A Chat With Nick Pope Xcoms Real Life Ufo Investigator Interview

Depending on your disposition to the idea of a real-life X-Files program, the name Nick Pope may have one of a variety of effects on you. Pope has long been a staple of the ufology scene thanks to his role as a UFO investigator during the 21 years he worked for the British Government's Ministry of Defense. Naturally, he's now involved in the new XCOM game.

GamesBeat met with Pope at a private The Bureau: XCOM Declassified event held by developer 2K Marin and publisher 2K Games. You can read our thoughts on the game itself, along with developer interviews, in our hands-on preview.

GAMESBEAT: CAN YOU START OFF WITH THE GENERAL OVERVIEW OF YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS A UFO INVESTIGATOR?

NICK POPE: I had to basically investigate UFO sightings and see if they were any potential threat, or more generally if they were of any defense interest. We didn't take a view on what they might or might not be. We just said, "Look, people have seen things." Particularly, as it's often alleged, these were solid-structured things in our airspace. That made it a defense issue. That made it a national security issue.

But like I say, we didn't take a view on whether we were dealing with aliens or whether we were dealing, as was the original thinking, with maybe the next generation of Soviet spy planes or drones, something like that. That was basically the job. Through that, anything else weird or wonderful that there wasn't a place for in government kind of came our way by default, particularly if it was perceived that there was a link with UFOs. Alien abductions, crop circles. We found ourselves getting all the weird stuff, like people who had seen ghosts at military bases. That's why it has been called the real-life X-Files.

GAMESBEAT: WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?

POPE: Basically, I work as a freelance writer and broadcaster. I've written a couple of sci-fi books. I do a lot of TV work on shows like Ancient Aliens. I've worked with some of the Hollywood film companies on some of the PR for movie launches, if there's an alien theme. I guess people come to me and say, "Well, we're doing this as fiction, but there's very often an interesting tie-in. Is any of this actually true?"

What's your alien apocalypse survival plan?GAMESBEAT: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE GAME SO FAR?

POPE: Oh, I love it. I'm not just saying that. I mean-I guess I was brought up, maybe, in an era where games were just a few pixels moving clumsily across the screen. I can't even remember what they were called. What was that one where you just bounced it around?

GAMESBEAT: PONG?

POPE: Pong! I'm probably showing my age there. But you look at something like The Bureau, and it's just, "My God." The other thing is, I love that whole style of the '60s, whether it's the cars or the shops, the signs. It's got a nice feel to it as well. Like I say, I don't play these games, so I can't, I'm afraid, give any sort of technical-insight clever answer to that. But I've obviously sat in on some meetings, I've looked at it, and I've thought, "Wow, that's impressive."

GAMESBEAT: IN ALL YOUR DECADES OF WORK THAT YOU'VE DONE AND YOUR HYPOTHESIZING AND DISCUSSION AND SO ON, IF YOU TURNED ON THE NEWS AND SAW THAT ALIENS WERE ARRIVING - LIGHTS IN THE SKY AND THAT KIND OF STUFF - WOULD YOU BE EXCITED, OR WOULD YOU BE WORRIED?

POPE: Both. I'd see it as almost a validation or a culmination of a quest that I guess I've been on. But also-I guess, self-evidently, if aliens get here, given that we can only just about slowly send a few space probes out to the edge of our solar system, if somebody has cracked viable interstellar travel, they've got technology orders of magnitude above and beyond anything we've got. So I couldn't help but be worried.

I think Stephen Hawking said this - it would be like the European explorers meeting the native Americans, only we're the native Americans. We'd have to hope that alien visitors are explorers, ambassadors, adventurers, and not the sort of cynical exploiters that, sadly, in human history we've tended to be when we encounter new territories. So we're going to have to hope that they're friendly and altruistic, because if they're not, we're in trouble.

GAMESBEAT: WE CAN HOPE THAT IT DOESN'T COME BACK ON US, ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS THAT WE'VE DONE TO OTHER CIVILIZATIONS.

POPE: Yes. It would be a kind of cosmic karma, I suppose, if it did. Our only hope would be that great staple of sci-fi, to use the aliens' own technology against them.

GAMESBEAT: OR WATER AND AIR, IN THE CASE OF SIGNS AND WAR OF THE WORLDS.

POPE: [laughs] Yeah, or Independence Day: just plug your laptop in and take down the entire alien defense system.

GAMESBEAT: I THINK THE SECRET IS JUST TO HAVE RANDY QUAID ON SPEED DIAL AND TO KEEP HIS CROP-DUSTER FUELED.

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Black Triangle Sighting In Hillsboro Texas On May 15Th 1995 Large Dark

BLACK TRIANGLE SIGHTING IN HILLSBORO, TEXAS ON MAY 15TH 1995 - LARGE, DARK, TRIANGULAR SHAPED CRAFT FLYING LOW OVER HILLSBORO TEXAS 1995I never reported this incident for many reasons. In the 90's UFO's were more of a conspiracy story to most people, you were considered a kook to believe in them, which I did anyway. The only people I ever told did not believe me, including my family, so I kept it to myself. The last reason was that I could not believe I saw what I had seen and not one other person ever mentioned it. Because of this, time is a little blurred. It was spring/summer in 95 or 96(I can dig in some records to find the exact year). I lived on Nowlin street in Hillsboro Texas. Me and a couple of my room-mates had stayed up late playing video games. I was the last one standing and still enjoying my games, but really needed to take a leak. I am a guy, and lazy, so just walked out my front door to pee off the porch. Was a nice temperature being around 2ish in the morning, the night was clear as a bell as Texas nights and days tend to be. No wind. The town of Hillsboro has a population of about 12k at the time so it is pretty much asleep as a town, but there is people about at that time of night and interstate 35 is not a mile away. The lights of the city streets around the main street and the all night convenient stores is all the light there is, but I am one block away from that well lit main street. The night is quiet. As I was doing my business I happen to look up. Maybe it got a tad bit brighter, maybe I just flat noticed something above me, I don't know why. Directly above me is a ship hull, complete with the hull plating and seam-work. The lights from the street were reflecting off the surface and was the only reason I saw it. It was not extra reflective by nature and in fact was a drab dull metal color (I am red-green color-blind). It appeared to be just 20 or 50 above the roof of the house I lived in, which had a steep roof that made it approximately equivalent to a two story place. I could be off by up to a couple dozen feet. Its surface reminded me of any number of navy ships hulls. To this day I do not know why I did not call out to my friends, not 20 feet away from me in the house and asleep, right then and there. I just took a step or two out into my yard and stared up at this huge ship flying over head. Something so amazing that it HAS to be shared and I just watch it fly away. It made absolutely no sound, not a single light of its own was showing moving slowly to the north. It grows in width as it goes overhead and when the what I assume was the back end came into view I knew it was triangular shaped and where the lights of the street no longer reflected was the blackness of its hull as it blocked out starlight for a while. It just kept going north. No other change in direction, action, or mode. I told my friends and wife at the time. Never heard mention of it or any rumors of something weird. As far as I know, I am the only person that saw it. I could have called them out there and I didn't. I never could explain to myself why I did not chase after it in the car, wake my friends, run down the street after it to see where it went, anything. Others are seeing something that sounds like mine in texas now, so I thought I would put in what I knew.LATEST UFO SIGHTINGSCredit: MUFON- - - People are raising thousands of dollars a day using Crowdfunding at GoFundMe.Raise Money for:Healthcare, Medical Bills - Funeral Expenses, Memorial Gifts - Crisis/Emergency Money Needed - Mission Trips, Faith, Church - Education, Tuition, Books - Vet Bills, Animals in Need - Dreams, Hopes and Wishes - Accept Charitable DonationsAny duplication, in part or in whole, is forbidden without permission of copyright holder. Email Site Admin for inquiries, comments or questions.