The UFO story
Hope you like my new board of directors – all mates of mine – they are full of enthusiasm and are simply out of this world. I just couldn’t resist doing this pic mock-up, it’s about as real as the story that was created by the local paper who used to like me so much they were forever trying to promote my reputation as a wonderfully sane human being.
Now, what do I really think of that absurd story about the local Carlisle newspaper and UFO’s ??
Oh yes, that was a good one – even by the paper’s standards – that was a corker !! For years I’ve had this story occasionally repeated to me about the time I was supposed to have had a conversation with, believe it or not , some little green chaps from outer space. The local paper ran a banner headline: Knighton: ‘Aliens Spoke To Me’. This was supposed to have happened when I saw a UFO floating about the sky. It’s hilarious I know. Really, very, very funny. That is of course until some idiots take the story to be true. You couldn’t make it up could you?
I must admit at the time that this ridiculous banner headline story was published in the local Carlisle News & Star newspaper – I was pretty furious and truly astonished. I even threatened to resign the chairmanship of the local football club, Carlisle United FC because I was just so amazed and disgusted with the paper’s cavalier approach to reporting such nonsense. But, to be fair to the paper, they did publish a full front-page sort of olive-branch-cum- semi-apology kind of story a day or two later. This follow-up story said the UFO ruse was something not to resign over and that I should stay as their football club’s chairman. I know, it’s staggering really. If you want more on this silly episode – you’ll just have to buy the forthcoming book I’m afraid. The whole incident is covered in that book. The then young cub reporter who ‘spiced-up’ a non story was a bloke who , I firmly believe , would sell his own grandmother if he thought it would further his career – his name is Richard Moss – now a local TV presenter. This silly man still likes to boast to any one that will listen to his ego – that this story was his , ” greatest ever scoop” – he’s dined out on that one for all these years – say no more , very sad person !
Once you know the facts – you will soon understand that you really need to know more about the then newspaper’s editor – a man called Keith Sutton – to appreciate the folly of the headline. Oddly enough, in the newspaper industry, Sutton is, apparently, quite well regarded. He certainly takes himself very seriously I seem to recall. Perhaps the fact that he is a man who is well regarded in that industry says more about tabloid style newspapers than it does about the man himself. I was told that he once edited a newspaper called, ‘News On Sunday ’. This was a short-lived left-wing British tabloid newspaper launched in 1987. The paper’s advertisement campaign for the paper’s launch carried the banner slogan, “ No tits but a lot of balls.” Allegedly, under Keith Sutton’s editorship – the dummy launch paper came with headlines like – “ Man Ate Dog ” – you get the drift.
The paper was very much socialist in outlook. Its editorial line under Keith Sutton was that the paper regarded British society as…. “ based on unequal ownership of wealth, prosperity and power “…
Hmm, not so surprising then that the same editor and his newspaper in Carlisle , the News & Star , came up with a headline that blazed… Knighton: ‘Aliens Spoke To Me’ – when referring to a perceived capitalist millionaire who privately owns the town’s local professional football club, eh? Still – you must see the funny side – bloody hilarious.
Sutton was eventually sacked from his role at the leftist News On Sunday newspaper. Oddly enough Sutton was dismissed by another football club owning chairman, a man called Owen Oyston of Blackpool FC – funny that, too ! The paper eventually went bankrupt and closed less than a year after it had launched.
Oh, just in case you’re interested: have I ever seen a UFO? Yes, I certainly have. In that I saw something in the sky that I simply couldn’t identify as a recognisable object under all the explanations that you would normally seek to explain what you were/are looking at. It was an ‘unidentified flying object’ and that’s for sure. I still to this day haven’t got a clue what it was I saw in the sky on that sunny, clear blue sky day some over four decades ago. I wish I could see something like it again. It was a truly intriguing experience.
Do Alien’s exist? Who knows? I haven’t spoken to any recently!! But I suppose you have to take into account the Theory of Probability together with what the science and the experts in that field tell us. Taking everything into account – the evidence concludes that they seem pretty sure that there must be something out there somewhere. I guess they are basing that notion simply just on the pure vastness of the universe. Who knows? Apparently, there are more stars up there than there are grains of sand in all the deserts on earth so they tell me – and that is trillions and trillions , so that is a pretty big, big number. I guess we’ll never know – not in our lifetime anyway. Still, perhaps one day, we might all be having a bit of a chinwag with an Alien or two!! Now, that would be a story.
