1965-Present

Department 18
 

Since 1965 the department has operated on a much more low-key level. So much so that the majority of the public seem unaware of its existence; a situation that suits the current Head of Department18, Simon Crozier. In a recent interview with this writer he said, “...he (Alvar Liscombe) was the best, and the worst thing that ever happened to this department. The best because, at the time, he raised public awareness of the paranormal. People began reporting incidents that, before, would have either been ignored or consigned to urban myth. It was a very busy time for the department and, in the years he was in charge, more was learned about the very real nature of paranormal - supernatural - call it what you will, then at any time in the preceding forty years.

            “These days there is a culture that embraces everything from UFO sightings to mass hypnosis. Conspiracy theorists and cranks get as many column inches in the press as respected scientists, if not more so. There is so much out there that the sheer mass of information and misinformation muddies the waters and makes our job infinitely more difficult. It’s all about sorting the wheat from the chaff. And that situation is largely the fault of people like Alvar Liscombe. In the world he, and others like him, created, even the most easily explained anomaly is given some kind of paranormal credence.”

            Crozier went on to say, “We at Department 18 tend now to operate beneath the public radar. Although we are a part of the Civil Service, and accountable to the usual government committees and ministries, we work in the same kind of netherworld that MI’s 5 and 6 inhabit. At the end of the day, whether they are aware of us or not, I like to think that we work in the public’s best interests, and that has to be our primary concern.”

copyright M Impey 2008