Jenny Randles

The British Ufologist and author who is more interested in the unexplained 5% of the reported UFO cases

Name	Jenny Randles
Age	74
Born	October 30, 1951
Famous for	Being BUFORA’s Director of Investigations

UFO investigators care about the truth. It would have been very easy to allow the “unexplained” label to stick with these daylight pictures. But that would have been defeatist.

UFO research is about the quest for answers. Serious investigators know that in all but a tiny minority of cases, a mundane solution does exist.

Jenny Randles can be said to be a grounded UFO investigator, for she only believes wherever the evidence leads her. She utilizes science-based research in all her work, even if it yields a mundane result, because she wants to help Ufology gain greater academic and public credibility. 

Let’s get to know her, shall we?

Who Is Jenny Randles, and What Has She Done?

The general public knows little of Jenny Randles’s personal life. Her career, on the other hand, is extensive and accessible everywhere.

She used to teach at a school in Cheshire (1972–1974), but eventually quit due to her deepening involvement in Ufology.

Since then, she has worked for prominent organizations, including:

• British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) since 1973, and had served as the Director of Investigations (1981–1993)
• Northern UFO Network (NUFON) in 1973, and had become the editor for its publication, Northern UFO News, in 1974
• Flying Saucer Review in 1977 as one of its columnists
• UFO Investigators’ Network (UFOIN) in the late 1970s as secretary
• Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) as the British consultant for its publication, International UFO Reporter

She has also given lectures to fellow ufologists and people in authority, given interviews to the media, and answered questions from the general public worldwide.

What Made Jenny Randles Interested in Ufology?

Jenny Randles grew up in Bacup, one of the towns in Rossendale Valley, Lancashire. And living there means proximity to the Pennine Hills, aka “UFO Alley,” where a number of alleged UFO sightings and abductions occur.

With such rich activity, it’s no wonder she picked up an interest in the unknown and the unexplained.

She also shared that she had her first UFO sighting when she was a child and had seen 15 UFOs since then. Thirteen of those have been “positively identified to her satisfaction.”

What Are Jenny Randles’s Thoughts on UFOs?

To Jenny Randle, UFOs mean objects that people can’t explain or identify. They’re not necessarily alien spacecraft because, as she explains, they have no substantial proof that aliens are visiting Earth. (The keyword here is “proof.”)

Regardless, she firmly believes there’s a phenomenon at work. It needs to be taken seriously enough to figure out what it is.

So far, 95% of the UFO reports they received at BUFORA are identified as normal objects, such as airplanes or weather balloons, and some are even fake UFO photographs. It’s the 5% that remains unsolved that needs further investigation. 

She suggests that the answers for this 5% might be possible in the future, for instance, possibly an effect of a new type of natural phenomenon that scientists have yet to discover.

So our world is only as we understand it. But that does not mean there is not a bigger, different world. We have five senses which limit us. Who is to say, beyond our limited understanding, there are not beings near us, with at least one other sense, and x-factor which puts them totally beyond our recognition or understanding.

We must not be so arrogant as to assume our knowledge is total. We must get away from the limitations imposed by what we know and understand.

What If There Really Are True UFOs?

If UFOs are proven to be extraterrestrial, Randles says it’s either that these objects are:

• Spacecraft from another planet
• Carrying time-travellers from the future who are visiting the 20th century for unknown reasons
• Carrying beings who are the dominant life forms of Earth

How Does Jenny Randles Investigate the UFO Phenomenon?

Jenny Randles was once asked on Good Morning TV in 1996 about their investigative approach to UFOs. She replied:

We work on the premise that there’s probably going to be an explanation, and we have to try and find it. So, it’s very much like being a detective, sifting the clues, trying to find the answer, which can take many years.

As BUFORA’s now-former Director of Investigations, she needs to take each UFO report objectively using the scientific method. She analyzes each piece of information the organization receives—eyewitness accounts, sighting locations, and photographic and/or film evidence—until she gets to the bottom of the facts. 

I do not believe or disbelieve. I listen to the evidence, wonder what it means, and go try to figure it out. If that answer is a mundane one, then I consider this result to be a success, not a disappointment.

But whilst much of the supernatural is open to prosaic explanation, I do believe that there are some surprises waiting to be uncovered, possibly even ones that will revolutionize the planet.

What UFO Cases Has Jenny Randles Investigated?

My job as coordinator of investigations for BUFORA is simply to respond to anything that looks worthwhile responding to and trying to ensure that some sort of adequate investigation is carried out, and hopefully, within our limitations.

Jenny Randles has handled several UFO cases in her time with BUFORA. In some, she was an active participant; in others, she was doing cold case reviews. 

We’re presenting three of those cases here, each showing a different degree of her involvement.

Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident

Randles was one of the first to investigate the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident.

She then presented BOFURA’s findings for the first time in public during the organization’s series of lectures in London. Most of her lecture drew on the field research Brenda Butler and Dot Street had done on the case. But even though she couldn’t be on site with them, Randles did her part by pursuing “the government angle,” searching for some clues from the Ministry of Defence.

June 7, 1986 UFO Case at Cambridge Airport

Randles shared the story of this case at The UFO World ‘87, and this is what happened:

On June 7, 1986, a former RAF pilot, aged 46, was preparing to land the RAF Chipmunk aircraft he was piloting when he saw an object with a “bright point of light” 1,500 feet above Cambridge Airport. 

Just as he began to approach it, it moved away from him at such an unimaginable speed that watching it made him disoriented. He lost sight of it over the Gog Magog Hills.

He immediately reported this object upon landing. 

Upon her investigation, she found no one else had seen what the ex-RAF pilot saw. Further questioning also eliminated the possibility that it was a reflection of an internal canopy.

In the end, she couldn’t find an obvious explanation for this unidentified object other than being “a real object.”

“Fire in the Sky” UFO Case

Randles redressed the investigation of this case when she became BUFORA’s Director of Investigations because the witness, Peter Day, felt “UFO investigators were letting him down in not making more effort to explore this evidence.”

The evidence in question was the 23-second film he captured on his movie camera of an “orange ball of light” on January 11, 1973 before it completely vanished on the spot. This film reel was a rare piece of evidence at the time, making this case special to many UFO groups, including BUFORA, Brinsley Le Poer Trench’s Contact UK, and Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s CUFOS.

Further investigation found that an F-111 crashed at the same time as this UFO appeared “some 24 miles north–northeast” of Day’s position. Randles and her team couldn’t conclusively determine whether the two events are related by way of an atmospheric phenomenon.

You can check out the full story of this case on the Internet Archive: Fire in the Sky.

What Has Jenny Randles Contributed to Ufology?

Jenny Randles actively shares her findings with the public, compiling them into a book. So far, she has written over 50 books on topics including UFOs, the paranormal, time travel, and the supernatural.

Here are some of her more popular UFO titles:

• UFOs: A British Viewpoint, 1979. It’s a collection of UFO cases in Britain.
• The Pennine UFO Mystery, 1983. It details the investigation conducted around the UFO wave that occurred in Pennine Hills.
• Sky Crash: A Cosmic Conspiracy, 1984. It reveals some truths about the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident that not many know about.
• The UFO Conspiracy: The First Forty Years, 1987. It studies how seriously governments take UFO cases but then deny any interest in them, and the possible conspiracy behind it all.
• UFOs and How to See Them, 1992. It serves as a guide for UFO skywatchers on what to look out for so as to not misinterpret an ordinary object as a UFO.

What Is Jenny Randles Legacy in Ufology?

Perhaps Jenny Randles’ most significant mark in Ufology is her push for more evidence-based analysis of UFO cases. Her methods alone demonstrate disciplined reporting and critical thinking, enabling her to distinguish misidentified sightings from genuine ones.

Her influence also extends beyond the UFO/UAP community. Her appearances before the media allow her to educate the public about the truth of this phenomenon.

Do you want to know more about the people who shaped today’s Ufology? Read their lives and contributions here: UFO Profiles.

FAQ

What is the “Oz Factor,” and why does Jenny Randles’s name come up whenever it’s mentioned?

That’s because Randles is the one who coined “Oz Factor,”¹⁰ after the land of Oz. It refers to the witness’s experience of being transported to an environment that’s different from the real world. 

It has five symptoms: time distortion, memory disruption, strange feelings, humming or buzzing sounds, and peculiar odors.¹¹

What is Jenny Randles’s opinion on the government’s attitude toward the UFO phenomenon?

Randles thinks the government is slowly easing the restrictions on UFO investigations,⁷ providing ample space for Ufologists to do their work and the public to understand the phenomenon. She adds that “we are being educated about the truth in a slow, gradual process.”

References