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Flying Saucery: How UFOs Landed in the British Isles

  • 01/07/2025
  • 19:00-20:30
  • online talk

Dust jacket images: Flying Saucers Have Landed, by George Adamski and Desmond Leslie (London: Werner Laurie, 1953) and Flying Saucer from Mars, by Cedric Allingham (London: Frederick Muller, 1954) – Photograph © A Robinson, 2025.

Flying Saucery: How UFOs Landed in the British Isles

A Folklore Society Online Talk

by

Dr David Clarke (Sheffield Hallam University), and Andrew Robinson (Sheffield Hallam University)

Tuesday 1 July, 19:00 BST

Sightings of and belief in the existence of Flying Saucers (later UFOs and now UAP) first began to emerge from the USA in 1947 and are generally recognised as an American phenomenon.

However, from 1950 onwards, saucer-related beliefs, legends and experiences arrived in Europe and, in the UK, UFOs acquired a distinctly British flavour. Sightings and reports were promoted by a small number of influential and at times eccentric personalities through newspapers, publications and television reports in which photographs and witness drawings played an important role as visual evidence. During the 1950s the first saucer clubs and magazines were established, and believers and sceptics took positions for and against the popular belief that Earth was under surveillance by intelligent extraterrestrials who visited in saucer-shaped spacecraft. ‘Contactees’ emerged who emulated American stories about ordinary people who claimed to have witnessed alien visitations and met and communicated with the space people.

This talk examines how the UFO myth first arrived in the British Isles, how it became embedded in existing legends and beliefs, along with the role of photography in providing visual evidence in support of sightings.

The authors are currently undertaking a research project the visual representation of UFOs and UAPs in photography, artwork and other mediums.

Dr David Clarke is one of Britain’s leading authorities on folklore and contemporary legend. He is Project Lead for the AHRC-funded National Folklore Survey for England and from 2008-13 acted as consultant for The National Archives during the release of the Ministry of Defence’s archive on UFOs (often referred to as ‘Britain’s Real X-Files’). He is an experienced journalist and broadcaster and has contributed to numerous radio and television programmes and is the author of seven books including The Angels of Mons (2004), How UFOs Conquered the World (2015), UFO Drawings from The National Archives (2017) and Space Age Folklore (forthcoming 2026).

Andrew Robinson is a photographer, artist, and senior lecturer in photography at Sheffield Hallam University, where he co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend (CCL) with Dr David Clarke and Dr Diane Rodgers. His work investigates expressions of identity and material culture through a visual anthropology of people, place, and trace. His research has explored the visual representation of vernacular English custom and tradition and the folklore, myth and legend associated with photographs and photographers. Recent outputs have explored subjects as diverse as the Photography of the Crimean War; Lover’s Leap Legends; English Calendar Customs; A.I Generated Imagery, and the Calvine UFO.

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with the Promo Code: log in to https://folklore-society.com/members-only to get the Promo Code) from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/flying-saucery-how-ufos-landed-in-the-british-isles-tickets-1245559535099?

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Image: Dust jacket images: Flying Saucers Have Landed, by George Adamski and Desmond Leslie (London: Werner Laurie, 1953) and Flying Saucer from Mars, by Cedric Allingham (London: Frederick Muller, 1954) – Photograph © A Robinson, 2025.