'Fighter Command' - How The British Government Became Involved

Cited from my copy of Need to Know by Timothy Good

The fact that they can hover and accelerate away from the Earth’s gravity again and even revolve around a V-2 in America (as reported by their head scientist) shows they are far ahead of us. If they really come over in a big way that might settle the capitalist-communist war. If the human race wishes to survive they may have to band together.

Thus, in 1950, wrote Admiral of the Fleet Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, during the Second World War, and later Chief of the Defence Staff.1 Mountbatten showed a keen interest in the subject, having had a sighting in the Pacific during the war, and as I learned from the Air Marshall Sir Peter Horsely. Moreover, as reported in Above Top Secret, an unknown flying machine complete with occupant is said to have landed at his estate near Romsey in Hampshire in February 1955, witnessed by one of his workmen. After investigating the landing site and interrogating the witness, Mountbatten wrote in a signed statement that the workman ‘did not give me the impression of being the sort of man who would be subject to hallucinations, or would in any way invent such a story.’2

Mountbatten is also believed to have disclosed some fascinating information to the respected American journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. ‘I can report today on a story which is positively spooky, not to mention chilling,’ she cabled from London in May 1955. ‘British scientists and airmen, after examining the wreckage of one mysterious flying ship, are convinced these strange aerial objects are not optical illusions or Soviet inventions, but are flying saucers which originate on another planet’. Her syndicated report continues:

The source of my information is a British official of Cabinet rank who prefers to remain anonymous. ‘We believe, on the basis of our inquiry thus far, that the saucers were staffed by small men – probably less than four feet tall. It’s frightening, but there is no denying the flying saucers come from another planet’.

This official quoted scientists as saying a flying ship of this type could not possibly have been constructed on Earth. The British Government, I learned, is withholding an official report on the ‘flying saucer’ examination at this time, possibly because it does not wish to frighten the public…’3

The Flying Saucer Working Party

In June 1950 a report on what was described as ‘Britain’s first flying saucer’ appeared in national newspapers. During an exercise from the Royal Air Force (RAF) station at Tangmere, Sussex, the pilot of a Gloster Meteor twin-jet fighter had reported an encounter with a ‘shining, revolving disc-like’ object that shot past the jet at high altitude. Intelligence offers debriefed the pilot and a report was sent to Fighter Command.4

One paper asserted that the disc had been tracked on radar, but an Air Ministry spokesman said this could not be confirmed, adding that there was no evidence that was seen ‘was anything more than natural or meteorological phenomena.’ The paper claimed that a ‘curtain of secrecy’ had been drawn over the subject.5

Continued below..

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

That summer, 1950, a top-secret meeting was held at the Air Ministry’s Metropole Building in London to discuss the ‘flying saucers’. Chaired by the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Hugh Young, attendees included representatives of M110 (a military intelligence branch which had been involved in the ‘ghost rocket’ investigations four years earlier) and various scientific and technical intelligent specialists, such as Wing Commander Myles Formby. The chairman explained that Sir Henry Tizard, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence, ‘felt that reports of flying saucers should not be dismissed without some investigation’ and he had agreed that a small Directorate of Scientific Intelligence/Joint Technical Intelligence Committee ‘working party’ should be set up to investigate future reports. It was agreed that the membership of the working party should compromise of representatives of various technical and scientific intelligence branches of the Air Ministry, the Admiralty (Royal Navy) and the War Office.

RAF Fighter Command was advised that all future reports of aerial phenomena were to be directed to the Flying Saucer Working Party (FSWP). 6 Over an eight-month period, the FSWP studied numerous reports and liaised with its counterparts in the US and other countries. The US Air Forces’ Project Grudge team, as well as the CIA, were consulted.7 Grudge’s negative conclusions undoubtedly contributed to the scepticism evinced by some FSWP members: the astronomer Dr J. Allen Hynek, a consultant to the CIA and the US Air Force, had concluded that 70 per cent of sightings could be explained, the remainder either lack sufficient evidence ‘or the evidence offered suggested no explanation, though some of these might conceivably be astronomical’.8



In my opinion, the FSWP team would not have been granted access to the US Government’s most sensitive secrets relating to the subject. Air Marshall Sir Peter Horsely, who had been given carte blanche to study any UFO reports and interview pilots when serving as equerry to HRH Prince Philip and HM the Queen in the 1950’s, learned from Air Marshall Sir Thomas Pike, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Fighter Command, that the Americans were ‘extremely sensitive’ about the subject. Sir Peter was also informed by Group Captain Bird-Wilson of the British Defence Staff in Washington that the American authorities were not prepared to ‘give information about any conclusions which they might have reached’.9


1: Ziegler, Philip, Mountbatten: The Official Biography
2: Good, Timothy, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover Up
3: Los Angeles Examiner
4: Daily Herald, London
5: Daily Mail
6. The National Archives - DEFE 41/74
7: Clarke, David and Roberts, Andy, Out of the Shadows
8: Unidentified Flying Objects, Directorate of Scientific Intelligence and Joint Technical Intelligence Committee, Report No 7
9: Horsely, Peter, Sounds From Another Room

If this gets substantial interest then I'd be happy to share some of the best parts of the book here



[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Shino]

GREAT opening quote.

There was no doubt I was going to read the whole article after I read that!

Star and Flag!

Originally posted by breakingdradles
GREAT opening quote.

There was no doubt I was going to read the whole article after I read that!

Star and Flag!

I'm always surprised that quotations from very senior holding individuals (regarding this subject) are constantly over-looked. They provide some of he best grounding evidence that this UFO phenomena is serious

I was hoping this would get more interested

Originally posted by Shino
I was hoping this would get more interested

Me too, I never had a good one until I used a catchy title lol.

[edit on 20-6-2009 by breakingdradles]

reply to post by Shino


No great surprises. Our American best finds get parked in the underground garage and not even our best buddies the Britishers get a peek. Still, your finds are part of the solution not the problem.

Originally posted by Shino
I was hoping this would get more interested

I just found your thread after reading the documents of the Flying Saucer Working Party and wondering if ATS had it covered. I was particularly interested in the experience of Flight Lieutenant Hubbard. He described seeing a pearly grey disc executing s-type manoeuvres in broad daylight and reported the sighting. Alongside other Officers, he saw a similar object 3 weeks later and they reported that too.

The conclusion in the FSWP report to his sightings?

"We find it impossible to believe that a most unconventional aircraft, of exceptional speed, could have travelled at no great altitude, in the middle of a fine summer morning, over a populous and air-minded district like Farnborough, without attracting the attention of more than one observer."

Link

Hubbard was subsequently interviewed in recent years and remains clear that he saw what he saw. He expresses his disappointment that the FSWP report was amateurish in it's attention to detail...

SH: Well it confirmed my view that recorders in the interviewing party were amateurs. They didn’t get anything right. Now whether that was deliberate or not I just don’t know. But they were not right. I was not reported correctly. In fact, from their conclusion I felt quite insulted. We were specially trained and we were constantly being crosschecked against instrumentation, observations, occurrences in aircraft, flight recorders in aircraft, so that our reports on speed, altitude, aircraft behaviour, G-loadings and things of that nature were being constantly crosschecked against instrumentation. We prided ourselves on being accurate observers, even under duress, in a spinning aircraft for instance when you are being thrown around in the cockpit. You have got to be accurate when you are describing your experience in an aeroplane. So I find it a little insulting that our detailed observations were treated so lightly and further, reported so inaccurately.

Detailed interview with Hubbard