MOD file DEFE 24/2032/1

1295 Unidentified [LORDS] Flying Objects 1296
[The Earl of Halsbury.]
Personally I have always believed, with
the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, in
the Lochness monster. He is not the
only person to believe in it. He was anti-
cipated by Keats and I am quite sure that,
when the poet wrote the line,
something, but of course we are precisely
saying that if they are unidentified flying
objects, we do i1ot know what they are.
So I quite agree, let us dismiss the concept
1 of flying saucer equals UFO to start v,·ith.
Let us try to take a slightly more scientific
approach.
· "Thou still unravishcd bride of quietness",
he must have had the monster in mind.
Of course he did not go into it in great
detail :. he did not tell us whether the
monster was viviparous or oviparous. It
may, of course, lay eggs, but if unravished,
then infertile, and that is perhaps why there
is only one of it. I have al\\ays thought
that just as mother, when baking bread,
leaves a little of the dough over in order
that the children may make funny little
men with raisins for tummy buttons and
put them into ovens and bake them along-
side the bread or the cake for the day, so
possibly on the day of creation a little ?f
the Divine creative power was left m
reserve :for the lesser cherubim and
seraphirri to use and they were allowed to
make funny littie objects like the Abo-
minable Snowman and the Lochness
monster, and therefore by the grace of
God since this is an orderly universe and
a home is provided for everything, so the
snows of Tibet were created for the benefit
of the Yeti and Lochness was created for
the monster.
.. Lord HEWLETf: My Lords, I join
other noble Lords in congn~tL!lating the
noble Viscount, Lord Oxfui~;d, upon his
maiden speech but I run the terrible risk
of being accused by the noble Lord, Lord
Davies of Leek, of being an anthro-
pological. arrogant specimen. I am not
quite sure what that means, afl:d I am not
quite sure that he knows what tt means.
. Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Oh!
Lord HEWLETT: All right, I am
prepared to stand by it. I am only sorry
to appear to be a veritable Daniel in a
lions' den of UFO believers and to spoil
the fun, and I have no doubt that today's
flights of--dare I say it ?-fancy will
command far more attention than our
debate yesterday upon British industry,
which scarcely made today's Press at all.
More's the pity. Of course, there is a
danger in terminology and in gross
assumptions. . Many noble Lords have
spoken as though UFOs were actually
I would not dream of speaking in this
debate had I not asked my very good
friend and neighbour in the Cheshire
vill::ge of Swettenham, Sir Bernard Lovell,
Fellow of the Royd Society and Nm1leld
Professor of Radio Astronomy, to be
good enough to brief me at Manchester
University Department of Radio Astron-
omy at Jodrell Bank, of which he is the
Director. I went there two days ago and
what I am about to say to your Lordships
is based entirely upon that round table
meeting with Sir .Bernard and the members
of his senior starr at Jodrel! Bank. Of
all the thousands of reports of sightings
that have.been made, w·henever it has been
possible to make an investigation they
have been found to be natural phenomena,
or in some instances, I regret to S.ti
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