UK’s The Sun creates UFO news now?
So what is up with UK’s The Sun? Today’s headline is that of a UFO spotted over Dublin, Ireland , complete with video. The problem is, the video isn’t theirs to begin with, as I have seen this video before on YouTube, which was shot by user dede95064. Article Below…
AMAZING footage of a UFO has been taken in Ireland – as The Sun re-launches the nation’s X-Files.
A triangular formation of lights was filmed flying at night at “incredible speed”.
Experts reckon the sighting near the River Liffey in Dublin could be a secret aircraft – or spacecraft.
Nick Pope, who probed mystery sightings for the MoD for three years, said: “The video seems to have been taken through a night scope and presumably shows things not visible to the naked eye.
“It appears to show a structured craft moving at incredible speed. The configuration of the lights is unlike any aircraft I’ve ever seen.
“It’s either some secret prototype aircraft or drone, or something considerably more exotic.”
Any sightings in Britain will NOT be officially recorded because the MoD last month axed the department probing mystery threats. Chiefs branded the £50,000-a-year department an “inappropriate use of defence resources”. It came despite the near TRIPLING of alleged UFOs between 2008 and last year’s 643.
The Sun will pick up the baton, and release a rundown of your sightings, like the MoD used to.
Nick said: “The MoD’s decision was bizarre. While I’m sure they’ll investigate sightings from pilots and anything unusual on radar, the public had nowhere to go. There’s massive public interest in this issue. If there’s something unusual in our skies, we need to know or we could be leaving ourselves open to terrorist attack.”
The MoD defended its decision to shut the UFO division.
A spokesman said: “We do not feel there is any military value in reviewing the public’s sightings.”
Source: Vince Soodin/The Sun
The problem here is Vince lists no sources of this video, steals anothers work and makes it his own, falsely writes the story as that of truth and probably because somebody sent this video to him and he didn’t even research it in any way. Shame on The Sun! Below is the actual YouTube video from dede95064.
Written by Gary Popella - Gary@ghosttheory.com
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Great post, When I saw the video from The Sun I new it was a false story also, I saw this video over a year ago. I contacted dede95064, the day the article was published, and and it is his footage. And he wonders who told them Dublin? I sure hope The Sun stays away from the nations x-files. The original video on Youtube is called night.. (vision/infrared ufo 002) posted on 12/05/08 In Fremont California. “once again great post Gary” It would have took The Sun a 5 whole minutes to do some research into this video, before they wrote a bogus story about it..
Lol, I agree KnightsKross! If they get involved in Britains x-files, who knows what they’ll fudge next!
Surely this is an elaborate joke? It looks and moves like the classic asteroids arcade game, even down to the green colour. I think the sun was taken in! serves them right.
Did Nick Pope actually make that quote or is this entire story a fraud and they just put his name in there to make it appear “official”? I’m curious either way, if they lied to him or just used his name in the story. Still I hope The Sun comes retracts the story, but I doubt it.
Makes me curious, Pope seemed to strike me as being a bit astute. Who can say for sure…
I have to agree with LOL looks like a vid of the old school game
That’s the first thing I thought of as well. Looks like a CRT playing an old timey game from the 70’s. Only problem is what look like power lines and other twinkling things.
It did seem to be traveling awfully fast. Although the illusion of speed is easily done. I’m still on the fence here.
I decided to e-mail Pope about this, here’s what I sent him:
Mr. Pope, I recently came across an article on a website called Ghost Theory mentioning that The Sun was reporting that a UFO was videotaped over Dublin with a camera using night vision. The story from The Sun mentions several quotes from you about the object. The Ghost Theory article then mentions the video is not from Dublin, but is actually footage shot over Fremont, California in December 2008. The Sun is making an inaccurate claim as well as stealing video from someone else and then claiming it as their own.
and this was his response.
“Michael,
Lots of people are sending this sort of material to The Sun, because it’s Britain’s best-selling national daily newspaper. Sometimes people send things they’ve taken themselves and other times people send things they’ve picked up on YouTube or elsewhere. Once it gets to The Sun it can be passed around between several reporters and sometimes the context can be lost in this process. In this case, The Sun just picked a couple of interesting videos to give colour to the real point of the story: the setting up of The Sun’s UFO project, to replace MoD’s research effort. To further complicate things, a second video was taken in Dublin and the comment for this may have been confused with the comment for the 2008 video.
In summary, confusion, not dishonesty. The Sun are championing this issue and keeping it in the public eye.
Best wishes,
Nick Pope”
So it’s ok to steal someone else’s video if you are championing the issue of UFOs? Hell I’m gonna steal some of his work and put it on my blog.
My sentiments exactly Gary!!
http://tinyurl.com/y9ob7nj
Regarding Pope, while he’s a very effective public-speaker, things aren’t always how they appear…..
Cheers.
Michael,
If you could, send me that email address for Mr. Pope
He is making it out like it’s ok to be dishonest (let’s put the confusion portion aside for a second) in a major newspaper, as long as it furthers the goals of an idea. Excuse me?!? When you start put this type of concept forward, you just ruined the core value of an idea. Believe me, the research into UFO’s cannot withstand dishonesty of any type, this is a field already on the verge of mockery by public opinion. Taking this video and using it to make a point about what The Sun is going to do in the future for the UFO field is laughable. They are basically perpetrating a hoax at this point!
If there was confusion, you would think the paper would retract the story and offer an apology, and I bet that hasn’t been done yet! I am intent on emailing Mr. Pope on this and The Sun.
And thanks for the link DrDil, it’s a good article and pretty much says it all for Mr. Pope…
Gary, I got it from his site. It’s Contact@NickPope.net.
After his response and the link from Dr.Dil my opinion of Pope has changed.
I feel mine has to Michael…I sent a email to Vince Soodin, the writer of this article to hear his opinion, I will post that as soon as I get a response. Now let’s see what Mr. Pope says…
Lol!
I will try sending again tommorow.
Well Mr.Soodin’s email isn’t working. It’s rejecting all mail, which tells me his mailbox is full of hate mail
As for Mr. Pope, this is what I sent:
Nick,
My name is Gary Popella, an editor for http://www.ghosttheory.com . My readers and I have reservations about the article written by Vince Soodin for The Sun titled ‘Liffey on Mars’. Apparently The Sun has posted a video of a UFO seen over Dublin, Ireland. This video is false for starters as this video was shot by YouTube user dede95064 well over a year ago in Fremont, California. Recently, a reader of ours, Michael, had contacted you by way of my article, expressing his concerns over the usage of this video. You stated:
“Lots of people are sending this sort of material to The Sun, because it’s Britain’s best-selling national daily newspaper. Sometimes people send things they’ve taken themselves and other times people send things they’ve picked up on YouTube or elsewhere. Once it gets to The Sun it can be passed around between several reporters and sometimes the context can be lost in this process. In this case, The Sun just picked a couple of interesting videos to give colour to the real point of the story: the setting up of The Sun’s UFO project, to replace MoD’s research effort.”
The problem with The Sun adding color to their story with this video is it is perpetuating a hoax, basically. When do the ends justify the means? Unfortunately Vince lists no references in his article to further support this story. If The Sun creates UFO news in order to justify their actions in picking up the baton for the MoD, how can you trust further data from them? This is a horrible set of circumstances, and my readers are outraged by the flagrant usage of this video by The Sun.
I hope you can understand my concerns on this subject, and I eagerly await your response.
Best Regards,
Gary Popella
and this is what I got in response:
Gary,
Someone sent The Sun two videos, the second of which was taken in Dublin. The comment for this second video seems to have been mistakenly attributed to the first video, which seems – as you say – to have been taken in the US.
Best wishes,
Nick Pope
Earnestly, he’s just deflecting the fervor this story has created. In Michael’s email, he makes it sound as that could be a reason, while in mine, it is the reason.
Wanker!
Ok my opinion of him has switched completely. I used to respect his work with the MoD, now I don’t believe a word he says and wonder what else he will do.
The main image is taken from the Fremont video and then it’s titled as “Light show … the mystery ‘craft’ over Dublin”. yet he claims that I and every other reader is confusing this with another video? Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see anything about a second video in this article.
Looks to me he realizes he’s caught and instead of fessing up is just trying to deflect any uproar as a mistake on the readers part.
http://tinyurl.com/y8h5gqo
Shhh……
No, I think he is saying the The Sun mistankenly used another video which is supposed to be correct, instead they botched and used the Fremont video.
As I stated in the email to Nick, Vince lists no references in his article, so there is no way to collaborate the story.
Fishy….
Nick Pope working with “The Sun” with UFO sightings is kinda like Stanton Friedman working with “The National Enquirer” What the heck is Nick thinking? (I am not comparing Stanton with Nick, cause I really do respect Stanton) I’m just saying how absurd for Nick to take his UFO experience and credibility and flush it down the toilet just to keep the UK sightings investigations going … I mean is there nobody smart enough to make a UFO database in UK besides The Sun? jeez Nick is your resources that limited? I understand branding your name out there in the world is a good thing, but this is a game changer for his credibility.
Actually, how can you expect Pope to fix the problem? He said it was a mix up. All he can do is inform the Sun. However, it’s up to them to write a retraction.
For those that supported Pope in the past, I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.
I just got an email from Nick. He expressed that he had no involvement with the writing of the article in question, just that The Sun had contacted him for an opinion of the video’s in question. I can definately see that, since they are the one’s who basically handed him the video and stated it’s background, so he got sideswiped. Apparently, this situation is going viral on the internet which doesn’t bode well for The Sun. I’m thinking that retraction might be coming sooner than later now.
Either way, I’m sure Nick will be a bit more cautious with statements in the near future pending the source after this situation.
The reason why my opinion of Pope had changed was due to his response in the e-mail he sent me. It just seemed to me he was OK with the fact that The Sun misused someone else’s video just to champion the cause of UFO’s. For this field to be taken seriously, we cannot have things like this happen.
But I’m glad that others are catching wind of what The Sun did, though I doubt they will come out and say their real reasons behind what they did. They will just say it was a “mix-up” and apologize. Though I would really like to see this “other” video that was supposed to be shot in Dublin.
The problem with Nick Pope is that in the several years since he left the MOD’s “UFO desk” (which was only a part-time, primarily clerical public-relations admin job of little note, importance, or investigatory capability), he had taken up writing exploitative UFO-related books, and makes his money from that and his active presence on the UFO lecture circuit and via related articles and interviews, etc.
He’s into it for the money and 15 minutes of pseudo-fame. He exploits both the UFO phenomenon, the general public’s gullibility, and has no compunction about even exploiting himself if it can keep him in beer and chips. He is no authority on the subject. His association with and puerile defense of The Sun, one of the most scabrous and dishonest Murdoch-owned yellow journalism tabloids should tell you all you need to know about this new-age conman.
There is a genuine, long-term UFO phenomenon, that may just possibly have some relationship with a form or forms of both nonhuman intelligence and, in turn, forms of unknown but relatively rare natural phenomena of various sorts. The fact is we just don’t know either way for sure as yet. Pope is a simplistic exploiter and snake-oil salesman whose actions, statements, and behavior only bring the real, honest, and scientifically objective UFO investigators and researchers to increasingly view him with the disdain and desire for disassociation he so richly deserves. He’s a simple fool, and seems to get by on that fact since there are apparently so many other simple fools willing to consume the swill be puts out there. He is slime.
Observer, do you have some proof to back up your claims or is it JYO?
Everyone has to make a living but that doesn’t mean they are exploiting anyone. I’m not calling you a liar or anything, I’d just like to see some valid evidence supporting your claim.
Just to clarify, I don’t lean either way as Pope is not someone I follow or read about on a regular basis.
Gary, you contacted dede95064, “and it is his footage. And he wonders who told them Dublin.”
Could you clarify whether he’s saying that it’s not shot in Dublin at all, or merely that he had not told them Dublin and he doesn’t know who told them that?
I know there is a community called Dublin about 10 miles from Fremont in California.
“I know there is a community called Dublin about 10 miles from Fremont in California.”
Hi Carol, does it also have a river named Liffey?
(I.e. the headline “Liffey On Mars”).
@observer,
I think Jbondo brings up a valid point. While I as well do not follow Pope on a constant basis, I do know that he has been in the game for quite some time and holds *some* authority. Was he mislead? Sure. Was it his fault for not checking the source (since the video in question came from the gossip paper The Sun) YES!.
-Javier
I think what Carol is saying is that the video may have been stated as being Dublin, (California) and somehow got passed to The Sun as Dublin, so they assumed Ireland. The only problem I see with that is if someone was using the Fremont video as a reference and did not tell The Sun it was reference, which I can see. The YouTube video states the location plainly as Fremont, so how could anyone have known there was a Dublin around there besides the folk in the area?
There is various problems already at hand with this debacle. The writer, Vince Soodin, lists no references in the written article, the video appears to be taken on the faith of word of whomever submitted it, Nick gets sidewiped on making a comment about the video because The Sun misinformed him, in which they goofed up just about every facet of this article from start to finish. It should have been investigated properly (or at least referenced properly) before it’s release.
@jbondo–
No, it is not just my opinion. It is shared by many others who do good work in the field of objective ufology, such as it is. It is a fact. Pope is avoiding denouncing The Sun due to vested interests, and The Sun has promoted and fabricated bogus ufo articles for years now. It _sells_ papers. There will be no retraction from either Pope or The Sun. They know _exactly_ what they are doing, and have and will continue to do it, which is to promote themselves for a variety of sleazy, unethical reasons. Pope was commissioned by The Sun to write an article on the recent “extraterrestrial life” conference in England within the last couple days! They have a financial relationship. Pope is a gullible media personality, more than willing to provide tabloid fodder to the public which wants and seeks out such disinfotainment from publications like The Sun.
See also:
http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/secfilcosf2.htm
http://www.uk-ufo.org/cosford/ and http://bit.ly/aXym4r for just a few quick examples of what I’m suggesting. There are many others. Go to http://www.nickpope.net and read some of his articles.
If you’re curious, just google Nick Pope’s name, add a few adjectives, and see what you come up with. Do a little of your own research if you’re really curious as to why I have expressed my opinion of Pope is such a negative manner. He seems to be the “go to guy” for rank tabloids like The Sun whenever they need a comment to express and fabricate some added “credibility” for their incessantly low-brow, sensationalistic coverage of bogus ufo incidents, as if Pope’s opinion had real validity based on his relatively short period of manning the erstwhile “ufo desk” for the MOD. The “ufo desk” really only amounted to a MOD channel for accepting and then filing, nearly always without any further serious investigation, ufo reports from the public. It was a public relations scheme with little funding, staff, or investigatory capability, and thus minimal credibility.
He’s attempted to capitalize on that to anchor his career as a phony “ufo expert” and in order to provide an income via his books, lectures, articles, and public appearances on the ufo circuit. He really has no educational or experiential background or scientific expertise to speak of in regard to objective ufo research. He’s simply become yet another public figure who most who are naive about the history of the ufo phenomenon and its basis turn to for easy, credulous answers and opinions. He has supported bogus ufo cases, such as the one we have been commenting on here.
In my opinion, the video taken with a nightvision scope-equipped video camera are of a relatively small (3 to 5 foot) radio-controlled triangular model airplane with attached LED’s with circular reflectors, not either a secret stealth aircraft nor an “alien” ufo. There are people who both manufacture and sell such RC-type small model aircraft, controlled from the ground by joy-stick equipped control units. This video, whether known to the videographer or not, is a fake and a simple hoax. Happens all the time now.
I am not a pseudo-skeptic or generic debunker, either. I have seen a genuine, unidentified flying object once, as part of a multiple- witness case 37 years ago, that directly approached to within 50 feet of my location from out of the night sky while on a camping trip, that displayed unusual, possibly reactive, aerial motion and behavior, and have been seriously involved in objective, scientific and historical ufo research for nearly 20 years. It is people like Pope that this field of preferably empirical endeavor simply do not need to further muddy the already clouded waters of actual ufo research and investigation. His kind of unfounded and superficial opinions, in lieu of actual, serious research, are just a form of public grandstanding, cheer-leading, and pecuniary self-promotion that essentially end up bring discredit and ridicule to the more serious research efforts and investigators in the field.
Observer,
I’m not that interested. One thing I will say is that I have zero faith in any tabloid publication.
Furthermore, I am not a supporter of Pope but there are plenty of what I would term experts in fields of study that have no formal training. Also, if the Sun called me and said they’d pay me for a comment on something circulating on the interweb, I’d comment and cash the check. I certainly wouldn’t fabricate or mislead anyone but I wouldn’t pass up the money.
You do have some valid points though and I have to give you credit for your detailed reply. I will definitely keep them in mind should I see Pope related material in the future.
I thought these were rather interesting articles I found in Observer’s reply, with The Sun being the news source.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2348570.ece
http://forgetomori.com/2009/ufos/ufo-fleet-menaces-east-london-nah/
http://dandare.wordpress.com/2008/01/03/is-nick-pope-being-gullable-towards-ufo-sighting/
I can agree with ya bondo on the fact that if a newspaper were paying me for comments, I would cash the check and have a nice day, but where do you draw the line? Continue to make comments and you start to taint your own reputation, especially with some of these photo’s listed above, I start to question his email response to Michael and myself. Does he really review what he looks at or does he make cursory statements at a glance?
Another interesting read:
http://www.rense.com/politics5/mod.htm
It’s about 10 years old, but relevant.
Observer, I do have to argue with you on the idea that the video shows a RC airplane. Even though it’s hard to tell the height of the object, it does appear to be ‘up there’. It’s flying totally steady and for being high enough up it would be getting buffeted by winds constantly, pushing the RC airplane to and fro, not to mention adjustments by the operator would make it look jerky. What is in the video appears very smooth in flight. Not to mention, flying such a RC airplane at night would be a suicide flight at best.
@Gary–
“Observer, I do have to argue with you on the idea that the video shows a RC airplane. Even though it’s hard to tell the height of the object, it does appear to be ‘up there’. It’s flying totally steady and for being high enough up it would be getting buffeted by winds constantly, pushing the RC airplane to and fro, not to mention adjustments by the operator would make it look jerky. What is in the video appears very smooth in flight. Not to mention, flying such a RC airplane at night would be a suicide flight at best.”
Well, sure, you can disagree, but to me it’s still most likely an LED-equipped RC model aircraft, considering all the most realistic possibilities, IMHO. What do you think it is, if not an RC model?
Since one cannot really tell just how high “up there” it actually is, considering that the video was taken through a night-vision scope attached to a video camera, which focuses in and out a couple times, the only gauge one can use is the fact that you can see five distinct lights, while in contrast the small private aircraft seen in the earlier part of the video is a bright triangle whose image blooms slightly, indicating that the triangular formation of five lights is quite a bit lower than the private aircraft due to its relative clarity of more discrete imagery and distinct lighting elements, and if my estimate of 3 to 5 feet for the object is somewhat accurate.
I assume also this video was taken with a tripod (or possibly a chest-harness camera fixture), due to the lack of typical hand-held video jitters, and/or that the camera used has motion-damping features. The night-vision goggles used are a 3rd generation type, an ATN PVS-7, which is not cheap (about $3,500), so the Sony HD video camera used may also be an advanced model with jitter-reduction capability (and also has modified IR/UV features, according to notes on the videographer’s youtube site–see: dede95064).
I would guess the suspected small, lightweight model aircraft was between a few to several hundred feet in the air. Another couple of clues to its relative size and height are the tightly curving motion it makes toward the end, and where it crosses the telephone wires in the foreground. This does not seem to be a large, heavy, or very high-flying object, based on those criteria.
BTW, Dublin is also only 10 miles or so from Fremont, and in the past couple years, there have been some news articles about LED-equipped RC models being flown at night in this part of California’s central valley, which includes Dublin, Fremont, Stockton, and Modesto, being seen from some distance and mistaken for ufos. For example: http://bit.ly/4so9NJ
Also, since we don’t know the actual size of the object, nor its elevation, you should not presume “it would be getting buffeted by winds constantly, pushing the RC airplane to and fro,” since you also do not know what the wind conditions, if any, might have been at whatever elevation it was flying. It could very well have been a relatively calm, windless evening. You also cannot make any presumption about how “adjustments by the operator would make it look jerky” if a tripod was used, as seems to be the case, based on the smooth motion of the lens moving across the sky in this and other night-vision videos made by dede90564, and included on his youtube site.
Perhaps you can email him for data on what kind of equipment setup he used, and if he has any estimate as to size/height of the craft, although based on some of the videos he has on his site, he’s apparently quite the ufo “believer” type, so take a few grains of salt with you. Lastly, flying an RC model aircraft at night, with _lights_ on it, is no “suicide flight” at all–check youtube for various other LED-equipped RC model aircraft flown at night. No big deal–it’s increasingly common with the advent of lightweight LED kits especially designed for use on RC aircraft models in the last few years.
The best policy in this area of controversy and contention is to be neither a “believer” nor a “pseudo-skeptic” (debunker), but to maintain an objective “agnosticism.” UFOs are real, but just what they are or where they originate is still unknown. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and proof. Nothing less.
@jbondo—
“…I am not a supporter of Pope but there are plenty of what I would term experts in fields of study that have no formal training. Also, if the Sun called me and said they’d pay me for a comment on something circulating on the interweb, I’d comment and cash the check. I certainly wouldn’t fabricate or mislead anyone but I wouldn’t pass up the money.”
Well, you see, that’s part of the problem I have with Pope. The Sun _is_ a notoriously crass tabloid, aka scandal sheet. They hype and fabricate “news”. If a person not only takes a check for the occassional comment, but also provides serial commentary repeatedly for such a publication, and also writes articles for them, and is associated with their “post-MOD” efforts to provide a forum for ufo reports to supplant the MOD (as lame as their efforts were), as noted by this “newspaper” (“The Sun will pick up the baton, and release a rundown of your sightings, like the MoD used to.”), and pays for such articles, it only encourages a kind of “lowest common denominator” writing style and slanted, biased, and sensationalistic reporting which is essentially both deceptive and dishonest in nature, and which The Sun is infamous for. They are not the New York Times or Washington Post. So why is Pope associated with and working for such a disreputable publication? I suspect it shows a lack of integrity, objectivity, and genuine journalistic and investigatory ethics and high standards.
Pope has already either “unknowingly” or willingly fallen prey to this disgusting and reprehensible syndrome, based on the quality of his commentary and articles for The Sun, which demands such yellow, distorted journalism for the entertainment value and the easy profits therefrom. Pope’s credibility and reputation have been in tatters among serious ufo researchers for several years now as a result.
Oh, and for those interested, here’s Pope’s most recent superficial and dumbed-down article for The Sun on the recent conference on “ET life” I mentioned earlier: http://bit.ly/9iL8Hd
Yet another perfect example of what I’m talking about. Judge for yourself.
[...] UK’s The Sun creates UFO news now? http://www.ghosttheory.com/2010/01/25/uks-the-sun-creates-ufo-news-now [...]
Just as a related follow-up to my comments above, I came across this article today about a night time RC model flying club in the general area where the video noted in the original post was taken (Dublin, California).
Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010
Radio-controlled planes have some Modesto residents seeing UFOs
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/1047973.html
[...] UK’s The Sun creates UFO news now? http://www.ghosttheory.com/2010/01/25/uks-the-sun-creates-ufo-news-now [...]