International Irish UFO Conference 2009 Review

The sixth annual International Irish UFO Conference was held in the town of Boyle on 3rd-4th October 2009. Boyle is well known as an Irish UFO hot spot so was an apt location for the conference to take place. The town is also the home of Betty Meyler, president of the UFO Society of Ireland, who organised the weekend. Betty kindly offered me the chance to speak at the conference, and it was the first time I would talk on the subject outside of the UK.

Our journey from Birmingham on Friday 2nd October was in three parts; first a short flight to Dublin airport, followed by a bus journey to the city centre, and then a two and a half hour train journey to arrive at our destination of Boyle. Unbeknown to us, Grant Cameron, another speaker at the conference who had come all the way from Canada, was also on the same train. We met him for the first time at Boyle station, where we were also greeted by a friend of Betty’s, who drove us to Dunwarren House where we would be staying for the weekend.

The house was very nice indeed, with wooden flooring throughout, and was just along the road from the picturesque ruins of Boyle Abbey (unfortunately undergoing renovation work). After dropping off our bags we were then driven down to King House, the venue for the conference, to meet up with Betty and the other speakers. King House is a fantastic stately home nestled alongside Boyle’s shopping centre. The conference was to be held in one of the upstairs rooms, and to get there we had to walk past various halls of paintings and mannequins in period costume which formed part of the guided tours. The conference room itself was spacious with tall curtained windows and rows of chairs laid out for the attendees.

After meeting Betty for the first time, I then got chatting with many of the other speakers of the weekend, including Grant Cameron, Gary Heseltine, Alan Foster, Haktan Akdoman and Joanne Summerscales. We then had to all test our laptops and equipment to make sure everything was going to work as planned! Needless to say, despite doing this there were still some technical hitches throughout the weekend, luckily ones which were resolved. We were then given free reign to enjoy the rest of the evening. Myself and Kate joined some of the other speakers and conference cameraman Miles for a drink and late dinner at the bar in the Royal Hotel, just down the road from King House.

Saturday morning kicked off at 8.30am after a satisfying Irish cooked breakfast. We actually turned up slightly too early and found that the gates of King House were not yet opened! Soon conference attendees started to turn up and fill up the venue.

Betty then stood up and gave a brief introduction, before the first speaker of the day, Gary Heseltine, began his lecture. Gary’s talk was about the infamous Rendlesham Forest incident. Over recent months he has been in direct contact with Colonel Halt, the base commander at the time of the incident back in 1980. He has interviewed Halt numerous times and received some fascinating information about what took place, including the admission that the UFO was seen shooting down beams of light into the base and inspecting the “ordinance”. Gary then provided a very convincing argument that nuclear weapons were being stored at the base and this is what the UFO was checking out. At one point I helped him unravel a printed timeline of the incident to show how many aspects were involved in it. Gary has also been working with Halt on a screenplay for a documentary film on the incident. Considering the importance of the incident this is long overdue, and I hope that they get the go ahead for this to be produced. Gary will be coming to give a similar lecture for the Birmingham UFO Group on Friday 9th October, and I cannot recommend it enough!

After a brief coffee break it was time for my own presentation! I was pleased that I was on so soon because then I could relax and enjoy the rest of the conference without any nerves. In my talk I covered my own recent UFO sighting at Warminster, then some of my most impressive investigations including the ongoing Bletchley case (see Reported UFOs section of site for official reports on these).

The first speaker of the afternoon was Paul O’Conner, a professional remote viewer. His fascinating lecture went into details of how remote viewing has been used by various groups over the years, including the CIA, police and armed forces. He explained the basics of how it works, and covered some of the most highly skilled remote viewers. Paul actually runs a class teaching others how to remote view, and I have to admit I am quite intrigued by the subject. He came across very well and his lecture was very interesting indeed.

The final speaker of the day was Grant Cameron, who had come all the way from Canada to give his talk. Grant has looked in great depth into the US presidents’ involvement with UFOs and the ongoing cover up of information. His lecture covered this in detail. It included many segments of video footage showing some of the quotes the various presidents have given on the subject over the years. Grant proved that despite being in a position of power, and certainly being aware of the seriousness of UFOs, they continue to dismiss or laugh off the subject whenever they are asked about it. He also believes that many are not aware of the UFO reality and have not been briefed at all, or have only been given a general overview of what is going on. Grant talked about some of the reasons why the cover up is in place and why disclosure will only happen when those who are in control wish to release the information. His lecture was fascinating and gave a great insight into the current UFO situation in the United States.

For the Saturday evening there was a buffet meal with musical accompaniment by Irish folk singer Michael Boston. Coincidentally this was being held in a side bar at the same location we had ended up at on the Friday – The Royal Hotel. This went very well indeed, and myself and Kate spent most of the evening talking with Gary Heseltine and Alan Foster over some drinks. We also talked with a man named Graham who had been to Paul O’Conner’s remote viewing class which was really interesting.

The Sunday again kicked off nice and early, which after the previous evening felt quite tough for some I’m sure! It began with a couple of short documentaries on UFO sightings around Boyle. Both prominently featured Betty, who believes that an inter-dimensional portal exists in a lake close to the town. There have been a number of photographs taken which seem to show a glowing white light over the water, and Betty feels this is a doorway of some kind and the reason why many UFO sightings occur in the local area. Both documentaries were good, although I felt the second was a little condescending, if in good humour. Betty didn’t seem to mind at all and just laughed it off, she truly is a remarkable lady. After the documentaries, Betty then gave a talk about the UFO incidents that have taken place around Boyle, and the numerous personal sightings that she has had.

We were then treated to some very interesting footage from Carl Nally, which showed a triangular formation of three white glowing objects. They turned as if connected, but he believes they were separate as one of them shot a number of thin red beams of light down to the ground. These beams only lasted for a split second but were quite bright and focused. Carl told us that they found no trace markings anywhere on the ground in the direction the lights had been filmed. He also explained that last year some very similar fake footage had been released online (I remember seeing this video), but that this video was the real deal. It was certainly intriguing, though of course was not overly impressive in this day and age of modern visual effects.

The later half of the morning was given to crop formation researcher Alan Foster. I have seen Alan numerous times before and he is always a joy to listen to. He gave a great lecture on formations over the last decade, including new ones which appeared down in Wiltshire this summer which were in the shape of symbolic animals, including a jellyfish and hummingbird. He of course is aware that some of the formations are hoaxed but also believes that there is a genuine reality behind them and that there are tell tale signs where formations are genuine, including the detection of strange energies and magnetic differences within them, and unusual way that the crop is folded or weaved into patterns. He showed a number of orb photographs he had personally taken while standing in formations, and covered the apparent military involvement and interest in the phenomenon. Sadly myself and Kate had to head for home just before the end of Alan’s lecture, but he is coming to give a talk for BUFOG in February 2010.

We unfortunately missed the last two lectures of the conference, but I’m sure they went very well indeed. Firstly was Haktan Akdogan, the renowned UFO researcher from Turkey. He talked about recent Turkish UFO sightings including new video footage by Yalcin Yalman in Kumburgaz, who over the previous two years has taken some impressive footage which seems to show a craft up close hovering over the sea at night-time. He has also taken daylight footage showing glowing orange lights over the water. Haktan informed me that numerous other witnesses had also been present during these recent sightings and that he believes the footage is genuine. He also showed some new footage of his own, which luckily we got to see during one of the morning breaks. The first segment was taken outside a conference in Istanbul where a UFO actually appeared and flew across the sky! Many people headed outside and filmed the object. Later outside his hotel, again he managed to capture footage of a dark round object flying at a fast speed. The third segment of video was taken when Haktan and others visited Yalcin for several days, and shows a glowing white cigar shaped object moving very fast across the sky. Haktan has kindly passed this footage on to me, and I will be showing it at the next group meeting.

The last speaker of the day was Joanne Summerscales, who I was quite disappointed to miss. I had spoken with Joanne throughout the weekend and she is a very friendly and interesting lady. Joanne’s lecture was entitled Changing Paradigms – A perspective of the many layers of the UFO field. In it she pieced together elements of the UFO phenomenon and looked at the mask of our society paradigm, and I’m sure it went very well indeed.

As you can see, the weekend was truly fantastic and everyone had a really great time. I would like to use this opportunity to personally thank Betty for inviting me to speak at the conference; it was wonderful to be given the chance to share my views and investigative work with the attendees. I wish her all the best for the upcoming months and for the UFO Society of Ireland, whose official website is at http://www.ufosocietyireland.com. I will hopefully return to Boyle in the near future.

A Bizarre Anomoly

On one of the photographs that Kate took of me just before my lecture began had a very strange-shaped pinkish coloured orb on it. Check it out below:

Don't know if it's anything or not, could just be something floating past the camera lens. None of the other photos had anything looking remotely like this on.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2009