Daniel Lavelle went “alien-chasing” in the US and wrote a book about it. The late Nick Pope called it a “hugely entertaining, gonzo-style examination of UFOs, ufology and ufologists”. In his Guardian article ( The Pentagon released its UFO videos – so I went to the US to chase aliens. This is what I found, 22 April ), Lavelle concludes: “Of course, there isn’t a shred of evidence that aliens have visited our planet – and it’s highly unlikely that there ever will be”.

After that, he trots out the old story about interstellar distances and propulsion technology – as if the extraterrestrial hypothesis were the only play in town.

While I have some degree of sympathy for his views on the disclosure circus in the US and the fact that the talking heads there always seem to be the same people with the same rather vague statements lacking solid first-hand rather than hearsay evidence, I cannot but wonder whether a look at serious research and real-life policy developments across the world might have led to a…