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Free talk on the Visual Folklore of UFOs – 26th March, Sheffield

A selection of participant UFO Drawings from the ‘In The Eye of the Beholder’ Project, 2023-2026.

Invasion of the Saucer Men – The Visual Folklore of UFOs, UAPs and Flying Saucers

Free Public Gallery Talk – 6.30 pm, Thursday 26th March – Tickets HERE

Dr David Clarke and Andrew Robinson will be hosting a free illustrated public talk titled ‘Invasion of the Saucer Men’ to accompany the exhibition of the same name currently on show in the Post Hall Gallery, Old Head Post Office, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield, S1 2AY. The talk takes place in the Gallery space at 6.30pm on Thursday 26th March.

The talk will explore the visual folklore of UFOs, UAPs and Flying Saucers, with a particular focus on British sightings and publications. David will trace the origins of flying saucer and UFO folklore and explore the important role played by a small group of highly influential individuals.

Andrew will then discuss the initial findings of the ‘In The Eye of the Beholder’ research project he and David have been running for the last three years. The research project has seen the pair host talks and participatory events at locations as far afield as Pennsylvania, USA and Calvine, Scotland including The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in London, Todmorden’s  Centre for Folklore, Myth and Magic, and the National Space Centre in Leicester.

At these events, members of the public were given ten minutes in which to draw what they imagined a UFO might look like, resulting in the 378 drawings presented here. Whilst these inventive and creative images portray all types of UFO, the flying saucer or disc dominates, with more than 65% of drawings picturing this classic shape, a testament to the longevity of this visual legend which dates back to 1947 or earlier. Andrew will also discuss his use of AI in the creation of artworks exploring the contested space between truth and fiction in photographic representations of UFOs.

David will have a few remaining copies of his book ‘UFO Drawings From The National Archives’ (pub. Four Corners, 2017) for sale and there will be a free 60-page booklet to accompany the talk and exhibition for the first 50 attendees.

TICKETS – The talk is FREE, however please register your interest via Eventbrite HERE so we can manage numbers.

  • Further information on the exhibition click HERE
  • Read an interview with Andrew about the project on the National Folklore Survey website HERE
  • Read a review of Andrew’s artwork by Matt Edgar HERE

For further information please contact:

andrew.robinson@shu.ac.uk or david.clarke@shu.ac.uk

Theatrical release poster by Albert Kallis for ‘Invasion of the Saucer-Men’, Dir: Edward L. Cahn,1957 for American International Pictures.

Special CCL Edited Edition of REVENANT now live

Revenant website header – © Revenant 2026

This week sees the release of a special edition of the peer reviewed, open access online journal REVENANT, edited and curated by members of the Centre for Contemporary Legend Research Group at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr. David Clarke, Dr Sophie Parkes-Nield, Andrew Robinson and Dr Diane Rodgers.

REVENANT is a highly regarded peer reviewed, online journal committed to the scholarly, academic and creative exploration of the supernatural, the uncanny and the weird in any form, led by Ruth Heholt at based at Falmouth University.

The special CCL issue begins with a detailed and informative introduction to Contemporary Legend study by the editorial team. In preparing this overview Andrew and Sophie worked closely with Professor Paul Smith, renowned folklorist and Professor Emeritus at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, who helped establish Contemporary Legend as an academic discipline in the 1980s, organising the first ever international conference on the subject at Sheffield University in 1982.

 ‘Crying Boy’ portraits credited to ‘G Bragolin’. Image © A Robinson 2025.

The issue includes peer reviewed papers, book reviews and creative works by all four members of the editorial team including papers exploring The Curse of the Crying Boy (David Clarke) and the history of Buxton‘s forgotten Lovers Leap (Andrew Robinson) with four poems by Carolyn Waudby, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at SHU.

Lover’s Leap and The Entrance to Sherbrook Dell, © Andrew Robinson 2021

To compliment contributions from CCL researchers the team have curated a selection of papers and articles from leading international academics in the study of Folklore and Contemporary Legend covering subjects as diverse as Taiwanese Folklore, NETFLIX and the Pendle Witches with papers by Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby (University of Kentucky) on Contemporary Legend In the YouTube documentary series Hellier and Daniel P. Compora (University of Toledo) on Michigan’s Monsters.

The National Folklore Survey for England is go!

The SHU NFS Team – Dr David Clarke, Dr Diane Rodgers and Dr Sophie Parks-Nield

On Wednesday 5 February 2025, Sheffield Hallam based members of the project team along with other members of CCL invited university colleagues to help launch the National Folklore Survey for England.

It was standing room only as staff and students from the across the university gathered to hear our presentation and, most importantly, enjoy home-baked brownies and prosecco.

The launch proved a chance for the team to offer more information about the project, detailing its aims, scope, parameters and methodologies, and take questions. We were delighted at the enthusiasm with which our project was received, and we look forward to sharing more about the Survey as we progress.

NFS Stickers produced for the launch

CCL Researchers involved in recent mass UFO sighting at Todmorden, Yorks

On Saturday 11th May 2024 CCL members Dr David Clarke and Andrew Robinson hosted an event at the Centre for Folklore, Myth and Magic in Todmorden to a sold-out audience of over 50 people where they introduced who their research into visual representations and public perceptions of UFOs and UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena).

Dr David Clarke (R) and Andrew Robinson (L) outside the Folklore Centre

The research, titled ‘In The Eye Of The Beholder’ explores the role of images in the creation of folkloric narratives and visual rumour legends through the sharing of the complex and intertwining narratives that surround reports of UAPs and UFOs. As part of the event attendees took part in a drawing exercise providing the researchers with more than 40 different visualisations of UFOs for use in their creation of a taxonomy of UFOs as part of their study which will ultimately lead to research publications, exhibitions and further public engagement.

Images produced by participants at the event including work by Kate Lyall (centre top), Britta (top right), and Paul Weatherhead (bottom right).

As part of their presentation Senior Lecturer in Photography Andrew Robinson introduced a number of  photographs that were used to provide evidence of classic U.K. sightings of UFOs but have since been shown to have been staged. This was accompanied with a demonstration of how this might have been achieved resulting in a mass sighting of UFOs within the venue (pictured above).

Part of the exhibition of visual artefacts and MoD documents on display at the Folklore Centre (© A Robinson).

To accompany the talk Andrew also curated an exhibition of photographs and artefacts from his and David’s personal archives of UFO imagery and artefacts alongside with facsimile copies of previously top secret Ministry of Defence documents now available from the National Archives.

The research project will continue with a virtual presentation at ‘In The Cloud of Unknowing: Encounters with UFOs’ being hosted at Midred’s Lane Arts Complex in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania in July of this year (more details here) and a further participatory even at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in London in November.

Calendar Customs at the Earth(ly) Matters 2020 online conference.

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Moving a conference online is no mean feat: will the technology work? Will everyone feel engaged when they can’t make direct eye contact or network over finger food? How will Chairs and Speakers enliven the stilted atmosphere of the online world?

With Earth(ly) Matters 2020, Sheffield Hallam’s Humanities and Social Sciences Society have made it look fiendishly easy. Using the three thematic strands of the conference to organise presentations, Roots, Rebellions and Resolutions, Earth(ly) Matters was split over three Fridays in August to prevent Zoom fatigue and to enable attendance from anyone, anywhere.

The conference explored ‘what matters on Earth and how Earth matters’, taking Amitav Ghosh’s claim, that the current environmental crisis is ‘also a crisis of culture, and thus of imagination’, as provocation. What role, speakers were asked, can the humanities and social sciences play at a time of climate breakdown and a catastrophic decline in wildlife?

On Friday 7 August, under the banner of ‘Roots’, I was fortunate to be able to present my work on calendar customs and their link to the natural environment, exploring whether those involved in such calendar customs could become climate activists on a hyperlocal level. Presenters submitted a ‘verbal’ element (a written paper) and a ‘visual’ element ­(a recorded presentation with visual stimuli) for publication on the conference website to enable engagement beyond the ten-minute live talk on conference day.

Inspiring change remained at the heart of the day: how our work, actions, thoughts and ideas can contribute to a world where change is underway, and change is desperately needed. But there was also fun to be had. Once the conference came to a close, delegates were invited to try bingo – with a difference. Using the Zoom breakout room facility, we learnt more about the lives and research interests of our fellow delegates by collecting information on bingo cards. Finding someone that shares your preferred type of cooked potato has never been so urgent…

Sophie Parkes

You can visit the Earth(ly) Matters conference website HERE and view Sophie’s presentation of her paper Cheese-rolling, Pace-egging, Soul-caking: Can Calendar Customs Engender Stewardship of our Natural Environment below. Sophie would welcome any feedback you might have – contact her at: sophie@sophieparkes.co.uk