HAUNTED SKIES

It was in January 1995 that John's curiosity in UFOs began, after a colleague telephoned him to tell him about a massive saucer-shaped object he and his officer partner had seen in the Stirchley area of Birmingham, and for the next two to three years John began to gather information of other sightings that had been witnessed on that same evening.

John's former partner Dawn visited a college where John was giving a lecture and he propositioned her into helping him write a book about UFOs, which she thought was only going to last 12 months, but which has - in fact - taken 15 years! John & Dawn have met some very interesting people in researching the books including pilots, police officers, and general members of the public who have been most helpful and have had a lot of fascinating accounts to recall. John & Dawn have visited the length and breadth of the country collecting various UFO reports and has chronologically written these up in various volumes of Haunted Skies. It has been a very challenging task, but one which has helped to satisfy the curiosity of the general public.  Their research has seen them investigating crop circles, WWII foo fighters, strange lights in the sky as well as on the ground, together with flying objects in the skies from Scotland to Cornwall, and they have built up a comprehensive and detailed log which spreads over several volumes.

John's Own Words...

'My ‘working ‘journey through life began working as a Chef at the Moorend Park Hotel in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire which I enjoyed but then started work with an outside catering firm R Sills, which enabled me to see how the other half lived serving food to the gentry at Hunt Balls and on one occasion seeing the Queen Mum briefly as she walked past one of the tents. This all changed after seeing the look on my father face after somebody pinched his car, motivated me to join the Birmingham City Police,-where I served nearly 30 years half in uniform, then in CID.

If I could do it all again I would join the force -but would think twice before getting involved in the UFO Business, no disrespect intended towards the fantastic people I met over the years as this is not for the faint hearted. I was foolish to believe that I could deal with anything !

I thought that having personally risked my life, by being involved in dangerous confrontations, with criminals –such as seeing a machete slice through the air and miss my head. Suffice to say if it had killed me then I wouldn’t be talking to you tonight.

On another occasion I fought off a violent burglar who tried to stab me with a line prop in the back garden on a house in Sparkhill Birmingham at 3am - not as funny as you might think when you are on the receiving end!

Another incident involved chasing safe breakers for over an hour into the open countryside, culminating in their car crashing I handcuffed the driver and set out to arrest the passenger. It wouldn’t even enter my mind that I was at a risk…arrogance of being a cop I suppose you think you’re immortal.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever get involved in a subject which I had not the slightest interest in –after all Flying Saucers ghosts and other phenomena have no place in our technological world, boy was I in for a shock!

John Hanson is a retired CID Officer in the West Midlands Police and first became interested in the UFO subject in January 1995, after colleagues sighted a UFO hovering over some trees. This was the trigger for his curiosity; prior to that the very mention of UFOs and ‘flying saucers’ was impossible for him to accept as having any reality in the modern world. The publication of ten Volumes of Haunted Skies which painstakingly catalogue thousands of reports of UFO's/Close Encounter experiences by the public from 1940 onwards, is a project that John and his former partner Dawn Holloway had been working on for many years.

Their objective is to educate the public and therefore have published the books at their own expense since the inception of the project.

Notable cases covered in the ten published volumes to date include:The David Daniels case in which a man who alleged he was an alien actually met up with Admiral Lord Hill-Norton and Ralph Noyes, former head of the MOD.

An investigation into the Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980, including amazing photographic anomalies from Rendelsham Forest itself.

Reports from members of the public both in the UK and USA, relating to motorists being followed by UFOs, some of whom allege they have been abducted and subsequently suffered some traumatic experiences, both physical and psychological.