On October 23, 1977, British police officer Alan Godffrey of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police Force was in his patrol car searching for three men who had assaulted a man the night before. He spotted the three outside a bar. He called for backup and then got out of his car and approached the men. Before help could arrive Officer Godffrey was seriously beaten. He underwent a long period of recuperation, having suffered a number of injuries including the loss of a testicle. His doctors told him that he was permanently sterile.

On June 11, 1980, having returned to duty sometime before, he was sent to investigate the mysterious death of a man who had been found on the top of a coal pile. The man was wearing a top coat, but no shirt. He had on a "string vest." His coat was fastened incorrectly; the buttons were inserted in the wrong holes. The fly of his pants was open. His shoes were tied improperly. At 10 AM that day witnesses were found who could say that the body was not on the coal pile at that time. Another witness said the body wasn't there at 1:30 PM; it was found "later that afternoon." When the autopsy results were in it was learned that the man had been dead for at least eight hours. The man had obviously died elsewhere several hours before his body was placed on the coal pile. The police never found out where the death occurred. The autopsy found a strange substance on the man's neck that was never identified and also determined he had died of a heart attack, possibly caused by fright. There were burns on his body. No foot prints were found indicating that he either walked or crawled, or was carried or dragged to the top of the pile. It was if he had been dropped there. The man had been missing six days and was 30 to 40 miles from home. (For UFO trivia buffs, the man was named Sigmond Adamski.)

On November 28, 1980, Officer Godffrey was again on patrol in his car. It was night time. He had been dispatched to locate some cows that people had complained kept "appearing and disappearing" in a local estate (park). (They would be seen in the park, but later when people returned the cows would be gone.) The cows did not belong in that park. After searching for the cows for sometime, Officer Godffrey encountered a disk like vehicle with blue flashing lights hovering about five feet off the road in front of him. He said, "It was completely unbelievable." His radios didn't work, so he couldn't call for help. The disk made no noise nor gave off any heat. The trees lining the road were "shaking violently." While sitting in his car, he drew a picture of the disk. The next thing he knew he was twenty or thirty yards up the road, still in his car. Twenty minutes had passed and he had no memory of what had happened during this time. He turned around and drove to where he had seen the disk. It was gone. Even though it had rained during the evening, the road there was dry.

Officer Godffrey returned to the police station and two other officers were sent back to the site with him. They searched the area and found nothing except the dry patch of road. They then unlocked a gate and went into the park to continue the search. They found the cows. According to their testimony, there was no path indicating how the cows had gotten into the park. It was as if they had been dropped in.

A year later a reporter discovered that Officer Godffrey, who had investigated the Adamski death, had also reported the UFO sighting while on duty. The reporter wrote an article for his paper and linked the two cases. Officer Godffrey's credibility was damaged and his career was in trouble. His superiors tried to fire him.

A friend later suggested that he try hypnosis to see if he could remember what happened to him during the missing period of time. It didn't work. However, his sexual ability returned one night after his wife heard a strange sound in their bedroom. She tried to wake her husband unsuccessfully. The source of the sound was never determined. The next morning they made love for the first time since he was injured in 1977. The good news is that a pregnancy resulted. The bad news is that Mr. Godffrey is no longer a police officer.

No connection was ever established between the Adamski death and the UFO encounter Godffrey had on the road near the park, except in the mind of the newspaper reporter. However, Mr. Godffrey's experiences are odd enough to record here. (Source: Visitors From the Unknown, an hour long CBS show made for television, 1991, narrated by James Earl Jones)

MORA associate, Rebecca Minshall, attended the 1992 MUFON Symposium in Albuquerque, New Mexico in early July. She reported that one of the speakers, Dr. Vladimir G. Ajaja, made a rather cryptic statement concerning apparent abductions in his native Russia. Dr. Ajaja said through his interpreter that 5,500 people in his country were abducted last year and never returned. Dr. Ajaja stated further that the mutilated bodies of some abductees had been found. When asked how they were mutilated, he said that sexual organs had been removed. The unfortunate victims were mostly in their early twenties. He associated the youth of the abductees with their being in their sexual prime. His demeanor was very grim and he said he felt the abduction phenomenon was very grave, very serious.

Dr. Ajaja's paper published in the symposium proceedings was not the paper presented orally. This is unfortunate as we cannot go to the proceedings to verify his extraordinary remarks.

Dr. Ajaja is the organizer of the Moscow Commission on Anomalous Phenomena.

More recently on the Prodigy computer information service, the following report dated December 9, 1992 at 10:51 PM, appeared from a person who identified himself as Michael Mace:

Professor A. J. Gevaerd of Brazil talked for three hours [at a recent UFO congress in Las Vegas, Nevada] about the Brazilian UFO situation...He pointed out that Brazil has massive UFO flaps, complete abductions, and mutilations.

A. J. then presented the 7 photos of the human mutilation[s]. Apparently the photos were "liberated" from either the police or military...[The mutilations were similar] to the cattle mutilation photos...The deceased had the skin cut away from one cheek/jowl/jaw, cut very precisely (surgically), exposing the bone/teeth underneath. The photos also showed the absence of various parts - ears, eyes, lips, and certain unmentionables...

In its own small way, MORA looked into the human mutilation issue in Ohio. It wrote coroners in twenty-three of Ohio's eighty-eight counties, describing those wounds typically found on suspiciously mutilated cattle and asking (without reference to UFOs or cattle mutilations) if those type wounds had been observed on any murder victims over the previous five years. Twelve responses were received, all negative. Thirty rural radio stations and newspapers in Ohio were sent a similar letter. Very few responded, and those few were also negative. A similar letter was sent to twenty-five police homicide officers around the country by a law enforcement officer known to MORA. He had attended a homicide course with these people and knew some of them well. Not one response was received. You can read into these results either that a cover-up exists, there is no problem (at least in central Ohio), or the recipients of the letters didn't take the inquiry seriously and failed to check into the matter further. We will never know which is correct.

Of the two "unspeakables", the missing children issue is the most troubling. Even without the possibility of alien intervention, the way Earth's children are treated is appalling. Pictures of starving and tortured children from underdeveloped countries are often seen in newspapers and magazines, and on television. The physical and sexual abuse of children are crimes that have recently caught the attention of the world press. We've come to realize that this societal mistreatment of the young takes place in America and other civilized countries too, all too often.

The problem of missing children in America is large. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported on June 30, 1992 the following statistics on missing, abducted, runaway and thrownaway children for the time period June 13, 1984 through June 30, 1992.

Runaways:

Of 16,275 total cases, 14,124 were located alive and 54 deceased, leaving 2,097 unaccounted for.

Thrownaways:

No information available

Family Abductions:

Of 11,009 total cases, 5,172 were located alive and 10 deceased, leaving 5,827 unaccounted for.

Non-Family Abductions:

Of 1,378 total cases, 326 were located alive and 170 deceased, leaving 882 unaccounted for.

Lost, Injured or Otherwise Missing:

Of 1,469 total cases, 559 were located alive and 54 deceased, leaving 856 unaccounted for.

In its report on missing children based upon several surveys the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice and Delinquency Prevention, using the same categories as the NCMEC, stated that there were an estimated 3,200 to 4,600 non-family abductions in 1988, of which only 200 to 300 were "stereotypical kidnappings." In only 2 percent of the non-family abduction cases was the child still missing at the time of the last police report. Based on FBI data, there were an estimated 43 to 147 stranger abduction homicides annually between 1976 and 1987. An analysis of the FBI data showed no discernible change in the rate for this type of homicide. Of the large number of lost, injured, or otherwise missing children reported in 1988, only 1 percent were still missing at the time of the data collection effort. Given that there were 139,100 such cases considered serious by social and law enforcement agencies (there were an additional 299,100 cases considered less serious), there were 1,391 children still missing, a relatively small but not insignificant number. (See: "Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children in America, First Report: Numbers and Characteristics, National Incidence Studies," Executive Summary, May 1990, US Department of Justice. The full 227 page report can be purchased for $14.40.)

In the summary of the Department of Justice report it is was concluded that "it was not possible to develop a meaningful and useful global figure for the number of missing children." (Emphasis theirs.) "First, because of the profound differences among the problems, it did not make sense from a scientific standpoint to add together such disparate episodes as runaways, stranger abducted children, parentally abducted children and so forth...into a single number of so-called missing children. Second, children in these categories were missing in different senses [or]...not missing at all. Finally, when such numbers as these have been lumped together in the past, it has created a great deal of confusion."

In an article about the disappearance and death of Steven Mark Hicks, apparently the first victim of alleged mass murdered Jeffrey L. Dahmer, the New York Times reported that every year "more than 700,000 disappearances like that of Mr. Hicks are reported to local police, said a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Though many of the missing people have been abducted by strangers, almost half are children who are runaways or pawns in family disputes. Others are adults who have left home without telling anyone." (See: Tabor, Mary B. W., "Sorrow and Frustration On Trails of the Missing," New York Times, Monday, August 12, 1991, p A13.)

Jay Howell, Executive Director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, estimates that between 4,000 and 20,000 children are kidnapped by strangers each year. Bill Treanor, then Executive Director of the Washington-based American Youth Work Center, says that the figure is closer to 100. He points out that the FBI logged only 67 such abductions last year [1984]. (See: "How Many Missing Kids?," Newsweek, October 7, 1985, p 30, 35.) Time Magazine reports that, "Although some child-safety advocates once claimed that 50,000 children are abducted by people they do not know, the FBI investigated just 68 [67 noted from Newsweek just above] kidnapping cases last year [1984] involving children." (See: "Protecting Kids," Time, November 18, 1985, p 47.)

A similar response to the numbers can be found in an article by Peter Schneider which appeared in the February 1987 issue of Harpers Magazine titled "Lost Innocents: The Myth of Missing Children." Concerned about his own young daughter because of what he was hearing from others about the threat of child abductions, he decided to do some research on his own. He discovered that, "Most runaways return to their families within three days, so on any given day there are likely to be 30,000 to 40,000 open cases...Only about 5 percent of the missing for any significant amount of time can be regarded as kidnapped; and of these, four out of five were "kidnapped" by one of their parents - the kidnapping usually being the last straw in a rancorous dispute. One percent at the most of all those missing were abducted by strangers... Nobody really knows how many children are reported missing in the United States - estimates range from 380,000 to more than a million; a large number, at any rate. But experts agree that about 95 percent of these children fall into the category of runaways."

All of these differing numbers are confusing and misleading. Even the experts don't agree on what the numbers really are. This makes it difficult for researchers like ourselves to reach any meaningful conclusions. How many unaccounted for cases are there? Apparently no one really knows.

The missing and exploited children problem is not one that is restricted to the United States. For example, according to the Brazilian police, more than 6,000 Brazilians under the age of 18 have been murdered in the past four years, many by the country's increasingly powerful drug gangs and death squads hired by local merchants wanting to clean up the streets of criminals. It has been reported that an estimated 200,000 Brazilian children live on the country's streets. Indicative of the problem in Brazil, 60 of every 1,000 babies annually die before the age of one and 7.4 million haven't finished grade school. The reason for this mainly lies in "Brazil's Dickensian social disorganization and poverty" resulting from a massive shift in population from the countryside to Brazil's urban areas. (See: "Dead End Kids," Newsweek, May 25, 1992, pp 38-40.) Brazil is not the only country with a missing and exploited children problem. There are 50,000 children roaming the streets of Nairobi, often because parents cannot afford the fees charged at government schools. (See: New York Times, January 2, 1991, Section A, page 1.)

In Canada Royal Canadian Mounted Police statistics note that in 1989 only four children under the age of 17 were abducted in that country by strangers. During the same year, 574 children were reported to have been abducted by one of their parents, of which 200 are still listed as missing. The police are not certain if all of these 200 cases are truly parental abductions. Of the total of 57,398 children under the age of 17 who were reported missing, more than half were located within 24 hours and 89% were located within two months; 73% of the missing children were listed a runaways. As in the United States, Canadian statistics do not tell the entire story, but the number of children abducted by strangers, or perhaps worse, seems small even though the actual number is impossible to determine with any accuracy. (See: Brady, Diane, "The Mounting Toll of Missing Children," McLean's, December 10, 1990, pp 54-55.)

The famine in Somalia poses the threat of starvation to one-quarter of the country's 6.5 million people. The US Agency for International Development estimates that one-quarter of all children under the age of five have already died from the effects of tribal warfare, a breakdown of the country's agricultural based economy and widespread looting by heavily armed gangs. (See: Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch, "1 Million-Plus Somalians May Starve," by Jim Anderson of Deutsche Presse Agentur, Tuesday, August 4, 1992, p 6A.) If somebody wants a crop of kids for an unknown purpose, our world offers up numbers enough to satisfy any conceivable need.

Not all missing children or mutilated corpses require an other worldly explanation, to be sure. On July 2, 1992 a two year old boy was found in a field in Soweto Township, South Africa. His sexual organs were mutilated, his thumbs had been cut off, an attempt had been made to gouge out his eyes, and he was suffering from severe blood loss. The explanation for this horrible crime was that the child was mutilated as part of a witchcraft ritual. Some South African witch doctors apparently believe body parts of children are necessary for potions designed to ward off evil spirits. The doctor in charge of the boy's recovery is recommending a sex-change operation and female hormones to help correct some of the child's injuries. (See: Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch, Vol. 122, No. 6, Monday, July 6, 1992, p 6A - taken from a wire service report.)

A research colleague who we shall name Jim has written a book on the JFK assassination. He is also very interested in the UFO mystery and he is someone that we respect. He had this interesting observation on the missing children issue: "As to missing children--I have heard these rumors for many years, the latest was a man who approached me while I was in England...with reports of thousands of children being kidnapped. This man was trying to convince me that Satanists were behind a worldwide plot. But I have a great deal of problem with that idea. First off, as a police reporter for a number of years, I am aware of the high number of children taken in this country each year. But the vast majority of these are domestic situation[s] where one of the parents runs off with the children. The number of actual motiveless childnappings seems to be very small." [Emphasis ours.]

We did not seriously consider that the subject of missing children might be related to the UFO mystery until we met an ex-military man who, somewhat dejectedly said to us during an interview, "I suppose you know about the missing children." He confirmed that this problem had a UFO connection. Now, we are not so sure that we can ignore the possibility any longer, as much as we would like to. That doesn't mean we accept the reality of alien caused human mutilations and kidnapped children, but we are no longer going to brush the idea off without some consideration.

Information on the subject of human mutilations, at least in the public domain, seems almost nonexistent; if there is much alien involvement in this area it should at least be hinted at somewhere in the literature available to us. It is, but barely. So, based on the data presented above, we have to conclude that if there is some alien involvement in human mutilation cases, it is small. On the other hand, information on missing children is readily available, although the data is sometimes incomplete and confusing. However, the data does show convincingly that the number of children abducted by strangers is small, leaving the opportunity for an alien cause to be even smaller.

If these two problems are, even in a small way, a part of the UFO mystery, it is obvious that we can't bring it to the public's attention without careful thought, preparation, and very clear evidence. If the stories are real but small in number, and if the proof is as elusive as that for the UFO mystery as a whole, no one will believe the stories and UFO research will be discredited. On the other hand, if the stories are baseless, we must do our best to blunt their effects as soon as possible. The energy put into investigating these claims could be better expended elsewhere. If by some chance enough evidence is obtained to show that an alien connection is real, no matter how numerous the cases might be, we are going to have to rethink our entire approach to the study of the UFO mystery and how we present information on UFOs to the public. The social chaos from this revelation would be significant. For the sake of ufology and the public at large, and to prevent us from possibly doing irreparable damage before we know what we are doing, objective and trustworthy ufologists interested in these issues must begin communicating with each other and then do some first rate research - soon.