabout his book,Portraits of AlienEncounters RevisitedHigh StrangenessBritish UFO Cases.Nigel Watson,welcome toParanormal Yakker.Hi, goodto be here.Your interest ininvestigating HighStrangeness UFOcases began whenyou watched theSteven Spielbergmovie CloseEncounters of theThird Kind. What,Nigel, was thereabout CloseEncounters thatsparked yourinterest?Well, it had a lotof publicity inBritain. All thetabloids hadfeatures on it andit also encouragednewspapers togather their ownUFO stories frompeople in Britain,just to show itwasn't just anAmericanphenomenon.And also the peoplepublicizing thefilm. So they 'veadvertised it withall the differentUFO categoriesAllan Hynekhad promoted,Close Encounters ofthe First Kind, theSecond Kind and theThird Kind.So in a way, we'retrying to educatethe public aboutwhat the titleactually meantbecause only us,some UFO geeks,really knewwhat it meant.And I think it also atthat time,cinemas werefar more important.There weren'tstreaming servicesand people seeingpreviews, except ona few TV trailers and that.I think it alsocame out on theback of Jaws, whichwas extremelypopular in Britainand well,throughout theworld, really.But, having Jaws as aa sign ofquality fromSpielberg, peoplewere expecting alot from the film.And I went to thepreview screeningof it in London, inLeicester Square,in a huge cinema.And it was a bitclinical, really.But obviously thefilm was veryimpressive,especially on a bigscreen and veryloud soundtrack.And, theending where themusical notes areplayed to the alienspaceship arefantastic.And then,the special effectswere so mindblowing forthat period.I think the onlyother sciencefiction film ofthat era was really2001, A SpaceOdyssey, thatreally set thebenchmark for these things.And for Spielbergto bring UFOs toour own planet wasfantastic.And, Iwas reallyimpressed by thefilm. And later,about a monthlater, I saw it ina public cinema,with apacked audience.And that was farmore enjoyablebecause peoplerespondedto the film.And I think at thetime I wrote thatyou don't have togo on a UFOskywatch.You just have to goto the cinema andsee everything,really. And I thinkit was a big boostto UFOlogy in general.And in Britain, itdid encourage a lotof people tocontact UFO groups.And Jenny Randlesset up somethingcalled the UFOInvestigatorsNetwork, which myown group was amember of.And what she passedon, so highstrangeness casesto people, to,would be there toinvestigate them.So she was based inManchester and Iwas basedin Scunthorpe.So any cases thatwere sort of overto the east ofEngland, she passedon to me.And so a lot ofcases came from herand, dueto the publicityfrom CloseEncountersbecause I thinkbefore then, peoplewere reluctant totalk about anythingother than lightsin the sky, thatsort of thing.And my UFO group, theScunthorpe UFOResearch Society,had investigatedlights in the skyand thatsort of thing.But it was a bitfrustrating,really, becausewe'd saw theinterview of awitness and checkastronomical data,that sort ofthing. And oftenwe'd find out therewas a credibleexplanation.And sometimeswitnesses,see a lightin the sky whichimpresses them.But when youinvestigate it,it's not reallyvery impressive,it has anexplanation.But sometimespeople don't reallywant to know theexplanation.I think they'drather keepa mystery.But it was a bitfrustrating ifyou're trying toget evidence,becausethat's whyhigh-strangenesscases were ofinterest.Because peoplecouldn't bemistaken if theysaid they saw aspaceship land oran alien nearby.And also, myselfand other people atthat time wereinspired by thewritings ofJohn Keel.Rather thanextraterrestrials,he spoke aboutultraterrestrials.So it seemed tomake sense thatpeople who reportedUFOs and paranormalevents were seeingsomething,beyond anythingwe'd previouslyexpected.And that's how thisbook really cameabout in the late1970s, really,because I'dinvestigatedsome cases.And then Icollected morecases and put ittogether inbook form.Because a lot of mywriting went to amagazine calledMagonia, whichwas published byJohn Rimmer,originally fromLiverpool, and hewas basedin London.And that coveredlots of articles aboutJohn Keel's ideas.So that gave me anoriginal outlookfor my writing, andthen it inspired meto put it togetheras Portraits ofAlien Encounters,which came out as abook in 1990, inthe end, a fewyears afterI wrote it.And now Portraitsof Alien EncountersRevisited, justgives me the chanceto go back to thosecases, take outsome of thechapters I feltwere a bitirrelevant.And I've added somenew cases and newfindings at theend, really.Jacques Vallée andJohn Keel who justmentionedpreviously are twoof the world'smost renownedUFOlogists andtheir work alsoinfluenced you. Inwhat ways Nigel didtheir work impactyour work?I think what it didwas say to look atthe witness in theround rather thanjustinterview them aboutsay a UFO sightingor encounter. Theyencourage you tospeak to thewitnessabout any otherincidents that hadhappened in their lifeand so afterinterviewing peopleabout UFOsthey askedthem about ifthey'd had anyUFO experiencesand a lot of timespeople saidthey had hadweird paranormalexperiences,coincidences,dreams, nightmaresand quite alot of peoplereport sightingsfrom when they werechildren and thatseems to happen.People havea lifetimeof encounters withghosts and UFOs andstrange phenomenaand that wassomethingthe works ofVallée and Keelbrought out. Ithink also theyemphasise thehistorical contextof these cases.And John Keel wroteabout mysteryaircraft of the1930s and phantomairships of thepre-World War Iperiod andFoo Fighters andVallée looks atthings like Fatimaand religiousvisions and kind ofre-examined them interms of the UFOphenomenon and alsoJacques Valléelooked at folkloreand fairy lore andhe compared thefact that people ofso entities of thepast thought theywere seeing fairiesand gentlefolk andpixies or whateverwhich werecomparable to UFOsightings todaywhere people wereseeing all mannerof strangeentities andbeings. In my bookPaul Bennettreports seeing athree-foothigh littlecreature with hisfriend which hecaught a mini manin black and it'sstrange a lot ofpeople doreport seeing lotsof different shapedentities and notjust the spindlygrayswhich in a waySpielberg's filmkind of introducedthe idea of spindlyaliens with largeheads andlong arms andlegs and I thinkthat influenced alot of laterencounters wherepeople reportedsuch things.In my book becausea lot of the peopleI spoke to hadthese experiencesbefore thefilm. A lot oftheir aliens andthings arecompletelydifferent from theSpielberg image ofan alienand you findthat again if youpoke just beneath asurface people arereporting all sortsof different entitiesI've read about acouple of caseswhere people saidthey've seen highentitieswhereas thetraditional graysand the spindlytype alien is amore mainstreamconstruct reallyTo follow-up onwhat you were justtalking about,flying saucers,unidentifiedflying objects,foo fighters,ghost rockets,phantom airships,chariots of thegods, whatever youcall them,strange things havehaunted our skiessince the dawn oftime. Instead ofgrapplingwith theoriesof speculation,you, Nigel, spokewith ordinarypeople in the UKwho have reportedseeing UFOshaving encounterswith alienentities, men inblack andangelic beings, andexperiencingother types ofparanormalphenomena. Is itpossible for you toshare one or two oftheir stories?One particularchapter aboutPaul Bennett is one ofthe first people Iinterviewedthrough a UFOinvestigatorsnetwork, and he wasa sort of youngteenagerwhen I met him,but he'd alreadywritten lots oflittle bookletsabout his UFOexperiences, and hesaid when he wasabout eight or nineyears old he'd seena UFO fly past hisbedroom window, andhe'd alsohad a gangof friends that hadquite a fewdifferent ghostlysightings, and likeI said earlier, heand a friendsaw a little man inblack who was aboutthree foot highcrossing the road,and I think aboutmid-1970she and a friendwere walking nearthe home, which wasnear some Moorland,and theysaw a sort of12-foot high greenrobot scooping upsoil into itspockets on itsbelly, andalthough he onlybriefly saw this,he and his friendsaid it kind ofglided along thenscooped somemore soil andwent again, so thatwas quite anunusual sighting,and I think somepeople woulddismiss childhoodcases as being allabout imaginationand fantasy. I feltI should interviewanyone who reportedanything to mereally, because Ifelt like you don'treally want to editout things,you want tocollect it all, andthen like with abook I've put itthere for people toassessthemselves, becausethe old thing aboutUFOlogy is researchis always evolvingand newideas come along,so a case youmight have rejectedyears ago, it wouldbe appropriate tolook attoday. I didn'treally try tofilter outanything, because Ifelt it's avaluable time tocollectthings in the late70s onwards, andI'm pleased I didthat, and I thinkPaul Bennett'sfascinatingalso, becausehe had a prophecyonce he was cyclingwith his friend,and he saw a reallydark cloud,and he hada prophecy thatsomething reallystrange was goingto happen relatedto death, and Ithink about a daylater he was ridingon his bike, andthe chain jammed onit, and he wentflying into a tree,and he ended up ina hospital with afractured skull.Remarkably afterjust a fewdays aftersurgery, I think hemight have had oneor two lots ofsurgery, he wenthome and he made areally goodrecovery, and thenwhen he wasrecovering he foundout that a womanhad seen a UFO overthe hospitalon the very nighthe'd been admitted,so he kind of feltthat the aliens hadacted as a kind ofguardian angel forhim on that night.That's quiteimpressive, becausequite a lot ofpeople have saidUFOs have savedthem in a similarmanner, of haveforetold disastersof some kind.Included in your bookis reallyastoundingexperiences of aman and woman namedPaula Green andStefan Labosek.What Nigelwhere theirexperiences?Stefan's case isgood because he sawaliens that looklike what he calledpink panthers andthat's kind of astriking image. Ithink it sort ofemphasizes morelike a facialstructure but hisexperiences aremore like modernday abductionexperiences where Ithink he foundhimself on anoperating tableand was examined byaliens and also hisfamily have had allsorts of differentparanormalexperienceshappened to themand the same withPaula Green she hadquite a fewdifferent events inher life fromchildhood. One ofher firstencounters was witha friend, they wentwalking in somewoods atnight time andthey came acrossthis really strangething almost like awindmilllike thingwith big propellerson it that wereturning and it wasextremelystrange toher. They had sublights on it and wecouldn't reallyexplain itand when shegot home shethought only aboutan hour's time hadpassed butwhen she gothome she found thatpeople were lookingfor her becauseshe'd beenaway for likemore than threehours. So there wasa chunk of missingtime there that shecouldn't explainand other timesshe's come acrossstrange entitiesand had strangeexperiences. Ithink she had oneor two examples ofwhere shethought she mighthave been abductedbut some of thesememories area bit hazy butshe's got memoriesof being in acontrol room andseeing images ofbeautifullandscapes thatthen get trashedand tarnished anddestroyedand that'sanother thing froma lot of UFOabductees. In factthey wereoften shownthings on a screenwhich can be quitedisturbing and alsowith Paula Greenshe's hadexperiences withfeeling a crocodileentity sort oftouched her andscared her and Ithink thoughbecause she's notbeen hypnoticallyregressedyou'd have probablygot moreinformation fromher about herabductions but inBritain we cannotreally do hypnoticregressions and Ithink theyonly tendto be done ifsomebody reallyneeds to have itdone for a ratherpsychologicalreasons but oftenyou know people whojust see lights inthe sky might behypnoticallyregressed and thenrecount anabduction but youdon't know whethersome false memoriesare being createdthrough hypnosis soI think it's quiteuseful to get allthis informationfrom someone whohasn't beenhypnotized butyou know PaulaGreen's experiencesare a bit closer toour owntime period nowand yet they overlapwith Paul Bennet'sreally because shelives south ofBradford and PaulBennet lives northof Bradford sothere seemsto be a lot ofthings going on inthat area ofNorthern EnglandWhat theories,Nigel, do you havethat could explainthe sightings andexperiencesthat havebeen reported by somany people whocame from diverseage groups, socialbackgrounds andlocations?I think what I finddangerous is tooverride anexplanation foreverything, youknow, likeused to explaineverything as sayalien spaceships,then it was Keel inhis Ultraterrestrialsbut Ithink it's morecomplex than that.I think each casein my book youcould usedifferent waves oflooking at them andexplaining them. Ithink one or twomight be what youmight call purelypsychological butyou could say wellif it is purelypsychological whyhaven'tmanifested ina way that talksabout,aliens and beingwhisked awayonboard an alienspaceshipand some of themore credible onesyou wonder perhapsthat these theoriesthat ballsof plasmacan affect humanbehaviour or memorybut it's kind of asort of geophysicaltheory whereif they think thatsomething likeplasma or tensionin the Earth'scrust can causeplasma balls whichcan have a sort ofpsychologicaleffect on you. I'mnot sure thatreally applies toany particular casein this but even ifyou just look atone person youmight thinkone or twoexperiences mightbe explained bymundane things butone or two othersyou thinkyou know what isreally going on andwhy are some peoplereporting thingsthat happenthroughouttheir lifetimewhereas you knowmost of us arelucky to see oneUFO and even thenyou might beskeptical of it andjust pass it out ofyour mind whichmakes me think ofwhat I callthe triggereffect where somepeople see a UFOand then ittriggers a memoryof earlierUFO cases ofexperiences withthe unknown andthen they startresearching thesubject and thenthey realisethey've been seeingUFOs and had alienexperiencesthroughout theirlife without reallytaking muchattention of it andsome people thenmight change theirown lifestyle orthey'll becomevegetarian orbecome promoters ofsaving the worldand that sort ofthing sowhatever thesource of a UFO itcan have quite apowerful effect onsomebody'sbehaviour and havea look at lifeand I think it'strue of just beinga UFOlogist youread about allthese stories andyou begin torealisethere's more thingsgoing on than nutsand bolts realityand it takesyou a bit outof yourself and tolook is somethingreally going on outthere or even ifthere isn'tanything comingfrom outer spaceyou know what'sreally going onlike you said youknow literallymillions of peopleare seeing UFOs andprobably thousandsof people have seenUFOs close up oralien entitiesand it seems tocarry on the talkof unidentifiedanomalous phenomenathe UAPsand droneshas taken thespotlight away fromabductions andpeople havingencounters in theirbedroom oryou never reallyhear much aboutclose encountersanymore. It's alsointeresting thatSpielberg'sactually making afilm that might becalled Disclosureso it looks like he'slooking atwhat we now callUAPs rather thanthe kind ofspaceship of thepast reallyso it'd beinteresting to seewhat he does withthe UFO narrativeSince you have beeninvolved in the UFOphenomena fordecades, I waswondering,Nigel, if yourideas about thesubject changedover the years?Like I said, theextraterrestrialhypothesis seemedquitenatural to me.You know, I wasreally keen on theApollo 8 spacemissions and then Ifollowed the Apollomissions to themoon landings and Iwas quite excitedby spaceexplorationand you know,that we'd end upgoing to Mars andthings like thatand science fictionfilms in generalas well.So I think itseemed quitelogical that peoplewere seeing aliens,spacecraftfrom an advancedsociety orcivilisation.Also quite a lot ofpeople reportedseeing landed UFOswith aliens inspacesuits, butyou don't seem toget much nowadays.But back in thosedays, if you lookat old issues ofFlying SaucerReview,there's numerousstories of alienswith spacesuits,helmets and usingequipment toanalyse and to pickup rocks, a bitlike PaulBennett's robot.It seemed to be ona mission tocollect things.So it seemed kindof natural thatthese werealien craft.I think what brokemy ideas was reallyJohn Keel andJacques Vallée'swritings really.But a lot of thesesightings start toseem to be asubstantial craftof thealiens actingreally odd ways foraliens fromanother planet.And I think JohnKeel in particularemphasised thesestories of men inblackacted in a veryodd way, like theywere in control oftheir body, theywere almost likerobots trappedin a human body orsomethinglike that.And they didn'tquite know how tooperate it.And Keel givesquite a lot ofspookystories like that.And also because Iinvestigated thesehigh strangenesscases, I wasthinking well, theydon't really soundlike traditionalaliens really.They sound likestories that arepeople havingalmostpsychologicalencounters.These things aredominating the mindthrough dreams,nightmares andstrangeexperiences.So I did becomeinterested in thepsychologicalaspects of thesubject and alsolooking atthe history ofphantom airships.Because I thinksome of thesethings are shapedby the kind ofsociety and culturewe're livingin so that weinterpret a lightin the skynow as a UAP.Or in the past secondWorld War, pilotswere seeing foofighters.And then before thefirst World War inBritain, people sawlights in the skyand covered themin phantom airshipsand they werefrightened ofZeppelin attacks.The name FlyingSaucer gave anumbrella term thatallowed people tofinally investigatethe subject.Whereas somethinglike PhantomAirships, it wasjust a passingphase really.People went on toother things butwith flying saucers.I suppose at thetime peoplethought, oh, it'sjust a passingphase, it'll die.But it's beenredirected overtime by goingthrough differentname changesfrom flyingsaucers to UFOs andthen people.So at the end ofthe last decade sawtriangular craftover Europe.And then in theearly part of thiscentury, peoplehave seen all sortsof things thatat one time weredominated byChinese lanterns.There's no wave ofsightings of orangeglobes in the sky,which are justparty lanternsbeing set off,which you don'thear aboutmuch now.But at the timepeople wonderedwhat was going on.And then nowadaysit's, are weseeing drones?And what sort ofdrones are they?Drones made bysecret inventors?Have they been sentby foreign agenciesor rather non-humanintelligencesbehind them?So in a way thenames change butthe thing behind itall is still goingon really.And I think withthe UAPthing is that itappeals to lookingat the subjectin terms of itbeing perhaps thesereally are dronesthat have beensecretly created.So they present anational securitythreat,particularly to theUnited States.So there's thatargument about it.But there's noother argument thatthese highlyadvanced craft thatcan gounderwater andthey canpsychologicallyaffect witnessesand have a kind ofeffect on peoplethat flyingsaucers were saidto have donein the past.So the name mighthave changed butthe actual gameitselfhasn't changed.I would like to nowfollow-up onsomething that youjust said.How, Nigel, do thehigh strangenesscases you'veinvestigated relateto thecurrent interestin UAPs?Well, I think thesegue quite nicelyinto the newsubjectreally of UAPs.I think bubblingunderneath it arestories like fromSkinwalker Ranch,where people gothere and then theygo home and feellike they've hadsome sort ofdemonic or alienentity follow themhome, which issomething else somepeople haveexperiencedwith ghostshave gone to ahaunted house.The haunting hascarried on whereverthey've moved to.And with the peopleI spoke to for thebook, they did havelots of reallystrange experienceswhich would fit inwith a theory thataliens aremanipulatinghuman beings.And that'ssomething peoplesay theseUAPs are doing.I'm not sure whatit depends on thetype of people youspeak to in Americareally, butthere's quite a fewpromoting ideas ofJacques Vallée reallythat the powersbehind thesestrange encountershave lived in theshadows since thedawn of time andthat they'remanipulating us.And I think it'strue there is thismanipulation, butyou could argue isa manipulation comingbeing beamed at usfrom afar or is itour own psychologyand our place insociety, wherein times wheretechnology reigns,whereas in the pastpeople had weirdexperiencesthat were termedreligious, usingreligious labelslike the VirginMary andthings likethat.Whereas nowadayseverything'scouched in a sortof seculartechnologicalmanner.So is it justsomething that ifwe look at the sky,we just interpretthings into whatwe expect to seeand fit it intothis sort oftemplate of aliensfrom outer space orno humanintelligences togive themtheir new name?So I think thefascinating thing,a lot of peoplehave come up withdifferentideas likethat sort of peopleI interviewedsubject to fantasyproneness and someI give a lotof a bedroomencounters or sleepparalysis cases,but I don't thinkyou can use themall as catch allexplanations.And that's why Ifind it difficultto give us some overallexplanation for allthe cases inmy book.Really think youhave to look ateach case andincident and itsown terms.And in a way, I'mbasically trying tocollect thisinformation forotherpeople to lookat and use it as afoundation for morestudy because notreally an expert inall the differentareas youcould explore.So I think it'sgood for otherpeople tolook at that.Should viewers ofParanormal Yakkerwant to buyPortraits of AlienEncounters Revisitedand also learnof the other booksyou've authored,how, Nigel, canthey do that?You can go on mostonline retailers,Amazon's a goodplace to look, andalso Collective Inkis a publisher ofPortraits of AlienRevisited, soCollective Ink'sthe publisher's website.They also do someother good, sortof, UFO alien andnew age books aswell, and quiteproud of havingthis book outbecause it's a goodtime to have it outand when there's somuch debate aboutthe subject.Nigel Watson,I thank you for beingmy guest onParanormal Yakker.As always, it hasbeen a pleasureyakking with you.