A crop circle researcher found floating off the coast of Portsmouth and the rapid decline of a UFO expert who believed he had found an alien skull, are the latest in what some UFO researchers claim is a ‘pattern’ of suspicious deaths of researchers into extraterrestrial sightings, stretching back to as early as 1947.



A plane supposedly shot down by the U.S. military is believed to have been carrying fragments of a flying saucer, while the death of first U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, is believed to be UFO related. Some believe that victims number in their dozens.



The pattern of suspicious deaths hit the headlines again this year as activist Steve Bassett spoke on the subject on national radio show C2C in America. A new book, Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind by Nick Redfern, is due out this summer.



“Recent cases include, 44-year-old Paul Vigay, who was a leading crop circle researcher who had worked on Mel Gibson’s film Signs. He was found floating off the coast of Portsmouth, Hants., in February 2009,” says Nigel Watson, author of The Haynes UFO Investigations Manual.



Watson says that while many UFO researchers believe the killings to be the work of government agents, some believe that the killings may be the work of aliens themselves, to cover up their presence on our planet.



“Many of these cases could be coincidences or people trying to make something out of nothing - but there are certainly some strange incidents,” Watson says. “UFO researcher Philip Schneider’s became increasingly fearful for his personal safety; ‘government vans’ followed him and several attempts were made to run his car off the road. Eventually, his worst fears were confirmed in January 1996. A friend broke into his apartment in Willsonville, Oregon, where his dead body had been rotting for several days. At first, it was thought he had died from a stroke, and then an autopsy found that rubber tubing had been wrapped and knotted around his neck.”























['Alien invasion' to launch in April]





“When you collect the information together there are a surprising number of ufologists who have died in strange ways and circumstances since the 1950s. Prominent activist Stephen Bassett, supports the idea that the U.S. government has regularly murdered innocent citizens who have tried probing into UFO cases like Roswell or who have tried to get the Government to reveal the truth about UFOs.”



Steve Bassett, who won Researcher of the Year at this year’s International UFO Conference, discussed a mysterious “cluster” of deaths that he believes may be related to government agents targeting researchers from the UFO community.







Bassett says, “What we are looking for are death clusters which by their nature and proximity sit out from the background noise. I try to be careful with my language in order to minimize upset with family members. There are a number of death clusters relating to various issues over the past 20 years. If government connected, not good. Not good at all.”



“This is a difficult matter to engage as it is impossible to prove individual events. What I am doing is raising concern over a death clusters which stands out from the background noise. This is risky as family members could be offended. I never say with certainty that a particular case is a murder. And I wouldn't go there at all if it wasn't the only option to perhaps prevent further such deaths - publicity.”



The theory that the American government, or other unknown forces, have been murdering UFO researchers is not new, Watson says - with some claiming that suspicious deaths began as early as 1947, and that the death toll is several dozen or even more.



“As long ago as 1971, researcher Otto Binder claimed that at least 137 UFO investigators had died under mysterious circumstances during the 1960s,” Watson says. “A 30-year-long study by UFO researcher Timothy Hood has also revealed that since the 1970s there are numerous cases of UFO researchers and investigators who have been murdered, suffered a sudden death or been the victims of suspicious ‘suicides’ or inconclusive natural causes.”



The earliest reported “death” occurred in 1947, Watson says, and elements of the story are still unexplained.



“Deaths related to UFOs go right back to when Kenneth Arnold first investigated a sighting of a ‘fleet’ of UFOs in June 1947 and brought about a worldwide wave of ‘flying saucer’ sightings.

This involved the sighting of six doughnut shaped UFOs by Harold Dahl, that dropped hot slag like material onto his boat, burning his arm and killing his dog in the process.























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