Bradley Walsh has revealed the first question he would ask an alien if one landed on his lawn: "My first question would probably be what's your favourite biscuit? Mine's a custard cream. Then I'd want to know if they could get rid of VAR - it's ruining football."
Hosting Out of This World on Sky HISTORY from November 3, Walsh added: "Seriously, I'd want to know what's happening elsewhere … in other parts of the universe."
A Journey of Discovery
The 66-year-old has been on a voyage of discovery for the new show, which examines everything from UFOs to the legend of Atlantis. "Do I believe all of this stuff? My job is to sit on the fence and be in a way the jury for the people," he said. "And I have to tell you, some of what I've seen, witnessed and the people that I've spoken to is incredible."
One of the key interviews in the series is with retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles 'Chuck' Halt, who was deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk in December 1980, when he led a team into Rendlesham Forest. Air Force personnel saw strange flashing red, blue and white lights descending into the trees and reported a glowing metallic object and triangular impressions on the ground.
Meeting Military Witnesses
Walsh met Halt, now in his mid-eighties, at his home in Virginia to hear about Britain's most famous UFO mystery. He said: "You believe 100% that he's telling you the truth. That he saw what he saw. Chuck and his team are called out to investigate. He goes out with his walkie-talkie and his Geiger Counter. He's now taking Geiger Counter readings and they're off the chart. Radiation off the chart."
Walsh described how Halt revealed a plaster of Paris cast of a footprint from one of the craft's tripods: "I'm sitting chatting to him, and under his chair, he's got a plastic carrier bag. He picks it up and I think, 'what's he doing? What's he got in there?' He unwraps the bag and he unravels what is inside it to reveal a disc - a plaster of Paris dome-shaped. He says, 'that's the footprint. That's the footprint from one of the tripods of the craft. I made that plaster of Paris cast.' Now that's a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force. He's a top boss. Why would he make it up?"
Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich, a retired US Navy pilot who, alongside Commander David Fravor, visually intercepted the object known as the Tic Tac - a UFO - off the southern California coast on 14 November 2004, is another former US military witness Walsh met. He said: "It's her first-hand experience, so I've got no option but to believe what they're saying. Her commanding officer, David Fravor, spoke in front of Congress about it. So I can only tell you what they've told me. I honestly believe them and what they're saying."
Exploring the Unexplained
Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence's UFO desk between 1991 and 1994, died shortly after he was interviewed for the series. Walsh said: "He's one of my heroes. I've always wanted to speak to him. I was due to fly to Washington and meet him but, sadly, he became very, very ill. We managed to do a Zoom call with him before I left for the United States. As I understand, it was his last conversation that he'd had about his specialist subject."
The series also shines a light on the scientific search for extraterrestrial life at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, where some of the world's most powerful telescopes scan the universe for signs. Walsh explores military encounters with UFOs, also travelling to Sweden to investigate the ghost rockets of the 1940s - a wave of more than 1,000 cigar-shaped aerial objects sighted over the country.
From there, the series turns to Atlantis - a legendary island which philosopher Plato claimed was founded by the sea god Poseidon. Beginning his search in Gibraltar, on a boat with investigative historian Tony McMahon, Walsh said: "As soon as he [Tony] mentions the writings of Plato, I'm trying to throw myself overboard and swim for shore, because it's not my thing at all."
Later, in Cádiz, southern Spain, where American explorer Michael Donnellan has spent eight years investigating the seabed with sonar and LiDAR, Walsh's scepticism is challenged. He said: "The most compelling evidence for me was seeing the apparent walls of Atlantis. Those actual walls on the sonar. The water's not very clear, of course, and you literally have to go as close to my hand and take a photograph of it. You're practically touching it. It's just extraordinary."
Back in Britain, Walsh met Welsh archaeologist Dr Erin Lloyd Jones at sunrise at Stonehenge, to walk him through the solstice alignments. He said: "The Egyptians are better builders than the Brits. That's the end of that conversation. People ask, were the pyramids built by aliens? No, I don't think so. Stonehenge is still remarkable, though. We're still not sure of how it came to be."
In the final episode, Walsh heads into Wiltshire's crop circle country. Once believed to be the handiwork of extra terrestrials, all the evidence points to them being totally manmade. Having a try himself, Walsh said: "They're incredibly intricate and clever but I believe that they're man made. I've seen it done and seeing is believing."
Keeping an Open Mind
Already suggesting ideas for another Out Of This World series - maybe under the sea - while not convinced about everything, Walsh now feels it's important to keep an open mind about the unexplained. He said: "Am I convinced by all of this? Still no. Why? Because I haven't actually seen anything with my own eyes. But I'm erring on the side of perhaps these things have happened, because people who I've spoken with have all been so earnest about it. I think we need a little mystery, so I'd like to keep it going and I've thoroughly enjoyed my journey."
In episode two, Walsh meets Clas Svahn, who manages the Archives for the Unexplained in Sweden. With 4.2 kilometres of underground shelves in an archive which holds more than 18,000 UFO reports, Svahn said: "It's the real X-Files, you know. I wanted to show Bradley and he really wanted to see the archives first-hand. No one comes out of there just shrugging their shoulders. They say, 'wow! Wow! Is this really for real?'"
Svahn, a retired journalist who spent 33 years at Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest morning newspaper, started a UFO society in 1974. The shelves also hold newspaper clippings, books and first-hand accounts of people who say they visited other planets. He has researched the ghost rockets, the wave of rocket/cigar-shaped objects reported over Scandinavia in 1946, since the 1970s. He said: "I think the unknown, enigmas, fascinates us. We want to know why the world is in a certain way. And when we don't, we need to speculate, to guess, to hope."
Bradley Walsh: Out of This World, all episodes available Tuesday 3rd November on Sky HISTORY and HISTORY Play.
