David Clarke

Early Career

David Clarke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom. He holds a PhD in Folklore from the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield, completed in 1999. Before his academic career, Clarke worked as a journalist for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post, two major regional UK newspapers, and spent four years as a Press Officer in local government. His training in both journalism and folklore studies positioned him uniquely to investigate UFO cases with both skeptical rigor and cultural sensitivity.

Government UFO Files Project

From 2008 to 2013, Clarke served as consultant and curator for the Ministry of Defence UFO files project with The National Archives, overseeing the public release and organization of decades of British government UFO documentation. During this period, he interviewed more than 25 retired and serving RAF and Fleet Air Arm aircrew members about their encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena, conducting one of the most comprehensive oral history projects in UK UFO research. This work gave Clarke insider access to classified files and eyewitness testimonies that informed his subsequent research and publications.

The Calvine Photograph Investigation

Clarke's most significant contribution to UFO research came through his relentless investigation of the Calvine UFO photograph, a case he pursued for 13 years. The photograph, taken in 1990 by two Scottish hikers near Calvine in Perthshire, depicted a diamond-shaped object in the sky with a military jet nearby. The image was seized by the Royal Air Force and disappeared into government archives, becoming one of UFO research's most sought-after lost images. Through meticulous detective work and persistence, Clarke discovered that a former RAF press officer named Craig Lindsay had retained a copy of the original print. This breakthrough led to the recovery of an original photographic negative, which Clarke published in The Daily Mail on 13 August 2022—the first time the public had access to the elusive image in over three decades. The photograph has since been described by UFO researchers as potentially the best authenticated UFO photograph ever taken.

Academic Scholarship and Public Engagement

Clarke is one of the UK's leading authorities on contemporary legend and folklore, with a scholarly focus on how modern myths—including UFO narratives—develop and spread through society. He is the author of How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth (2015), which examines UFO phenomena not merely as unexplained aerial events but as cultural narratives shaped by media, belief systems, and collective psychology. He also authored The Angel of Mons (2004) and has a forthcoming work, Space Age Folklore (2027). In 2024, Clarke and researcher Andrew Robinson presented their "In The Eye of the Beholder" project, a three-year research initiative exploring the visual representation of UFOs in eyewitness drawings, photography, film, and popular culture. Clarke co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend research group at Sheffield Hallam University in 2018 and currently leads the AHRC-funded National Folklore Survey for England, positioning him as a bridge between traditional folklore studies and modern UFO research.