Television is only interested in UFOs when they remain ‘unexplained’ or mysterious; Identified Flying Objects don’t generally make for good entertainment. Even when a UFO has been fully identified, producers find it easier to gloss over inconvenient evidence, especially if they can call upon a former MoD desk jockey who believes that ET was involved. Channel Five’s ‘documentary’ The British UFO Mystery stood out as one of the most misleading and inaccurate TV programmes about UFOs in recent years. The programme claimed that a wave of UFO sightings on 31 March 1993 “defied all reasonable explanation” – because Nick Pope said so.

Pope, as we all know, once worked for the MoD’s UFO desk, his task to find a rational explanation for the sightings of lights and triangular UFOs reported by scores of people across the British Isles.