UFO expert Nick Pope dies aged 60

Nick Pope, longtime contributor to the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens and former official in the British Ministry of Defence, has died aged 60 after a battle with cancer.

Through his well-known work on UFOs and extraterrestrial phenomena, Pope became known as the real-life Fox Mulder, the protagonist of The X-Files.

Pope was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Weiss, who took to Twitter/X to break the news to the UFO expert’s many fans. “My heart is breaking,” she wrote. “Nick died this afternoon at our home. The last few weeks of his life, even though he was suffering, he managed to do a few interviews from home. I was so lucky to have met and married Nick. He was a wonderful man. I loved him dearly.”

Back in February, Nick Pope revealed that he had been battling esophageal cancer for some time and that it had unfortunately metastasized to his liver. In an emotional Facebook post, Pope explained his circumstances.

“While I know it’s kindness and hope that lead people to suggest healers and supposed miracle cures and say things like ‘fight it’ and ‘you can beat it,’ I’m afraid that my diagnosis and my situation leave no doubt whatsoever: I can’t beat it.”

Pope went on to humbly describe his passion for his work with the UAP and echoed his wife’s statement that he continued to do it as long as he possibly could. He emphasized that he does not consider UFOs to be paranormal conspiracies, but “a fascinating scientific problem,” the investigation of which is a “defense, national security and aviation safety.”

During his 21 years at the British Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope worked on topics such as defense policy and counter-terrorism as well as UAP. However, it was the latter that catapulted him into the limelight, making him a recognizable TV character. Of course, that also led to his recurring appearances on Old foreigners, History Channel series covering all manner of extraterrestrial phenomena throughout human history.

The series joined the many voices paying tribute to Pope in the wake of his death. “He challenged us to look beyond what we know and question what might be possible,” the official writes Ancient Aliens The Facebook page reads. “He will be deeply missed.”