From Source:
[link to www.examiner.com]
"At a conference in the Washington DC metropolitian area, famed crop circle researcher Colin Andrews revealed that the UK government has covered up the extent of official and Royal family interest in the crop circle phenomenon. There were also efforts to suppress any investigation into a connection between UFOs and crop circles. Finally, Andrews revealed how the 1987 crash of a British Harrier jet was caused by it passing through an unknown energy field created by crop circles. While the British government has released various files concerning its investigations of the UFO phenomenon, it has not released files showing the extensive investigations it has conducted on the crop circle phenomenon.

Andrews was presenting at the 2009 X-Conference which has brought together over 30 researchers and activists interested in the policy implications of UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Presenting on the first day of the conference, Andrews said he was replying to a number of mistaken claims in an article by a former British Ministry of Defense employee, Nick Pope, who previously ran the UFO desk from 1991 to 1994. Pope said:

While there certainly has been interest and involvement over the years, this has often been misinterpreted, perhaps deliberately or perhaps not. As individuals, military and MOD personnel can be as intrigued by crop circles as anybody else, but where such interest has been expressed it has been mistakenly interpreted as implying greater corporate involvement than is actually the case.

In contrast, Andrews showed official documents dating from the first crop circles that appeared in England in 1985 to prove the government interest in crop circles has been sustained and comprehensive. He showed how they were initially related to the UFO phenomenon in official government documentation. Though UK government authorities and police denied any official interest in crop circles, he showed photos and documents that clearly displayed a sustained interest. As a former local government employee (1974-1990), Andrews shared insights into how he was able to see at first hand the level of official investigation by different government agencies into crop circles.

Andrews also showed correspondence confirming that members of the British Royal family were also greatly interested in crop circles. He showed communications where individuals were instructed to cover up Royal interest. This was admitted in Pope’s article where he admitted his past role in denying such a connection: “ I also had to deny allegations that The Queen and Margaret Thatcher had expressed interest in the phenomenon and that various high-level meetings were taking place to consider the subject."

Andrews showed photos of a UFO ‘orb’ in the vicinity of a crop circle that was monitored by two military helicopters. Andrews revealed how the helicopters tried to intimidate crop circle researchers to leave the vicinity and stop filming what was happening. The relationship between the UFO and recently created crop circle was obvious to researchers but this was downplayed by the British government. Andrews also revealed how “several times during the course of my research I was actually warned not to link UFO’s with crop circles. “I was warned by prominent members of the British UFO Research Association (B.U.F.O.R. A.) not to mention the two together in media interviews.” A CIA contact also warned him not to associate UFOs and crop circles.

Andrews most startling claim was that a British Harrier jet that passed over a crop circle on October 22, 1987, left the scene without its pilot and later crashed 300 miles into the Atlantic ocean. The plane, according to Andrews, had passed over the crop circle’s energy field and this was the primary factor in triggering the ejection mechanism of the plane. Essentially, the pilot ejected through the canopy which caused his death and his body was found near crop circles.

Andrews' presentation helps dispel the notion that British government interest in crop circles has been minimal and only involved a few curious pilots. In contrast, the crop circle phenomenon has been secretly investigated at the highest levels of the British government in a systematic fashion. In addition to various government spokespersons downplaying the level of official interest, the connection to the UFO phenomenon has also been deliberately downplayed. Andrews emphasized the ommission of crop circle files in recent government releases of UFO information.

Today in another presentation at the X-Conference, Nick Pope will have the opportunity to respond when he discusses recent British UFO files release. A former US Air Force pilot, Milton Torres, will accompany Pope and discuss his involvement in a shoot to kill order by military authorities against an aircraft carrier sized UFO in 1957."