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This Ministry of Defence file, released through The National Archives and published by The Black Vault, holds the MOD's 2002 handling of Dr David Clarke's requests for UFO documents under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. It includes the MOD's 9 December 2002 reply, which covered reports from 1976, 1980, 1993 and 1996 and charged £260. It also contains internal emails and file requisitions, plus Foreign Office and United Nations papers from 1978 on Grenada's proposal for UFO research.
1264' un.• no the .. ,. ;;e of · I each with mcnt Let jmcs ·,,·ho nday :1 say boy, s, he vast intcl- s on blem ; just 't us s the orld- :nter- to it tt the lOUld 1bout atory effect quite now that )eth's r the ow a le on nder- :Jd its ology ::h we 1g in n the :st we need ::1 that 1nt to noble nswer 'have ou to flying think/' 1265 Unidentified [ 18JANUARY 1979] Flying Objects 1266 probably millions, at any rate hundreds I have been translated into many languages of thouse.nds, without exaggeration. If and I congratulate him. He has done a we are studying hagiography-and I had job of work and I hope that the debate better be careful-which is the history of initiated by the noble Earl will receive the saints, if I came off my Welsh moun- some attention. People tend to scoff, tains and came down as a little bov of 12 but it is only a few days ago that we were and said J had seen the Virgin· Mary sitting at the piano, playing and knocking springing out of a rock, some devout out-not with the brilliance of a top religious people would believe me; but if pianist-" We three kings of Orient arc". I said I had seen a flying saucer they would What did they follow? They followed a not believe me. What is the difference? star. What was that star? We have had Jt is a question that has to be asked; it is an intellectual anc:.Jysis of why after the a philosophical question that ]1as to be Crucifixion darkness spread over the asked, when intellectuality, in its pompous earth. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne- way in its Sunday newspaper articles, is who has piloted from one side ofti1e ocean dealing in print with mysteries that tothcothcr--made intellectual assumptions Shakespeare described-to misquote him: c:.bout earthquakes and eclipses. \Ve are " There is more in heaven and earth than not completely sure how to explain is thought of in man's philosophy". eclipses or earthquakes, but \VC have a kind of Kepler mathematics that times things rather nicely. It is not quite enough to explain the earthquakes. It does not mean that the mystery of the UFOs is something that can be brushed aside, and it is an anthropological arro- gance to so say. So this deserves not being pushed aside. Mark you, my Lords, I was told today outside those doors that an ambassador of 8 ft. 6 ins. with green feet and webbed feet as well had asked whether he could park his flying saucer in our car park, according to some of the telephones that have been ringing here today, because some people have treated the whole matter as a joke. I would, therefore, suggest to them that they read H. G. Wells' Final Efsay. They can read it in half an hour. It is slim, it is cogent, it is succinct. He says the human mind is at the end of its tether. There is a queerness in the cosmclogy of the world in which we are now living. Was Wells right? We certainly see mai1- kind acting queer when petrol is short. He is snarling and worse than any being from outer space. The anthropological arrogance of 20th century man in his tinpot motor-cars riding through the streets of the lovely spaceship we call the world is hartbreaking. He has learnt nothing from his two wars; and if we had another, God help mankind, in view of the way that he has shown his greed, selfish- ness and tendency to panic as never before since the days of the Crusades. The greatest delusion in the history of man was the delusion of the Crusades·. But men went on them after the days of Peter the Hermit with a fiery and fierce belief in what they were doing. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, is an expert who has been written about. In fact, he dropped everything else to write about this matter. His seven books 1 Good heavens, I have been speaking for nine minutes! My Lords, do not \Vorry, I shall be about another five. The House has heard a number of laudable· people quoted. Ordinary little people h::tve sometimes been laughed nt, especially those concerned in the famous sighting at Pascagoula in Mississippi when one little fellow fainted when he saw a chap with one leg jumping towards him with a wizened and wrinkled face, with pointed eats, crab claws for hands, slits for eyes and holes beneath his nostril3--they would not be nostrils wilhout holes, at least l should hope so! We shall not develop fantastic descriptions like that. 'Ne shall not go into those realms. But we must say that there are many people who have said that they have experienced these phenomena. I agree that the New Zealand incident has reawakened man's interest and as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said, they were not clear pictures. However, I attended a scientific lecture in this noble building not so long ago, giYen by some- one who believed faithfully in the Loch Ness monster. He showed us masses of films. He was a scientist and he swore that the Loch Ness monster existed. There is just as much case for the existence of flying saucers. We know that they exist. All we are saying is that they are !,,1. I· i !- F
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