Flying Saucer Review March 1983 [antikvár]

THE BBC TELEVISION INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET THE LORD HILL-NORTON, FORMER FIRST SEA-LORD AND FORMER CHIEF OF THE BRITISH DEFENCE STAFFTimothy GoodReaders of FSR who were unable to see the BBC TV 'Out of Court' programme, transmitted on 10th March 1982 (1), which included an item on the legal aspects of the cover-up of UFOs by the British Government, may be interested in a résumé.The Earl of Clancarty, Chairman of the House of Lords All Party UFO Study Group, began by referring to his 'starred' question on the subject, which took place in the Lords on 4 March 1982 (after his interview was recorded). There followed a brief interview with the Earl of Kimberley, an active member of the Lords Group, who alluded to the statistical probability of life in our galaxy, stating his conviction that the withholding of information on the subject by the Government was likely to be more harmful than the release thereofDocuments shownAs an independent researcher assisting the UFO Study Group, I was interviewed, and showed two hitherto classified documents obtained from the U.S. under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, supplied to me by the Scientific Bureau of Investigation Inc (2). The first item I showed was the now famous FBI memorandum, in which former DirectorJ. Edgar Hoover referred to the fact that the U.S. Army had retrieved a crashed disc in 1947, and had denied the FBI access to it (3).The second item I showed was a little-known cablegram from former U.S. Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, to the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, referring to a report of a 'fallen space object' in May 1978. Although the object referred to may only have been part of a satellite or rocket, the cable stated: " No direct correlation with known space objects that may have entered the earth's atmosphere near May 6 can be made " I stressed the fact that copies of this cablegram had been sent to the National Security Council (NSC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Depart-ment of Defense (DOD), National Security Agency (NSA), as well as NASA, and that this was a clear indication of the seriousness with which the subject is treated at top level.Lord Hill-NortonThe most significant interview on the BBC programme was with ex-Admiral of the Fleet and former Chief of the Defence Staff, the Lord Hill-Norton, an outspoken member of the House of Lords UFO Study Group. I reproduce the interview verbatim. The interviewer was Sarah Caplin:CAPLIN: As a former Chief of Defence Stafi', wouldn't you have known if there was information available which hadn't been released to the public? HILL-NORTON: Well, let mc put it like this: I think I ought to have known, but I certainly didn't, and, had I known, I would not of course be allowed on an interview like this to say so. So that in itself seems to me significant. What I do believe is that information has come to the Ministry of Defence probably over a period of 20 years or even longer which is not available to the public, and was not available to me while 1 was in office. Information has been released in the United States under the Freedom of Information Act which we don't have which gives credence to the fact that there has been an elaborate investigation there, and also in France. What we want to do is to get our own Government to tell us the results of an investigation which simply must have happened here too.CAPLIN: What do you think is the best way that you can obtain the information you want? HILL-NORTON: I suspect the best way is to pursue the American line where a lot of information is now having to be released by law, and, with the aid of that sort of information from other countries, we must be able to say to our Government: 'Surely you have a similar set-up? Please tell us what it's all about'