Flying Saucer Review December 1983 [antikvár]

ested in the UFO Problem. What it does prove is that the British public ARE deeply interested in the facts whenever someone manages to get those facts to them. There is, however, a carefully designed system in operation which is normally effective in preventing the facts from reaching them.One of our long-standing readers has recently written to us to say that FSR has no lack of critics and enemies, and that their favourite parrot-cry is "Paranoia!".We wouldn't know much about the Parrot Brigade, but what we DO know is that FSR has a tremendous lot of friends and supporters scattered throughout the world. This moment might, therefore, be thought a fitting one for us to commence re-publication of three or four of our own editorials or significant articles, starting from the earliest days of FSR, when ex-IlAF pilot Derek Dempster was our first Editor, and leading on to a note written very recently to the present Editor of FSR by Admiral of The Fleet The Lord Hill-Norton, formerly Britain's First Sea Lord and formerly Chief of the British Defence Staff. (We gave details of an extremely important statement by him in a recent number, FSR Vol. 28, No. 4.)The re-issue of some of these early articles and edi-torials from our archives will admittedly delay slightly the publication of the massive accumulation of exciting current material which is already in our pipeline. But we have a new generation of FSR readers today, few, if any, of whom will be likely to know what was happening in Ufology in 1955 and 1956, and what FSR was reporting in those days, and they will surely be glad to read our reprints.One thing, at any rate, is certain, and that is that the famous "paranoia"v/iW be found to go back a long, long way, to the days when the present Editor (although already a contributor to FSR since Vol. 1, No. 2) could scarcely be accused of exercising any influence over the editorial policies of FSR, of whose Board he was not a member. And it now seems that we can take comfort from the fact that our grave mental illness, our thesis that there is a massive Cover-Up, is evidently shared by the Editor of one British newspaper which sells somewhat more than four million copies per Sunday and is probably seen by two or even three times that number of readers.It looks as though FSR's most heinous offence is that, as these old editorials and articles will show, we have been on the right track throughout the nearly thirty years of our existence!FROM THE FSR ARCHIVESEditorial by Derek Dempster1FSR. VOL. I NO. 2MAY-JUNE 1955Government statements on Flying Saucers have always been confusing, and the general consensus of opinion has been that officialdom was just as anxious to know the answer to the riddle as anyone else.But last month something happened to give rise to the belief that Whitehall did in fact have the U.F.O. answer.The Air Ministry announced that the results of a five-year probe into Flying Saucers by the Royal Air Force had been submitted to high-ranking officers but that it was never to be revealed to the public for security reasons. *To the question: "Do Flying Saucers exist?" the answer is understood to be NO. No definite denial there. Just an implied denial.Following the announcement. Major Patrick Wall (Conservative, Haltemprice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Mr George Ward, whether the Air Ministry inquiry had been completed and whether he proposed to publish a report.Mr Ward's answer was not really an answer and contradicted his own department.He said: "Reports of Flying Saucers, as well as other abnormal objects in the sky, are investigated as theycome in, but there has been no formal inquiry."About 90 per cent of the reports have been found to relate to meteors, balloons, flares and many other objects. The fact that the other ten per cent are unexplained need be attributed to nothing more sinister than lack of data."So once again the Government have issued confusing statements on the subject. Furthermore, they have stated that 10 per cent of the sightings cannot be accounted for by conventional explanations; yet, until Mr Ward's statement the unexplained sightings amounted to only five per centThis still begs the question, and the Government should be asked who selects the 100 per cent and on what basis. With regard to the 10 per cent, there are plenty of people in this country who could supply the Government with the data which they say is not available.Consider for a moment the R.A.F. pilots who have reported seeing strange objects in the sky; and there are many of them.If they are lying, they obviously lack integrity and should be dismissed the Service. If they are suffering