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The Blackdown Mystery
Bob Girard from Arcturus Books in Florida " Cheeky, that's what this is - a cheeky investigation of a lead first inspired by "the ramblings of a cross-dressing drug addict and his elderly schizophrenic boyfriend." Intrepid members of the CFZ are up to the challenge, and manage to entangle themselves thoroughly in the bizarre trappings of this case. This is the soft underbelly of ufology, rife with unsavory characters, plenty of drugs and booze." That sums it up quite well, we think. A new edition of the classic 1999 book by legendary fortean author Jonathan Downes. In this remarkable book, Jon weaves a complex tale of conspiracy, anti-conspiracy, quasi-conspiracy and downright lies surrounding an air-crash and alleged UFO incident in Somerset during 1996. However the story is much stranger than that. This excellent and amusing book lifts the lid off much of contemporary forteana and explains far more than it initially promises... Now with a new introduction by notorious fortean Tim Matthews, and cartoons by Richard Freeman and other illustrations.
180 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
About the author
Jonathan Downes
80 books2 followersJonathan Downes (born 1959) is a naturalist, cryptozoologist, author, editor, film-maker, poet, novelist, activist, journalist, composer and singer-songwriter, with a background in radical politics and mental health care. He is Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonatha...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonatha...
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May 28, 2026
Book about the author's investigation of a British UFO report from the 1990's, where a Harrier jet fighter crashed during a training exercise and several people in the area claimed to have seen a UFO at the same time, prompting conspiracy theories that the jet fighter collided with the UFO. The author Jonathan Downes is best known as the founder of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the largest cryptozoology organisation in the UK, but as you can see here he also takes an interest in other types of Forteana.
Truth be told, this book is more interesting as a time capsule and sociological study (written in a humourous and breezy Gonzo Journalist style) of the Fortean milieu in the UK during the late 1990's and early 2000's. Back then there wasn't as much crossover between the different types of Forteana as now, as documented by Downes' description of other CFZ alumni. For example back then Richard Freeman was strictly a cryptozoologist with no interest in parapsychology or ufology (today he frequently works across the 3); and Nick Redfern was largely interested in UFOs not cryptozoology whereas he went on to accompany Downes on his 2nd expedition to Puerto Rico to investigate the Chupacabra in 2004 as chronicled in "The Island of Paradise".
"The Blackdown Mystery" also goes into detail about how much ufology and hippie circles overlapped well into the 1990's and 2000's, while documenting how far the hippie movement had fallen since its heyday in the 1960's and 1970's. This was in large part as a result of the conservative British government making it illegal to hold free outdoor festivals in the 1980's and ending much of the underground but perfectly legal economy surrounding them that many hippies had made their living from, forcing many hippies to either start selling alternative medicine of dubious efficiency to gullible members of the mainstream or adopting a nomadic lifestyle and getting heavily involved in various types of organised crime in particular drug smuggling. It's in particular the latter seedier side of New Age travellers that many of the ufologists Downes interviews here as part of his investigation, several even asking him to autograph their copies of previous books he's written. (he takes care to compare to how the punk subculture in the UK is more or less exactly as it was in the late 1970's/early 1980's except the mainstream doesn't pay anywhere as much attention to it as back then)
Earlier on Downes also has an encounter with a Raëlian, which marks one of the first times outside the French-speaking countries that people took notice of the Raëlian Movement: A UFO religion founded in the mid-1970's by a former sports journalist who claimed to have met extraterrestrials near Clermont-Ferrand in France. The Raëlians are clearly the product of a very hippie-like optimistic and idealistic type of UFO culture that in the US went out of fashion in the late 1970's/early 1980's, but in the Francophone world they are almost as prominent as Scientology is in the US. The one Raëlian among the UFO witnesses Downes interviews is also openly gay and models his fashion sense closely on Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, notice that the Raëlians are very active in feminist and LGBT rights activism in their countries of origin.
I vastly enjoyed this and found it very informative about the Fortean subculture at the time it was written, but it's as much a journalistic document of that as about the titular UFO crash so I am not certain all UFO enthusiasts are going to appreciate this as much as I did. (especially not if they don't share Downes' sense of humour that is somewhere halfways between Hunter Thompson and "Private Eye" magazine)
Truth be told, this book is more interesting as a time capsule and sociological study (written in a humourous and breezy Gonzo Journalist style) of the Fortean milieu in the UK during the late 1990's and early 2000's. Back then there wasn't as much crossover between the different types of Forteana as now, as documented by Downes' description of other CFZ alumni. For example back then Richard Freeman was strictly a cryptozoologist with no interest in parapsychology or ufology (today he frequently works across the 3); and Nick Redfern was largely interested in UFOs not cryptozoology whereas he went on to accompany Downes on his 2nd expedition to Puerto Rico to investigate the Chupacabra in 2004 as chronicled in "The Island of Paradise".
"The Blackdown Mystery" also goes into detail about how much ufology and hippie circles overlapped well into the 1990's and 2000's, while documenting how far the hippie movement had fallen since its heyday in the 1960's and 1970's. This was in large part as a result of the conservative British government making it illegal to hold free outdoor festivals in the 1980's and ending much of the underground but perfectly legal economy surrounding them that many hippies had made their living from, forcing many hippies to either start selling alternative medicine of dubious efficiency to gullible members of the mainstream or adopting a nomadic lifestyle and getting heavily involved in various types of organised crime in particular drug smuggling. It's in particular the latter seedier side of New Age travellers that many of the ufologists Downes interviews here as part of his investigation, several even asking him to autograph their copies of previous books he's written. (he takes care to compare to how the punk subculture in the UK is more or less exactly as it was in the late 1970's/early 1980's except the mainstream doesn't pay anywhere as much attention to it as back then)
Earlier on Downes also has an encounter with a Raëlian, which marks one of the first times outside the French-speaking countries that people took notice of the Raëlian Movement: A UFO religion founded in the mid-1970's by a former sports journalist who claimed to have met extraterrestrials near Clermont-Ferrand in France. The Raëlians are clearly the product of a very hippie-like optimistic and idealistic type of UFO culture that in the US went out of fashion in the late 1970's/early 1980's, but in the Francophone world they are almost as prominent as Scientology is in the US. The one Raëlian among the UFO witnesses Downes interviews is also openly gay and models his fashion sense closely on Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, notice that the Raëlians are very active in feminist and LGBT rights activism in their countries of origin.
I vastly enjoyed this and found it very informative about the Fortean subculture at the time it was written, but it's as much a journalistic document of that as about the titular UFO crash so I am not certain all UFO enthusiasts are going to appreciate this as much as I did. (especially not if they don't share Downes' sense of humour that is somewhere halfways between Hunter Thompson and "Private Eye" magazine)
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