'I'm a UFO researcher and my latest novel is one of alien abduction'
Discussions around UFO sightings have been popular again over the past 12 months; if not the US Congress promising to disclose more information about extra-terrestrials and close encounters, then Steven Spielberg is professing his interest in the topic with the release of ‘Disclosure Day.’
For a topic that sometimes provokes ‘odd’ looks from sceptics, though, public interest is at somewhat of a high. “Not an all-time high,” Philip Mantle, the Pontefract-based UFO researcher, admits, “but it’s very high.”
“As a result, the media are responding, of course,” he continues. “You’ll get more films, you’ll get more documentaries, more newspaper coverage - and a lot of it will hopefully be sensible coverage as well. That just goes with the territory.”
Mantle’s own journey into ufology is rooted firmly in West Yorkshire grit rather than Hollywood glamour. “I’m just an ordinary lad from West Yorkshire,” Mantle says. “My father worked down the coal mines all his life, I worked in a factory for donkey’s years.”
His interest in the unexplained began as a teenager, but it was a stint working in West Germany in 1979 that truly set his path in motion. Unable to speak the language, he asked his mother to send over a box of reading material. “A box of books arrived, and hey presto, they were all about UFOs,” he recalls.
Upon returning home to West Yorkshire in May 1979, a small advert in the Yorkshire Evening Post caught his eye, announcing the formation of the Yorkshire UFO Society meeting at Centenary House on North Street in Leeds. “In those days, on a Sunday, everything was pretty much shut,” Mantle says. “I found the location, followed the signposts stuck on the wall... and that was it, I was hooked. I never looked back.”
That initial meeting launched a career spanning over four decades. Mantle went on to serve with the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and acted as the UK representative for the international Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Philip's latest book, Once Upon a Missing Time, draws heavily on real-life UK close encounter cases. The novel explores the human and emotional weight of missing time—focusing on witness isolation and psychological trauma rather than typical science-fiction tropes.
“One of the things that people told me when I spoke to them was how they were treated if they spoke about it,” Mantle says. “Some were traumatised, and who do you turn to? Family? They didn’t know what to say. The medical profession? It was a time when some of them went to the doctors with a complaint, and they’d just get a Valium.”
Mantle’s book has already caught the eye of the entertainment industry, optioned for a screen adaptation. “I don’t want to see this as a science fiction film,” heexplains. “I want to see this as a real human experience film that has trauma, has a bit of dark humour in it as well, and how we react as a society to people who have trauma.”
Once Upon a Missing Time is available now.