ALIEN POPE QUITS

Nick Pope, Alien Investigator, has quit his role at the Ministry of Defence - and he’s edging dangerously close to becoming the new David “Lizard-Gods” Ike with pronouncements about potential alien invasions of London.

Last week, Pope, 41, walked out of his job as Director of Defence Security. From the sound of it, a big, important job. But just how much respect has the man had within the MOD since “outing” the secrets of the UK’s UFO files during the mid-90s? Surely the halls of the Ministry would have been full of dropped jaws once word had spread and the first editions of his book hit colleagues desks.

From that moment, over 10 years ago, his role as a valued member of the MOD’s inner-circle was compromised. After outing former bosses and alleging cover-ups and Government bluster, just how much more intelligence would the MOD have allowed Pope to have accessed? Over the last decade or so, he’s written four books and numerous articles about the MOD’s attempts to cover up UFO sightings, about close encounters of the third kind and even about alien abductions (a Sunday Times article in 1999 even alleges that Pope himself was abducted and that the character “Peter” from his second book The Uninvited is infact Pope).

Pope has said officials have not done enough to investigate UFO sightings (for what it’s worth, I agree) and because of this have left London exposed to extra-terrestrial attack. He said: “The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge. Frankly, we’re wide open. If something does not behave like a conventional aircraft now it will be ignored. The ‘X’-Files have been closed.”

So, worryingly, less than a week after leaving the security of his security job, he’s already using fantasy pop-culture signposts when referring to his formerly academic and detailed work. To me, that suggests the only thing about to be invaded is the media, who over the next few months will lap up what he’s got to say – the madder the better - in order to fill column inches. Pope is in danger of becoming water-cooler material on a par with the latest I’m a celebrity non-entity or a triple-breasted Jerry Springer guest. The subject of a new Jon Ronson book. A Louis Theroux interviewee.

If there is a government cover-up regarding aliens and Pope carries on with his alien invasion route (and, as I reckon he will, confirms his personal alien abduction story), the Ministry need not worry – Pope will be making the subject so risible among the British public that he’ll be doing their job for them.

CONSPIRACY ALERT! Maybe that was the plan after all? Maybe we’re being hoodwinked and Pope is in on the gag … add a dash of bonkers to the whole thing and it all seems a lot less credible … just the ticket if you’re angling for the “aliens are landing” cover up. So is Pope an MOD stooge whom the Ministry has “planted” in the public domain to present the image of an open and transparent government body or is he a bespectacled maverick who really did expose alien landings and government black ops, the ministry keeping him on side fearing a PR disaster if they fired him.

REALITH CHECK! My theory? About 15 years ago, when he told his chiefs he was about to write a book about the files locked in cabinet 63, they humoured him. They let him publish his little books and (internally) blocked him out without kicking him out. Now his hand, finally has been forced – the softly softly approach worked. The Ministry played the long game and won, boring Pope into submission and leaving him out of the circle of trust (with regards to 21st century Governmental alien investigations at the very least).

So, the badge of honour he once held is now redundant. Nick Pope is now one of us. No longer an indsider, he’s just an author. And like so many other authors in the run up to Christmas, he’s got books to sell. And the more outrageous the content sounds, the more likely they’re going to fill our stockings. His pronouncements of potential invasion should be taken as nothing more than a publicits dream … or a self-publicists desperation.