Do you believe in aliens? That’s the first question Roo Lewis asks me. It’s also how he’d start a chat with strangers at one of Port Talbot’s pubs, many of whom later became the subject of his new photo book, Port Talbot UFO Investigation Club.
For the record I do believe in aliens, as do a lot of people in the small South Wales industrial town, known as a UFO sighting hot spot. In one case, a local confirmed his belief by sharing the time he missed work because he was abducted by an alien. Another told him that George Lucas based 1970s hit Star Wars around Port Talbot, its extraterrestrial aura and their steelworks (which were built in the 1990s, mind).
That’s besides the point. Lewis isn’t really interested in whether UFOs and aliens are real, but why some of us look up in search of something more. "I always liked the UFOs in that metaphysical way," explains the North London photographer, whose previous work has ranged from documenting Druids in the West Country to Hollywood Jesus. "I think we project our own values about what the universe really is on UFOs. You know, is it God? Is it someone coming to save us? Is someone coming to destroy us? Are they better or worse than us? It’s a kind of a faith, isn’t it? Because you can’t prove or disprove it."
Why does this town produce so many icons, and then why do aliens visit?
He first heard about the town via his Welsh grandad, who grew up down the road. However it wasn’t Port Talbot’s strange alien connection that first piqued his interest but its equally strange ability to birth legends. Michael Sheen, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton all hail from the small industrial town, which led him to wonder: "Why does this town produce so many icons, and then why do aliens visit?"
It wasn’t until a chance stay while photographing the Elvis Festival in nearby Porthcawl that his fascination took hold. "You’ve got this sea shimmering with the blue plankton and this sky basically on fire from the blast furnaces, and everyone’s just walking around like it’s normal. I was like, “This place is batshit mad.”’ It’s one of the UK’s most polluted towns, with the M4 cutting through it. Yet there remains an uncanny beauty of a motorway, a steelworks, dunes and rolling countryside all in one backdrop.
"There’s a real strength to the people," he adds. "Someone said to me: maybe it’s me that’s the alien. I hadn’t thought about that, this foreign eye looking at something that’s quite normal to everyone else. Because you’d talk to these people and they’d be proud of their town, but wouldn’t see what I meant."
Over two years he collected stories and photographed the town and its inhabitants to communicate what he was seeing, both to the Port Talbot residents and to the outside world. But it was someone who refused to be shot who left the biggest mark.
"I met this one UFO spotter. He didn’t want to be photographed, but he did agree to meet me," Lewis explains. "And he said, 'Look, man, why do you do this? What are you looking for in the sky? You know, what’s driving you to do this?' And he’s like, 'Ah, maybe I’m just lonely. Maybe that’s all I’m qualified to be.'"
Port Talbot UFO Investigation Club, by Roo Lewis, £40, at gostbooks.com
