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Carrie Chan

CLAIMS OF ALIEN abductions have yet to surface in Hong Kong, although there's no shortage of UFO sightings. Despite its hard-nosed, money-obsessed image, the city has its share of starship troopers - and it's a growing band.

Among the newest members is Ayu Ip Yan-yan, a 25-year-old computer programmer who recently launched a website, www.unknown-hk.com,  to host discussions on reports of unidentified flying objects worldwide. At the Chinese University Tung Wah College, a community school, student Don Mak Ho-ting has set up a UFO society which now  boasts 200 members. The most established group, however, is the Hong Kong UFO Club, which marks its 10th anniversary this year.

The club's co-founder and chairwoman, Moon Fong Chung-moon, says she's been fascinated by the idea of flying saucers and alien life-forms since attending a talk by a visiting Hungarian academic in the early 1990s.

'There's an energy that drives me to learn more about the subject. Even now, I still can't explain why all this happens,' she says.

An English-language teacher, Fong spent three years travelling with the Hungarian scholar to visit various supposed alien-contact sites. On her return, she set up the club with newspaper columnist Henry Chen Yun-hai (better known by his pen name Wan Hoi) to bring together fellow enthusiasts. Both help fund club activities from their own pockets.  'I even sold a flat 10 years ago just to pay for my trips to meet UFO experts around the world,' Fong says.

The Hong Kong UFO Club hosts film screenings and talks on topics such as similarities between the mind  and the solar system, intelligent aliens and the mechanics of space travel. Central to its activities is gathering news and statistics on local UFO sightings. Most have apparently been spotted heading north, presumably towards the mainland, with the latest report from two people, in Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po, who claim to have glimpsed a spherical, glowing  object speeding towards Stonecutters Island.

According to the Hong Kong  Observatory, there have been 124 claims of UFO sighting  in the past six years. 'But most are actually planes and their condensation trails,' says an observatory spokesman. 'People living in the urban jungle [make this mistake because they] seldom  watch the sky.'

The explanation is unlikely to sway enthusiasts hooked on the mythology of the space age. A survey of five Asian cities by market research firm Synovate last year found 70 per cent of Hong Kong respondents believe there may be intelligent life on other planets.

Even so, the local UFO watchers are a budding community compared to the mainland. With about 50,000 members, the China UFO Research Organisation is said to be the world's biggest network of such clubs. Such widespread interest spurred the Gansu-based bimonthly Journal of UFO Research to transform itself into a monthly publication this year. Last July, Chinese state television further fuelled interest  by broadcasting an 11-part series on UFOs, which for the first time broached domestic claims of alien abduction.

In Hong Kong, UFO Club member Prodip Leung Wai-ting has been assembling a project of his own.  Best known as a member of the now-defunct Canto-rap collective LMF, he's spent four years gathering material for his film, tentatively titled Project After Dark.

Leung's curiosity was piqued at 13 when he spotted a huge glowing object in the sky and has been intrigued by the possibility of extra-terrestrial civilisations ever since. 'When would they land on Earth? Would they have contact [with human beings]? These are questions I often ask myself,' says Leung,  a freelance graphic designer.

He decided to challenge local sceptics by making a documentary on UFO  sightings in Hong Kong, and devoted much of his spare time recording local 'witnesses' in districts from Aberdeen to Sha Tin  and compiling images of UFO sightings in places such as Repulse Bay. He has also snagged the odd interview with prominent personalities in the field such as US  physicist Stanton Friedman.

A preview clip from the production, posted on YouTube in May, has since attracted about 17,200 views, and Leung expects to release the film over Christmas.

But such efforts don't satisfy dedicated UFO buffs such as Albert So Ting-pat, an adjunct professor of building and construction at the City University. 'The club is only for the amateurs. This means it'll be taken as a form of leisure or just entertainment news,' he says.

To show that UFO research can be a serious subject, So helped set up the Hong Kong Institute of  Ufology to bring together open-minded scientists and engineers for more systematic study. 'Everything about UFOs is fascinating to me,' he says. 'For example, how do they beat gravity or what is their means of propulsion? How do they seem to suddenly take a 90-degree turn?' During the past three years, So and institute chairman Joseph Wong Chung-kai have been drafting the syllabus for a comprehensive programme on UFO studies. They envisage a four-year course, with foundational training in mathematics, biology and physics. For the final year, students could choose an area of specialisation.

Wong, a laboratory manager at City University, insists they aren't suffering from an inability to distinguish science fiction from science, nor is their study scheme just so much pie in the sky. The institute is still in the process of identifying suitable teachers but members are confident they can attract about 20 students each year, he says. 'We have to get prepared. What if the aliens arrive like [in the movie]  Independence Day?'

Fong, too,  argues that the notion of flying saucers or alien spaceships visiting Earth has gained wider acceptance in Hong Kong. Eight years ago, she couldn't secure any sponsorship for a conference she was organising on UFOs. But while the club still finds it hard to be taken seriously, 'at least we're no longer seen as a cult as [we were] in 1996', Fong says. For instance, despite the Sars outbreak in 2003, the club attracted 300 people to a talk by an Israeli UFO researcher, she says.

For the satellite television station Star, the club was a useful publicity partner when its movies channel was screening Taken, Steven Spielberg's television series on alien abduction. But Fong says more young people are showing an interest these days - half of the participants at club activities are people in their 20s.

Tso Wung-wai, a professor of biochemistry at the Chinese University, doesn't dismiss the possibility of extraterrestrial beings, but remains highly sceptical of the way groups such as the Hong Kong UFO Club spread stories of sightings.

'If UFOs have really come to Hong Kong, why don't they just land on Nathan Road and let people see them? The fans can't prove their existence,' Tso says.

'Our [means of] detection may not always function normally. The so-called UFO sightings are never consistent. A lot of these stories have been disseminated because it is good material for fiction.'

Beleaguered Hong Kong movie producers, take note.



Alien nation