MOD file DEFE 24/2032/1

1279 Unidentified [LORDS] Flying Obj,•cts 1280
[Lord Gladwyn.}
done no harm of any kind. Apparently
they have done no harm for the last two
or three thousand years. So there seems
to be no great need to set up intra-
governmental machinery to investigate
the whole phenomena. The mystery may
suitably remain a mystery, and so far as
I can see nobody wiU be in any way the
worse off if it does.
8.50 p.m.
Lord KlNGS NORTON: My Lords,
I should like to add my thanks to those
which the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty,
has already received for opening the debate
in such an extremely interesting way. I
found my imagination boggling a little
at some of the things he told us. Never-
theless, I feel that it is of immense value
that this matter has been brought out into
the open by the debatt~ in the House, and
I hope that as a result of it there will be
some progress in the understanding of what
is an extremely serious matter. I feel
that we must be careful about our
terminclogy in discussing the UFO prob-
lem, and·I be1ieve that I shall make clear
in the course of my remarks what I mean
by that. For ex?.lllple, in the past few
days, since it was known to my friends
that I was to take part in the debate, I
have had over and over again the question:
Do you believe i!1 UFOs '! I must say
that I think that is rather a silly question,
because if I saw something i!l the sky
which neither I, nor whoever happened
to be with me, could identify-! have not,
but let us suppose that I did-then 1
should kve seen an unidentified flying
object, a UFO. I do no1 have to believe
in it. I should believe merely that I had
seen it---something that I could not
explain; and I believe that many people
are in that position.
It has been said more than once this
evenir:g that this is no new phenomenon.
I think that the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty,
dated it back to about 1300 BC. Whether
my researches have taken me further back,
I am not quite sure. However, I am sure
that your Lordships will be as familiar
as 1 am with the lOth Chapter of the
Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. He certainly
saw something very unfamilar in the
firmament, and it certainly could be call;!d
a UFO. It was very diiferent from the
modern ones. Jt appt~ars to have been 1
coal-fired, to have been stabilised by ·
gyroscopes, and crewcd by cherubim; and
it was a model which has not, so far as I
know, been developed. There have been
a good many sightings probably before
Ezekiel, and certainly there have be~n
many thousands since, and I fear that there
has grown up a belief in many minds that
if an object in the skies is unidentifiable.
it must be from outer space; and this is
quite unwarranted.
I think that it is worthwhile once again
to consider the possibilities. I know that
this has been done once or twice this
evening, but it is part of my argument. l
should say that there are possibly two
kinds of objects to be seen in the skies:
those of terrestrial origin, and those of
extra-terrestrial origin. Typical of tho
first ki~1d are man-made flying machines,
satellites and rockets, and the like.
Identifiable objects of the second kind are
meteorites and phenomena such as the
Northern Lights.
I am sure that many--and perhaps
most-of the sightings recorded ~nd
reported are terrestrial in origin: aero-
planes with navigation lights glowing at
night; satellite launching rockets burning
up on re-entry; remotely piloted vehicles,
now beginning to be called RPVs; up on
trial flights; weather balloons; trick
reflections of light. In the extra-terrestrial
class I am afraid that I cannot think of
anything other than meteorites, Northern
Lights and hall Iightninrr, but there are
probably other well known physical
phenomena within the knowledge of
astronomers and meteorologists.
I feel, however, that some of the
reports we have had-and we can for the
time being leave out Ezekiel-are not
readily explained in terms of any of the
possibilities which I have mentioned. The
New Zealand phenomena are worth much
more investigation than they have yet
had, but so far, in so far as I have been able
to understand what has been reported,
they do not appear to be explicable in
terms of any of the suggestions which I
have so far made. That seems to f!O for the
quite extraordinary \videspread '"'sightings
recently in Italy, where hundreds of people
as reasonble as you and l, my Lords, seem
to have seen quite inexpljcable things in
the sky. It would be worthwhile trying to
explain them, and if there are people v.;ho
know what they are, they ought to tell us.
The high probability in my mind is that
1281
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Earl, Lord
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"There are
Horatio",