One of the more interesting facets of Colin Andrew’s ‘Operation Blackbird’ was the D-notice served to Swindon’s GWR station, preventing a live broadcast from the operation. The broadcaster involved was Dave Barrett, who emailed Colin after the event and stated the validity of his claims. Despite several FOIA attempts by myself the MoD have claimed that no such D-notice was served, or rather they had no documentary evidence of that fact. Using the text of the email, provided by Colin himself, I wrote to Air-Vice Marshal Andrew Vallance, who is the secretary of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee. The committee is responsible for monitoring the DA Notices within the UK. (They used to be referred to as D-Notices but now re-titled to DA notices.) The committee is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) but the committee try to be as open as possible to avoid claims of cover-up.
In his response to my enquiry of the aforementioned D-notice, Mr Vallance is quite dismissive; “The phrase ‘slap a D-notice on it’ is commonly used by the media with great carelessness and to cover a multitude of circumstances. Claims such as that made by Dave Barrett carry no weight unless they can be supported by some form of documentary evidence”. So the committee denies any D-notice was ever served, or rather, no evidence of it exists. There is a subtle difference. So has Dave Barrett lied? Unlikely, he stands to gain nothing by concocting such a claim. He is not involved in the crop circle phenomena as such, so gains absolutely nothing. We can look at the definite facts: for some reason the live broadcast from Operation Blackbird was cancelled. Swindon’s GWR dedicated resources to this live broadcast so something significant would need to happen to cancel this live broadcast.
What this really points to is that someone, somewhere can use the power of the D-notice to cancel coverage of the crop circle phenomena, and can do it in a way that leaves no paper-trail or subjects anyone to any level of accountability for their actions. Again, the hidden-hand, the inner circle, the nameless ones, who can control situations with impunity, flex their muscle.
What this also highlights is that the MoDs ‘UFO desk’ is just a mickey-mouse public front that does not have any idea of the true scale of the UFO/Crop Circle phenomena. This also highlights the ‘expert’ status of the former MoD staff member Nick Pope. Nick had access to all the files that are currently being released by the MoD, and Nick claims no such D-notice was issued, so he has no knowledge of these inner workings and therefore we have to question why he still seems to publicise the official version of events when others such as Colin Andrews can blow huge holes in the ‘official story’.
When I made a FOIA request to the MoD as to the extent of Nick Pope’s role, the response was that Nick’s general role was to “answer parliamentary enquiries, and correspond with members of the public on matters to do with UFOs,” I believe that Nick’s role was to front this public face of the MoD UFO desk, and broadly knows no-more than what is being released by the MoD anyway. Once all these files are released we will all know what Nick knows or had access to. The media views Nick as some expert and is regularly consulted, but his knowledge on what the MoD knows is very limited, so thus the information he provides the media with still toes the MoD line, he continues to do what he did for the MoD. And he generally plays down the MoD involvement with UFOs and Crop Circles. I have always been doubtful of ‘game-keepers turned poachers’, and I consider the media’s continual courting of Nick rather than other researchers part of the conspiracy of silence.
The files being released are an attempt to fool the public, but as I have written and lectured on previously, the evidence of an inner-circle manipulating anything to do with UFOs and Crop Circles within the MoD is over whelming. The D-notice issue is not over yet, nobody is that good at continually covering their tracks, and I will shortly show, through ‘their’ mistake, that the D-notice was indeed issued. Stay tuned…
The Truth Hides 
I really thought that the D-notice issues had stopped some years ago.Can they just do that pull it back for convenience.
I hope you get to the bottom of this, dastardly deed.
Pope still work for the M.O.D ? “probably”
Quote from
Nick Pope:
Well yes, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think some people have accused me of being part of the cover up myself. I’ve been portrayed, at least in the UK, of being a sort of real man in black type character. Yes you are quite right there are some people who think that I know all about the ufo phenomenon, they want an answer quick and they want a solution and they think that I know where the smoking gun is and when they hear the answer, certainly as far as I am aware in the UK that while the British government and the Air Force over the years has investigated thousands and thousands of cases, I’m sure we will get into that in a little while, some have been tracked on radar, some seen by pilots, we don’t have the answer, we don’t know what the ufo phenomena represents. Most are a case of misidentification of course, but we don’t know what that unknown 5% is. The possibility does remain about those things being extraterrestrial and indeed that statement can be seen on the MOD’s website, but we don’t have any evidence that points to ufos being extraterrestrial and we don’t have any hard proof. There are no spaceships in hangers here in the UK.
So is he telling the truth? my best guess is he is currently doing what he is told, official secrets act, and all that bull**** that comes associated with officialdom.
I used to like Pope……… now Mmm not so sure any more.
If you don’t mind I have linked your story and the Colin Andrews one to my blog, linked back to you.
Click here
No, D-notices have never gone away, they are now called DA Notices (the A stands for advisory).
Remember: 1)Nick Pope is bound under the terms of the Official Secrets Act . Even if he does know anything, he is unlikely to tell. 2)The MoD segregates information. Simply put, if Nick didn’t possess the right clearance, he will not be privy to that info. He will not even know it exists. NP won’t even get into a debate about UK clearances.
As someone smart once said, you don’t have to be a liar to spread lies. You just have to believe what you’ve been told is true. As NP is highly unlikely in my view to know everything, he can only go on what he has been told.
I know a man of dubious credibility who wrote a book about a man who was going to make a radio program about Operation Dragonbreath, and although he didn’t say anything until after the event, he verified the veracity of his claim by email, although not to me, and not by citing any corroborative evidence – although I did see a copy of the mail, provided to me by the very same bloke who wrote the book (on sale now) which made the claim in the first place.
In the provided copy email, the chap seems like a nice genuine guy, and he gives his word that he’s telling the truth, so I have no reason to believe he’s lying (or that the book writer made the whole thing up to sell more books). Why would he? Why would they cancel the program? I haven’t bothered asking them directly because everything I need to know on that score was amply provided to me by the writer who desperately needs me to believe him. Clearly there really was a dragon and everyone is covering it up!! It’s the only logical conclusion!
Of course, although I didn’t bother trying to verify the veracity of any of the claimees myself, I did immediately get right on to the MOD- (who were surprisingly responsive and open with me – again, suspicious – although I immediately dismissed every word he said as a blatant attempt to disguise ‘the truth’ and made my own conclusions instead based on nothing but my own preconceived and immutable notions).
Conveniently there is currently absolutely no concrete evidence for this dragon (not so much as a tooth, claw or scale – coincidence or clean-up?) or any reason to actually believe the MOD had anything at all to with any cover up. The authorities say the dragon doesn’t even exist and that I, the quite possibly entirely fictional email radio bloke, the aforementioned writer with a vested interest, and probably the readers of this blog are all “out to lunch”.
But I know they’re all lying and that somewhere there indeed be dragons. I have clear and incontrovertible evidence that there was a fire in the area that day (a friend emailed to tell me that his brother’s girlfriend’s pet cat saw it), albeit small, and soon ‘put out’ by the ‘authorities’ (cleverly disguised as ‘firemen’)… – Is that not evidence enough of a cover up? If there really were no dragons, why put the fire out at all?
The files being released are an attempt to fool the public, but as I have written and lectured on previously, the evidence of an inner-circle manipulating anything to do with dragons within the MoD is overwhelming, if entirely circumstantial and/or anecdotal – and this evidence does not at all stretch the facts to fit my personal theories either. The dragon issue is not over yet, nobody is that good at continually covering their tracks, and I will shortly show, through ‘their’ mistake, that dragons indeed exist. Stay tuned…
Really? Holy cow!
I’m open-minded. I’m of the Mulder “I want to believe” camp, but blogs like this are enough to make even the most hardened believer disassociate and distance themselves from the gullibility, conclusion jumping, lack of due diligence and stubborn refusal to consider any other possibility beyond that which you’ve already decided is ‘the truth’ here.
No evidence. At all. Second/third/nth hand accounts with absolutely nothing remotely verifiable to even investigate… Every query you made to the MOD and other authorities was answered candidly and yet you still claim cover-up? You don’t even seem to consider how flawed it is that your whole story relies TOTALLY on the word and ‘evidence’ of a man WHO MAKES A LIVING OUT OF SELLING BOOKS ON STRANGE PHENOMENON!
I’ve refrained from cursing so far, but FFS.
If there are such mysteries, the government (secret or otherwise) need do nothing except wait for people like you to discredit and disgrace any and all serious investigation or enquiry.
Apply the same rigours that scientists do – and stop jumping to highly imaginative conclusions and quantum leaps of (il)logic – or just do us all a favour and don’t bother and go stand over there with the creationists, alien abductees, cereologists and the other crazies.
Ok, lets start at the top….
Operation Dragonbreath is the name of an operation by the military in Iraq. Google it.
No, the responses from the MoD are generally double-speak, they try to say something without saying anything. I believe that what I’ve lectured on and written on more believable than anything I had read by you….
I will go stand with the ‘crazies’ rather than stand anywhere near you. Why not do something constructive ? Of course I would love to see all your expert research and in-depth insights…