I was sixteen when I went to my first UFO conference. The conference was organised by UFO Magazine and was being held at my home town, Solihull. It was a fantastic day, and it was very interesting hearing the different speakers give their lectures. One speaker in particular stood out for me. A middle aged, grey haired man, who had been a police officer before getting involved with the subject of ufology. His lecture on abductions and animal mutilations was absolutely fascinating. He also discussed his own UFO sighting, a sighting which would open his eyes to the reality of extraterrestrial visitation. The man I speak of was of course Tony Dodd.
This was to be the first of many times that I would listen to Tony speak at conferences. As I got to know the man through his lectures, I built up certain expectations of him. Tony’s lectures would never fail to feature outstanding UFO and alien contact cases from around the world. Cases which included impressive and undeniable evidence. Cases which proved to me that aliens really are visiting this planet and interacting with the human race. I could always rely on Tony to give a truly enthralling talk which would keep the audience transfixed throughout. He had a very open and straightforward way of speaking, and always got across the facts in as clear a way as possible. As you listened you could tell you were in the presence of an expert in the field, a man with a vast amount of knowledge on the subject who had seen and heard incredible things.
Tony’s eyes were opened to the UFO subject back in 1978 when he had a close encounter with a flying disc-shaped craft on the North Yorkshire Dales. He returned to the moor many times and had further UFO sightings, some of which he managed to photograph. The realization that these sightings were real led him to look into the subject in more depth and start to investigate reported sightings. In 1982 he was made director of the Yorkshire UFO Society. As his notoriety grew, he received more and more reports to look into. Over the years he became widely known in the world of ufology, and would often make appearances on television and radio. He was very passionate about his work as a UFO investigator, and you could tell that he enjoyed every minute of it. He was very keen to prove to the public the reality of UFOs, and over the years revealed some truly stunning information. Some of this information was sensitive enough for forces involved with the UFO cover up to intervene. He was threatened on numerous occassions after revealing details of certain cases at various UFO conferences. But despite this he continued, knowing full well the dangers involved. He believed the public had a right to know and was not willing to back down. We should all be extremely thankful for his efforts over the years.
Tony wrote a book of his experiences named Alien Investigator. It is highly recommended, and a review of it can be found in the Reccomended Books section of the site.
I was sad to hear the recent news that Tony had passed away. To myself, and I’m sure many of you, he was one of the true faces of ufology. He was a credit to the UFO community, and he will be greatly missed.