Producers of the popular sci-fi series, The X-Files, are guaranteed an entire season's episodes from this Delhi University teacher, who claims that UFOs are responsible for some of the events we have witnessed in this century.

From the mid-air collision at Chakri Dadri to the earthquake that rocked Latur, Trikha believes that these were caused by nuclear explosions and ``mysterious planes'' which were either ``of extraterrestrial origin or were a part of a scheme by some developed country to test new technologies.''

More recently, Trikha claims that the twisted television antenna and busted electricity sockets in Dr Sanjeev Gupta's Shahdra residence are the work of a UFO. On July 10, Renu Gupta woke up to a drizzle in the area. As she got ready to go to theschool where she teaches, she heard a loud bang.

``My first reaction was that a transformer has burst,'' she says. ``The lights in the house went off and the fuses blew. After my husband worked on the fuses, electricity came back in only a few rooms.''

Later in the day, during the daily neighbourhood gossip session, someone mentioned that a couple of television sets in the area were not functioning and that a part of the roof of Renu's house had broken. ``We assumed that lightning had struck our house,'' says Dr Gupta.

At this juncture enters Trikha, with his radiation meter, which he says was given to him by one of the pioneers of the Indian space programme, Dr Vikram Sarabhai. He took a couple of readings and declared that the damage was not the work of lightning, but of a UFO. ``Lightning would have burnt the place down and injured the people living in the house. On the other hand, the damage is more in keeping with a UFO that flew a little too low and its exhaust fumes resulted in the powerbreakdown,'' Trikha says, before leaning back with a smug smile.

This is not the first case that he claims he has ``investigated''; he attributes several incidents in the past decade to UFOs. ``The tornado that swept through Delhi University in March 1978 was in fact a UFO,'' Trikha says. ``In fact, till then I was not keen on the issue. When a professor friend of mine and his wife claimed that they saw a UFO in the area where there was most destroyed, I was intrigued and decided to check.''

There is a lot of technical jargon involved in the explanation that follows. The condensed version states: ``There was increased radioactivity along the line of maximum destruction. At the Khalsa college, Mall road crossing, there was a lot of damage. Also, the AIR transmission towers in the area were badly twisted. Tests, even a year later, indicated the same levels of radioactivity.''

Apparently there is nobody who buys Trikha's theories. ``It seems to be an obsession with him,'' says professor D P Goyal, head ofthe Physics and Astro-Physics department, where Trikha has taught for over 30 years now. ``There is no concrete evidence and the thing has not been verified by anyone else.''

Trikha says that he has asked people to crosscheck the findings but there seem to be no takers. Perhaps not too many people in the city agree with X-File Agent Mulder's belief that ``the truth is out there''.