Tag Archives: ufos

Invasion of the Saucer Men – the visual folklore of UFOs, UAPs and Flying Saucers

Exhibition and Talk

UFO Images
C1970s Push Along UFO Roulette Toy / Participant Drawings / Unpublished ‘Honey-Bee’ children’s book (Copyright © A Robinson 2026)
  • Venue – Post Hall Gallery, Head Post Office, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield, S1 2AY
  • Opening Night – Wednesday 11th March 2026 – 5.00-7.00pm
  • Exhibition Open – 11th March – 2nd April 2026 – 10.00am-4.00pm

SHU folklorists Dr David Clarke and Andrew Robinson have spent the last three years researching the visual folklore of UFOs, UAPS and flying saucers. This exhibition, curated by Andrew Robinson, showcases 378 fascinating participant drawings collected as part of the research accompanied by a visual inventory of more than 80 years of UFO artifacts and memorabilia, including material from the famous Calvine UFO Case, exploring our obsession with the unknown.

Selection of UFO Drawings
A selection of participant UFO Drawings from the ‘In The Eye of the Beholder’ Project.

Alongside this is presented a series of new photographic works by Andrew playfully exploiting generative AI to question photography’s role as visual evidence in support of sightings.

‘The Answer # 3 – (Unidentified Areal Phenomena)’
Images created by Adobe Photoshop’s ‘Generative Fill’ when prompted with the phrase ‘Unidentified Areal Phenomena’. (Copyright © A Robinson 2026)

The exhibition reveals the longevity of this contemporary myth which began at the dawn of the space age when the first satellites, space rockets and nuclear missiles drew our attention towards the heavens. Currently interest, from public to President, continues to grow thanks to the increasing exploitation of space – from Chinese spy balloons to NASA’s Artemis Moon programme and Elon Musk‘s SkyTrain – alongside the release of previously secret files, images and videos and despite advances in optics and imaging the mystery of the UFO, UAP and flying saucer remains.

David and Andrew would like to thank all those who contributed to the project by taking part in the participatory activities and producing the wonderful drawings included in the exhibition.

Free Gallery Talk – 6.30pm, Thursday 26th March

Dr David Clarke and Andrew Robinson will be explaining their research and discussing the history of the visual folklore associated with Flying Saucers and UFOs along with photography’s often problematic role in providing visual evidence of sightings.

Tickets and Info HERE

Read an interview with Andrew Robinson about the project and exhibition on the National Folklore Survey website HERE

For further information please contact:

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

Saucermen poster by A Robinson (inspired by 1957 film poster of the same name).
Theatrical release poster by Albert Kallis for ‘Invasion of the Saucer-Men’, Dir: Edward L. Cahn,1957 for American International Pictures.

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.