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Like
Ball
Lightning:
In
Memory
of Ralph Noyes
I'm sure I've got a
picture of Ralph Noyes
around here somewhere, but he was so unprepossessing, you never
know. Besides, he wasn't the kind to pose for pictures on his own
anyway, and now there will be no more pictures of Mr. Noyes at all.
He died on May 24, 1998, as a result of a fall suffered at his London
home.
"Ralph Noyes was born in the tropics," according to the biographical
note on the dust jacket of his 1985 novel, A Secret Property,"
and spent most of his childhood in the West Indies. He served in the
RAF from 1940 to 1946 and was commissioned as aircrew, engaging in
active service in North Africa and the far East. He entered the
civil service in 1949 and served in the Air Ministry and subsequently
the unified Ministry of Defense. In 1977 he retired early from the
civil service to take up a writing career, leaving in the grade of
under Secretary of State. He has since published several pieces of
shorter fiction, most of them on speculative themes.
"For nearly four years, until late 1972," the dust jacket note
continues, "Ralph Noyes headed a division in the central staffs of
the Ministry of Defense which brought him in touch with the UFO
problem. Since his retirement he has become increasingly interested
in this subject, among others which lie on the fringes of present
understanding. He sees speculative fiction as the ideal mode for
grappling with these unusual areas of experience. But A Secret
Property is not only fiction but also "faction"--at least to the
extent of drawing on Ralph Noyes's lengthy background in the Royal
Air Force and the Ministry of Defense."
I first came into contact with Noyes during the late 1980s, when he
submitted an article (if memory serves) about ball lightning to the MUFON
UFO Journal, of which I was then editor. I accepted it, a
correspondence followed, and so did a handful of subsequent articles
on the newest mystery of the time--crop circles. Already the Hon.
Secretary to the Society for Psychical Research, Noyes was a founding
member of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, and then became that
organization's Hon. Secretary as well. He would go on to edit what
is one of the best books on the subject, The Crop Circle Enigma
(Gateway Books, 1990), with pictures by Busty Taylor, and numerous
contributions by other members of the CCCS, as well as a civilian or
two like Hilary Evans. Or let's say one of the best books on the
subject, given our understanding at the time.
In July of 1990, I attended what I think was the first international
conference on crop circles, Terence Meaden's Oxford conference, and
then spent a day in the fields with Meaden and other atmospheric
scientists, viewing a ringed quintuplet, numerous grapeshot, and
several magnificent dumb-bells, although, as soon became clear, the
circle-makers had barely gotten started in terms of size and
complexity. I don't think Noyes was at that conference, but I'm
almost certain that I visited him shortly afterwards in his London
home, in one of those neighborhoods made up of whitewashed rowhouses
with the wrought iron railings out front and the bronze plaques that
say William Hazlitt lived here. Noyes lived in a couple of long
rooms off the first floor hallway, dusty, stale rooms, what you
would call a confirmed bachelor's pad. He was a good 20-25 years
older than me, and presumably existing primarily off a fixed pension,
like so many of his peers. He was of the opinion that the
neighborhood had declined of late, and that London was more
expensive than ever, probably universal grumps (and truisms) of his
generation. I don't know if these were the same rooms he fell in,
although I do know he'd had an earlier fall here a couple of years or
so ago and was some time recovering from it.
Among the ashtrays was a computer he was learning. His fingers were
never far from a cigarette and neither were mine in those days. As
quickly became evident, we both shared a love of the pulped grape as
well, a dark burgundy, preferably. We puffed and sipped, sipped and
puffed, and of course conversed. What were these miraculous new crop
circles? Did they bear an intimate relation to ball lightning and/or
UFOs? Fine and well; now, what would either of those be? It
was during this conversation that I learned we shared something
else: a fundamental feeling that all this wonderful stuff--crop
circles, flying saucers, poltergeists, and so on--was certainly highly
interesting if true, but how true was it? And could we please
have the envelope with the evidence?
I wouldn't see Noyes in person again until the summer of 1992, when
we both participated in Project Argus, an ambitious soil and
crop-sampling exercise set up by Michael Chorost and funded with
monies supplied by Robert Bigelow, MUFON and others (by mcsweeney). I arrived at
Gatwick Thursday morning, July 16, and took the train to Swindon, where
I was met by Noyes and a lady companion with a car, and thence on to
Alton Barnes. I can't for the life of me remember whether this woman
was Una Dawood, the liaison between Argus and local farmers, Noyes's
sister or niece, Lucy Pringle--or all or none of the above! I know
he was with family members later that day, however, and my otherwise
detail-frayed account can be found in the September 1992 issue of the MUFON
UFO Journal.
We were the first humans to enter the formation at Milk Hill that
same afternoon--apart from whoever originally created it, of course.
Interestingly, I'm looking at a clump of souvenir dirt on my desk as
I write this, a clump of dirt found atop the otherwise
pristine and "supernatural" floor of the Milk Hill formation. It was
my first personal inkling that all was not as it seemed with the
so-called crop circles.
The following day, Friday, we drove up to Winchester, where the CCCS
was holding its own first international conference, "Crop Circles,
the Enigma for the Nineties." Anyone who was anyone in cereology at
the time was there that weekend: John Michell, George Wingfield,
Colin Andrews, pilot and photographer Busty Taylor, dowser Richard
Andrews, Montague Keen, Chorost, Jurgen Kronig, Noyes and others. My
most memorable memory, however, is of the Friday evening banquet
held at the downtown Guildhall, at which a somewhat soused and
high-up Centre officer, or sponsor, went on at some length about,
well, about nothing much at all. But a good time was had by everyone
present.
Sunday evening found us back in the Swindon and Alton Barnes area.
Monday it mostly rained. Tuesday, Steven Greer and crew arrived. The
following night we trooped up to the top of Woodborough Hill to see
what Greer's group, CSETI--Center for the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence--was all about. Best I could tell, CSETI
was much ado about nothing. There was some sitting in circles and
meditating, and some shining of powerful flashlights (half-million
to a million candle-power only, please) skyward, and about that much
candle-power of wishful thinking, from what I could determine.
Away to the east could be seen the flight path--outlined by numerous
blinking lights--for either Heathrow or Gatwick. Off to the south of
our most excellent viewing position the British military was holding
various nocturnal exercises, consisting of flares, searchlights, and
loud, artillery-like booms in the distance. All of which was
cannon-fodder for Greer's acolytes. Didn't this intense military
monitoring only prove they were getting "close" to the truth, that
contact was imminent?
Certainly, the expectation of contact was imminent. In the
darkness, Noyes and I found ourselves near a circle of five or six
sitters, mostly female, who oohed and aahed in unison each time a
ghostly disc-shaped light routinely swept into view. Our pointing
out that said disc was a military searchlight regularly illuminating
the broken cloud deck overhead was not well received (let alone
believed).
But not to worry. The following evening Greer and group achieved
"contact," albeit with what I suspect was a balloon launched by
Robert Irving and others, although I could never prove it in court.
On the other hand, Greer could never prove his case in court, either.
I can't even say the experience was instrumental in Noyes's own
decision, shortly thereafter, to resign as Hon. Secretary of the
CCCS. Maybe the confessions of Doug and Dave were equally to blame.
Point is, just as we could see the searchlight beam on the clouds
that night, we could also see the handwriting on the wall (by mcsweeney). Whatever the
circles were first touted as being, it was becoming increasingly
evident that what the supposed supernatural circlemakers could do,
so could our equally inventive fellow humans.
I flew back to the U.S. and we continued to correspond. I thought I
would see him again, here or there, maybe at an UnConvention or some
other conference (as I fully intended). But we all know how
intentions go. We all live our lives learning, via different
channels, that someone we were once in close connection with has lost
theirs.
My mind nags me now. It seems like I just saw something, very
recently, with the Noyes signature on it, but I can't remember what
or where it was. There's so much to read and keep track of nowadays.
I want to say that Noyes didn't write enough, but that would be both
churlish and judgmental of me. Maybe he said everything he wanted to
say, and succinctly at that. After all, when I think of people who
write too much in this field (and you know who you are), Noyes
strikes me as a model of modicum and modesty.
As such, he will be sorely missed.
--Dennis Stacy
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