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Strange things happen to people in Hull. Phillip Larkin became a sort of librarian sex symbol. People regularly laugh at John Godber comedies there. It's a curious sort of place.
Indeed, even just last week a man threatened to end it all by jumping off a statue of Queen Victoria in Hull city centre – never a statuesque monarch at the best of times, and hardly lofty enough to inflict anything more than a twisted ankle in event of leaping from her shoulders.
But there have been few Hull experiences quite as strange as the one that Richard Lawrence went through as a student at the city's university in the 1970s.
One night he looked up to the Humberside skies and saw a cigar-shaped object floating off in the direction of Goole.
For Richard, this was a life-changing moment. These days he makes his living as a bestselling author and self-dubbed "well-respected UFO expert". Tomorrow, he touches down in Bristol, and will be appearing at Waterstone's to lead a special debate about UFO activity over the city. The event coincides with the publication of his new book UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Message.
"I'll be talking to the people of Bristol about my beliefs, and my personal UFO experiences," he says. "But more than anything I want to hear about the experiences of Bristolians, to hear and debate unexplained sightings they may have had here.
"From the moment I saw that cigar-shaped object in the sky over Hull, I knew that this was what I wanted to spend my life studying. At that point I was already developing an interest in UFOs, but seeing one with my own eyes confirmed their existence to me beyond doubt.
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