Jonathan McGowan is a seasoned UFO spotter who has documented hundreds of images of what he believes to be alien phenomena, so I spent a day with him to see if I could find any truth around the mystery of UFOs. 

A sleepy seaside town on the south coast may not seem like the setting of high-stakes, thrilling airborne conspiracy, but according to some, Poole is. It doesn’t have quite the same attention and perceived threat level as drone threats in the skies over America, but to Dorset UFO spotters, UFOs in Poole are no less real, and have increased in recent years. 

“I wish people would open their eyes, because you can see so many UFOs in this area, it’s something that’s hidden from us, just how close we are to this portal that releases them,” Jonathan McGowan said. 

On Poole Quay, a subdued, cobblestoned part of the Old Town, I stood with Jonathan, a 57-year-old UFO spotter, born and bred in Dorset. Pointing up through the cloud and mist that’d prevented anyone other than the two of us from coming to the waterside, Jonathan told me, “Not the best day for it really”. 

There’s not a lot of people that I’d be inclined to believe if they told me that they had not just seen, but documented hundreds of UFOs. Whenever I’ve heard about unexplained sightings before, I’d always brush them off as people’s unreliable eyesight, overactive imaginations and unawareness of how easy flight radar apps are to access. 

“Even seeing one UFO will unlock your perspective,” Jonathan said. “Everyone spends their lives looking down, and when they do look up, they combat logic with the lies they’ve been conditioned with.

“I don’t claim to know exactly what all the UFOs are, could be us travelling through time with future technology, could be a completely different species, but they’re here.” 

Jonathan does not come across as the kind of person I might have stereotyped as a UFO spotter. He regularly does talks for natural history and wildlife societies, he’s written a book on wild cats, he’s a distinguished speaker and teacher in his field and is a man of science. Sure, he was interviewed in 2009 as ‘The man who cooks and eats roadkill’, but even that had a fairly rational explanation about sustainable meat consumption and his environmental concern. I had my reservations, but I wanted to know how this self-confessed scientific man really believes he has seen hundreds of UFOs over little old Poole. 

“I’m not at all delusional you know,” Jonathan said, as if he could hear my internal scepticism, “I don’t ever believe stuff without reason, I won’t ever jump to conclusions, and I won’t believe anything without evidence. 

“I definitely wouldn’t call myself a conspiracy theorist either, they’re all mental.” 

This took me by surprise. We were staring at a cloudy sky, hoping to spot some aliens that according to Jonathan, the government are aware of and hiding from us. I think most people, myself included, would put us in a conspiracy theorist bracket. 

“It’s these bad conspiracies you see, people not getting vaccines or covid jabs because there’s a conspiracy that there’s something in them to make us infertile or track us or whatever,” Jonathan said. “People grow up learning a bunch of sh*t, young people’s minds are being poisoned, everyone is watching Facebook and looking at conspiracy theories rather than the news and some are so extreme that it’s diabolical. 

“I just think why do people believe that, something which is really so obviously not true and completely impossible for the government or whoever to carry out even if they wanted to.” 

To be honest, I could have said exactly that about the idea of UFOs flying out of Poole Harbour. But belief in extraterrestrial conspiracy has skyrocketed, with 7% of Britons believing they have seen a UFO according to YouGov, which is up from 3% in 1999. There’s an overwhelming distrust and criticism of governments too, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, 57% of adults have little to no trust in the UK government. 

“People distrust the authorities so much that they think every conspiracy theory is true,” Jonathan said. “We know people conspire because the government are all liars, so people go to the extreme and think everything is a conspiracy, which is just ridiculous. As a society we’re unbalanced… but they are hiding things like UFOs from us for sure.”

I was overwhelmed, but I did agree with Jonathan. I think conspiracy theories are thriving and becoming more extreme as society becomes more polarized and there are no barriers for anyone to publish anything. Conspiracy theories that many would brush off as entirely outlandish are seen as irrefutable by the people believing them in online echo chambers, and Jonathan agreed. 

Yet we were both still staring at the sky, poised and ready for an extraterrestrial spacecraft to appear. 

The cloud was clearing and after hearing so much from Jonathan about the certainty of spotting the unexplainable on a clear day here, allegedly next to a UFO portal, I’ll admit my hopes were up. Jonathan reassured me that whatever we’d see shouldn’t be feared, and he believes most UFOs are a welcome presence that have some sort of protection over us. But the 100% guarantee that I’d spot something with him was dwindling, whether I’d fear it or not. 

“It’s really when I’m looking at nature that I get the best evidence,” Jonathan said. 

“A lot of my best photos have been when the subject is a bird, I love photographing nature and wildlife, and it’ll be when I’m looking back over everything I’ve taken in the day I spot things in the sky.” 

Jonathan has an extensive collection of ‘irrefutable evidence’ in the form of photos and videos that he talked me through before we left to know what to look out for. Over just the last three years, Jonathan has captured over 400 images of UFOs in Dorset, but his fascination goes right back to his childhood. Jonathan has had ‘spiritual awareness’ since the age of five and first saw a UFO at the age of seven, which he thinks allowed him to be so open minded and unafraid of spotting phenomena. 

It’s not just Jonathan who has seen the unexplainable over Poole. “I’ve grown up in Poole and I’ve seen the weirdest things above us, so I totally believe that it’s a UFO hotspot too,” fellow UFO spotter Lindsey Pelton said. “It’s not just Jonathan, there are a whole bunch of us, and I’m sure way more who haven’t spoken up about it, that have accepted seeing UFOs as a part of life in Poole!” 

Dorset Police have multiple reports of UFO sightings every year, some even accompanied by gunshots that have been investigated, but none have been deemed suspicious, and were mostly assumed to be drones. 

The Ministry Of Defence did have a UFO desk, but it closed in 2009, and they said, “In over 50 years, no sightings of extraterrestrial intelligence, Unidentified Flying Objects and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reported to us indicated the existence of any military threat to the United Kingdom.”

Over Poole Harbour specifically, Starlink satellites (5,000 low-orbiting satellites operated by SpaceX to improve internet connectivity in remote places) are seen quite often. This caused an increase in suspicious reports in 2023, and the Wessex Astronomical Society has seen interest spike too in the past few years, along with growing light pollution and drone use in the area. 

“We’ve had some wanting to borrow our equipment, telescopes and long distance cameras, with the intention of investigating what is going on in the sky and capturing UFOs in high definition,” David Porter, a member of the society said. 

“The thing is, with the right equipment, they’ve never come back to us with the proof that they wanted, because when they’ve managed to zoom in on what they spot as a UFO, it’s always just been nature.

“I love it though when people question what’s going on above us, it’s so important, and that’s all I’m doing as an astronomer, they’re just coming from a different, kookier angle. Only sad thing is I’ve never known anyone find the UFOs they want to see.” 

I asked Jonathan if he’s ever questioned whether the increase in UFOs is actually just down to tech developments, or if some of the phenomena he’s seen could be drones or satellites, but his experiences date back so far that there’s no doubt in his mind that they’re completely alien. 

Jonathan and I parted ways without me having seen any UFOs first hand, and I was a little surprised by my own disappointment. I hadn’t left the house thinking I was going to see anything out of the ordinary hanging over Poole, but I’ll admit Jonathan’s passion and devotion swept me up entirely. Jonathan by no means shared my deflation, and stayed true to his unwavering belief, happy that I’d opened my mind and left me with a statement as confident as he’d been all day: 

“Eyes on the skies remember, you’ll spot one when you least expect it!”