Depending on who you believe, Ireland is over-run with either UFOs or cranks, reports Rosita Boland
There are a few acronyms that have become so familiar to the general public that they don't need to be spelt out in full. UFOs are definitely in this category. Whether you're one of those who claim to have seen/been abducted by/hypnotised by aliens, or simply read science fiction or watched one of the very many films featuring spaceships, you'll have come across the UFO.
Americans tend to be the most vocal witnesses (and victims) of UFOs, but two Dubliners, Carl Nally and Dermot Butler, have just published a book, Conspiracy of Silence: UFOs in Ireland, which claims that UFO sightings are many and frequent in Ireland.
"We're the co-founders of the UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland (UPRI)," Nally says, explaining that both of them have been fascinated by UFOs since they were teenagers. Unlike most organisations, the UPRI doesn't have members, it has "contributors". There are some 30 of them, and they contribute to the quarterly magazine that UPRI publishes, which contains stories of UFO "sightings" in Ireland.
Many of the reports of these sightings are included in the book. One typical story goes: "In May 1992, a local artist [many people ask for their identities not to be revealed] was driving east from Glengarrif to Bantry, when she saw a bright light in front of her car at Snave at 9.30pm. She got out of the vehicle to have a closer look at what was now obviously an object of some kind . . . she felt dizzy and returned to her car, to discover that one hour had somehow passed by."
Some days later, the woman remembered during that hour, "being in a round room, lying down on a couch with incandescent lighting around the circumference of the wall, with four bright figures in front of her". There were voices and images "flashing into her head", and she was certain "that the voice and images meant that at least one of the beings was communicating with her by telepathic means".
There are dozens of similar such stories in the book, under categories such as "Cover-up and conspiracies", "Altered states and abductions" and "Retrieved and analysed alien implants". According to Nally and Butler, the "hot spots" for UFO sightings in Ireland are Newgrange and the Boyne Valley in Co Meath, Boyle in Co Roscommon, and Bantry in Co Cork. There are regular UFO conferences in Co Roscommon.
Nally's own first sighting of a UFO, at 15, prompted his life-long fascination with the subject. "My mother and sister called me out to the back garden. There were spheres at altitude in the sky coming from the south. There were about 20 of them and they were white. They made a right-angle turn over the house and headed away. A manoeuvre like that would have killed a human pilot. It wasn't dust, and it wasn't aircraft and it wasn't shadows and there wasn't any drink or drugs involved. That really put me on the road to trying to discover more about UFOs and what they were."
As founders of UPRI, Nally and Butler have a love-hate relationship with the media. They want the exposure they get in coverage and airtime, but they also get annoyed at being laughed at so often. Nally is particularly annoyed that UFO stories in certain sections of the print media regularly carry accompanying graphics of "little green men". As they tartly point out in their introduction, "A common fallacy, when UFOs are mentioned, is to immediately think of extraterrestrial spaceships and aliens. An 'unidentified' object is just that."
David Fegan is a professor of physics at UCD who has conducted a significant amount of research into astrophysics. "Most good science is verifiable and able to be recreated," he points out. The problem with reported "sightings" of UFOs is that, "you can't recreate the conditions, so it's a subjective kind of report as a result." Thus, believing you have seen a UFO and proving it are scientifically incompatible. Fegan also points out that astronomers have been looking at the skies for centuries, while pilots - whom Nally and Butler quote frequently as sources for UFO sightings - have only been flying for a century.
Nally doesn't have a lot of time for the scientist sceptics. "Well, they gave us the information that the world was flat and now we know it's round," he says.
Nally is baffled as to why the Irish are so sceptical about believing in UFOs. For people who have relatively little trouble believing in moving statues, banshees, ghosts and the superstitions of folklore, it's a bit of a mystery to himself and Butler as to why UFOs aren't accepted in our society in the same way.
"People are sceptical about UFOs because they're ignorant," Nally declares. "This is something everyone should know about. Do the bit of research and it'd benefit everyone."
Conspiracy of Silence; UFOs in Ireland, by Dermot Butler and Carl Nally is published by Mercier