AN AUDIENCE WITH NICK POPE
	Nick Pope, aka 'The Real Fox Mulder', investigates UFOs for the British government. Matthew Jones tracks him down and learns some interesting facts about alien visitations... HOW MANY times have you dreamt of being Fox Mulder? How many times have you wished that you could give up your boring day job or college course and investigate cases of reported alien abductions and UFO sightings? Well, in Great Britain one man has the envious job of investigating all manner of extreme possibilities for the British Government's Ministry of Defense. That man is Nick Pope, dubbed by both his colleagues and the national press as the real Fox Mulder. So just how did he come to have the best job in the whole world? "Like some of the best things in life it just happened by accident," he tells Xposé. "I fell into the area by the laws of chance. I'm a career civil servant. I've been in the Ministry of Defense since 1985. I've done a series of different tours of duty - they move you around every few years to give you bits of experience. During the Gulf War I worked in a place called the Joint Operations Center and worked directly for a chap who had a forthcoming vacancy which was the so-called UFO job. And it was almost as simple as him turning to me at one point and saying, 'So do you want to spend the next three years of your life investigating UFOs for the Government?' and me saying, 'Yes, that sounds quite interesting'." Interesting is perhaps an understatement. Nick Pope has come to be considered as one of Britain's top UFO researchers. His controversial first book, Open Skies, Closed Minds was an instant bestseller, remaining on the prestigious Sunday Times Top Ten hardback non-fiction list for 10 weeks. His second book, The Uninvited, an exposé of the alien abduction phenomenon, has just hit the shelves. He has since completed his 'tour of duty' in the UFO job, but continues his investigations in a private capacity.