Cosmic Dave

I'd like to meet:

I would have liked to have met Elvis in his heyday. I've always loved his music and some people say that I look like him a bit too, so that's a bonus I guess. Did you know there's over 35,000 Elvis impersonators around the World? But none of them can ever compare to the King.

I'd also like to meet anyone with a sense of humour who is either down to earth, not from earth, or somebody who is honest and a millionaire. If your interested in the paranormal or UFOs then get in touch, I'd love to hear your stories.

UFOs and Ghosts - A Few Stories Of My Encounters With The Unknown

OK, so you wanna hear about my paranormal and UFO experiences? That's why your here reading this right? Well, first off, let me say that not everyone who sees a UFO is a nut or have had one too many to drink. Mind you, thats what some authorities would love you to believe. Some people will say that just because they are afraid of the truth.
But witnesses come from all walks of life, from qualified airline pilots, judges, policemen and even US Presidents (Jimmy Carter).

My own UFO experiences started when I was around 7-8. The first UFO I ever saw was what you might term as a 'mothership'. It was very big, low flying and silent. I would describe it as a 'flying Wembley Stadium', a runner bean shaped object with rotating white lights moving around its middle. This object was no figment of my imagination either, as both my brother and sister witnessed it. How can I be so sure that this thing was not man-made? Well, consider that this object was travelling over my house at an approximate speed of 10 miles per hour. We ran through our house as it disappeared over the roof top to get a better look from theother side of the house. It would have taken just a few seconds to run through the house and open the front door, but by then the object had totally disappeared. We had a view of a distance of about 2 miles from our standpoint and yet this object had just vanished after moving so slowly?The following years presented many other UFOs of different shapes and sizes. The most common of which were small lights that looked like a transparent internally illuminated runner bean shaped object when viewed through binoculars, which would travel across the sky at quite a high altitude and then suddenly zip off at a right angle. I remember one such object appearing on the horizon, travelling slowly and then all of sudden, zipping back and starting its route again. Very odd. Many of these were also seen by friends and family. I would estimate that I have seen at least 35 UFOs since my first encounter.

But it was my last sighting that excited me so much that I started up 'Cosmic Conspiracies' which is run by myself, my brother and good friend Andy Lloyd (on my friends list). Before that particular encounter I had heard of triangular-shaped objects that, up until my own sighting, I believed were just unidentified military aircraft. However, I have no doubt in my mind that what I saw at 6.30am on the morning of December 7th 1999 was anything but man-made. I had been woken up early by my new dog who wanted to go out for a walk. As I walked down the road (which at that time of the morning was pitch black) I noticed a very bright light heading towards me. At first I thought that it was simply an aircraft which was pointed directly at me. However, I soon became aware that what I at first thought was a star formation behind this light, was in fact also moving with the bigger light. The smaller lights were an orange-peach colour and in a triangular formation. But the strange thing was that the craft was flying with the point of the triangle at the back? The UFO could have not been any higher than 1,000 feet above me and yet it was silent and I could not see any detail within the shape - just the outline of lights. This thing was absolutely huge. I remember at the time comparing the outline of lights to the the plough constellation. If you look at the plough, its shape resembles a frying pan. The UFO's size compared to what would be the handle of the pan!I passed a guy in the street who was also watching the object, but we didn't actually say anything to each other at the time - I think we were simply in shock at what we were seeing. The guy soon disappeared down an alley near my house, at which point I rushed back and got my brother out of bed.We walked up to a disused motorway bridge which is just a few hundred yards from our house, to get a better vantage point. The guy that I had passed earlier must have doubled back as he was now on the bridge as we arrived. We asked him where the object was and he pointed above a hill which must be around 2 miles from where we stood. The craft was still at least 3" across in the sky. The guy was really freaking out and swearing with disbelief at what he was seeing. The craft slowly glided over the hill and the Sun began to rise. Apparently there was a report on a local radio station that day where people were ringing up about the UFO, but unfortunately I didn't get to hear it. Since starting the website I get around 4-500 Emails per day from all around the World with different sightings of UFOs, ghosts and other paranormal activity.

Did you know that 68% of Britons believe in ghosts, whilst 33% believe that the dead can communicate with us? Yet just 55% of Britons believe in God. During the time we have run the website we have gone on various ghost and UFO investigations and helped out people who's homes are haunted.
One such person appears in the article to the left. The lady in question contacted us after encountering a nasty spirit in her house - the result of dabbling with a ouija board. In fact many people seem to acquire nasty ghosts after using ouija boards, which we definitely would not advise anybody to do unless you have somebody present who knows what they are doing.

We used to live in a haunted house. In fact, everywhere we have lived since moving from that house has had its fair share of ghost activity.
My earliest recollection is of the night my brother saw the ghost of a woman in Victorian dress, walk into the room we shared when we were kids.

I was around 8 years of age and my brother would have been around 12. The ghost of this lady glided through the door, stopped at my bed where I was sleeping, looked at me and then proceeded to walk across the room and vanish into the door of the wardrobe. But what authenticates this particular encounter is that my mum also saw the same lady in her bedroom at around the same time. My brother didn't tell my parents for a few weeks afterwards because he thought they would think he was going mad. But one day he blurted out to my dad what he had saw, at which point my dad called mum into the room and told her to tell him about the lady she had seen.

Lots of strange things happened at that house, including dark shadow people darting about, TV's changing channels of their own accord, strange noises coming from within the walls - like a bird trapped, even though there was no possible way a bird could get into the wall. I particularly remember us entering the house late one night after a night out. Every door upstairs banged in unison across the house. Thinking that there must be a burglar, me, my brother and dad raced up the stairs only to find that every door was wide open.

No windows were open, it was a mid-summer warm evening with no wind. How those doors closed and opened that night I will never fathom out? One of our friends came around one afternoon and it wasn't long before the subject of ghosts came up. He was a bit of a sceptic and thought we were kidding - that was until he looked at the door to the room and saw the door handle pull down. Since then he never could go out to the toilet without one of us standing outside :)

I will finish up this section with what for me was the scariest thing that happened in the house. One day during the school holidays me and my brother were playing snooker in the same room that had once been our shared bedroom - the same room where my brother had seen the lady ghost. It wasn't long into the game that we suddenly realised that the birds outside seemed to stop singing. In fact all sound stopped as if we had gone deaf. Have you ever heard that strange noise just before a thunderstorm strikes? Its a sort of a very distant low drone. Well, it was pretty close to that. Then all of a sudden the door to the room started to open by itself. The only people in the house were myself and my brother, with one dog locked in the kitchen and the other dog somewhere in the house. Fearing the worst, we slowly picked up our snooker cue's (well you have to be prepared for anything!) and slowly edged our way to the door. Looking through the door and down the hallway we could see our other dog. He was crouched there on all fours, in the lounge, looking at us shaking like a leaf. It was just as if he had just been given a really good telling off?

We have been on many interesting ghost hunts since starting the site, and even captured what we think is the ghost of an old soldier on Tewkesbury Battlefield which was the site of a famous battle during the War of the Roses in 1470. I have posted a blown-up version of the picture here. Although it is quite dark you may be able to see the figure which we think is wearing a suit of armour.

Our most successful ghost hunt involved a local spiritualist church. My brother (Zodiac on my friends list) is a medium and was asked if we could take the group on a mini ghost tour of Prestbury, a village near Cheltenham. Prestbury is alleged to be Britain's most haunted place. After a little internet and local history searching, we put together a tour which travelled to locations in the village where the ghosts had been spotted. One such place was the graveyard itself. A black abbot is supposed to haunt the location and it was during our initial test-run before the tour that my brother actually saw him in the graveyard. But something much more shocking would appear on the ghost hunt! Several of the group were sensitive, in the mediumistic sense, and almost as one voiced their concerns about temperature drops as we approached the graveyard, which was the last destination on our ghost tour.

Some seemed to feel the presence of an unexplained energy in the graveyard. Something seemed to be brewing up, perhaps as a result of the presence of so many sensitive individuals. The group fragmented as individuals and smaller groups began to follow their instincts, as they explored the area.

My brother has seen many, many ghosts in the last few years, and is rarely shocked by any of them.

But the sudden vision of a white lady, dressed in Victorian costume, standing behind Marilyn, one of our group, was too much even for him. There must have been something sinister about this ghost to provoke Martin into letting go a series of wild curses, in fright. What happened next seemed to confirm this feeling. Because Martin saw the ghost push at Marilyn’s back. And, incredibly, Marilyn fell forwards involuntarily. Not before she had taken this picture though, which clearly shows what is commonly known as an orb. Orbs are thought to be the first manifestation of a spirit before it changes into ghost form.

One final thing. When I finished writing this blog about ghosts I noticed that my slideshow on this page was showing some other persons pictures? When I refreshed the page it went back to my usual picture selection. How odd is that?

SMILE

Music:

Ritchie Blackmore, legendary guitarist from Deep Purple and Rainbow is one of my main musical influences. I was lucky enough to see him a couple of years ago with 'Blackmore's Night'. Although most of the evening was mainly folk orientated music, he did actually bring out that famous cream stratocaster at the end of the gig for a Rainbow song. It would be really nice to see Ritchie tour with Rainbow one more time though. I think he wrote most of his best stuff whilst in Rainbow, together with Dio, Graham Bonnett and Joe Lynn Turner.Deep Purple are an amazing band live – They now have Steve Morse on guitar and I'd recommend anyone to go and see them if you get the chance. They are the most technically competent musicians that I have seen in one band. Simply awesome!

Another band who I've discovered recently is The Zutons. I'm in love with their saxophone player Abi Harding, she's a right little cracker. Unfortunately there aren't any good pics that I have found, otherwise I'd post one here. Check out their Myspace page.I couldn't finish this section off without mentioning a really amazing musician that I've just discovered. Jake Shimabukuro is an absolutely phenomenal Ukelele player who hails from Hawaii. He is very well known in Hawaii and Japan, and I'm sure he would be a big hit over here in England and Europe too if he decides to visit these shores. Jake fuses jazz, rock and many other styles into his playing technique. To find out more, click on his Myspace page
Jake Shimabukuro playing a beautiful version of 'While my guitar gently weeps'...Here's a full list of the bands that I've seen over the years. Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Saxon, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, The Scorpions, Kiss, Ozzy, AC/DC, Dio, Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Quireboys, Thunder, Trivium, Lauren Harris, Queensryche, Slayer, The Almighty, Nightwish, Blackmore's Night, Whitesnake, Paradise Lost, Company Of Snakes, Judas Priest, Halford, Alice Cooper, Testament, Skid Row, Twisted Sister, Vixen, Girlschool, Tesla, Poison, W.A.S.P., Wolfsbane, Great White, Britny Fox, Tigers Of Pan Tang, Grim Reaper and a few support acts who are long forgotten.

I have written loads of my own original stuff. Ive just bought a Toneport for my computer which will finally allow me to get my ideas onto CD.

Movies:

I love nothing better than watching a good movie. My all time favourite films are Halloween . Aliens . The Thing . The Green Mile . Close Encounters Of The Third Kind . Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. I also love a good comedy. The Carry On films are brilliant and On The Buses too, as well as Beavis and Butthead or Jackass/Dirty Sanchez.

Heroes:

My Dad - who has gone to a much better place.

My Mum - For being the sweetest person I know.
Peter Kay - The Mans a genius.

Randy Rhoads - Guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne who died in a plane crash at the age of only 25.