When Reg Presley died on Feb. 4 from cancer at 71, stories lightly touched upon a side of his life that was separate from his role as the lead singer of the '60s rock group The Troggs.
Presley, best known for the garage band classic "Wild Thing," was obsessed with UFOs, extraterrestrials and crop circles -- those often-mysterious patterns that turn up unexpectedly in farmers' fields, most notably in the U.K. 
Presley and The Troggs continued to tour all the way into 2010, when Presley suffered a serious stroke, resulting in his retirement from the music business.
Even while The Troggs were touring, Presley's interest in UFOs and crop circles led to his hosting a local cable TV show in the U.K. called "The Reg Presley UFO Show," and he later published a book, "Wild Things They Don't Tell Us," in 2002.
In the mid-1990s, Presley began devoting "huge amounts of time and resources to personal investigations of what he felt were neglected areas of science -- notably alien spacecraft, lost civilizations and alchemy," reports The Telegraph.
According to The Telegraph, in 2006, Presley talked about how he'd respond if aliens landed and invited him into their ship.
"I hope I would have the bottle to go. Because I'd like to ask them a lot of bloody questions. And they've probably got all the answers," he said. "These beings may be 20 million years in advance of us. What kind of technology must they have? You could come back to Earth and not know a soul on the planet. But perhaps you would have seen something that would save the whole human race. And maybe some people have done that."
Watch this 1993 excerpt of "The Reg Presley UFO Show" which includes a video of a UFO he shot in 1992:
In his book, "Wild Things They Don't Tell Us," Presley recounted his personal quest -- through meetings with crop circle and UFO investigators, eyewitnesses, military personnel, scientists and astronauts, who opened his eyes to ideas he wanted to share with the world.
"As yet, the study of crop formations and UFOlogy is not a science. Therefore, although some scientists may be looking into these phenomena, they cannot be seen to be doing so by their fraternity," Presley wrote. "Behind the scenes, work is being carried out and some questions are being answered. We may still have a long way to go.
"I do not believe anyone can spend 12 years, as I have, studying crop formations and the UFO phenomenon, without forming strong opinions on the whole subject, although the trial -- as it were -- is still ongoing, and the evidence still coming in."
The world will remember Presley "whose raunchy, suggestive voice powered the paean to teenage lust ['Wild Thing']," reports the Los Angeles Times.
But the world of UFOlogy will recognize Presley as one who pursued the truth of the unexplained and who spoke out against what he perceived as government conspiracy about possible alien visits to Earth.
"One conclusion I have come to is that if you wish to know all that is going on around you on this planet, you are the only one that can get to the truth. You as an individual have much work to do. You have many books to read, many lectures to visit, and should have a truly open mind to begin with," Presley wrote in his book.
"You will have to listen to much misinformation, but be able to siphon off small pieces of good information that will, from time to time, be hidden there within it. There will be people paid by governments and private individuals that will come forward as though to help, but with other motives. There will also be glory seekers, in it for 15 minutes of fame. Government bodies will try to keep us from the truth. Our only chance of winning that truth is for the believers to become the majority."
Check out more Rock & Rollers and UFOs:
