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The death of Prince Philip, the Duke of
Edinburgh, aged 99 on 9 April has resulted in a flurry of tributes and
obituaries. But so far none of the extensive media coverage has
mentioned the Duke’s lifelong interest in
UFOs – or “flying saucers“. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Admiral of the Fleet, is probably the best known British establishment figure who had publicly expressed his fascination with flying saucers and UFOs. His interest reached its peak during the first wave of public |
Prince Philip during a tour of Canada in 1951 when his interest in flying saucers was at its height (Credit: Wikipedia) |
During this time both men were subscribers to the magazine Flying Saucer Review and according to its editor Gordon Creighton since its inception in 1955 copies have been sent to Buckingham Palace.
RAF Air Marshal Sir Peter Horsley (1921-2001) who was equerry to the Duke from 1952–5 wrote that during this period, much like Mountbatten:
“Prince Philip was open to the immense possibilities of new technology leading to space exploration, while at the same time not discounting that, just as we were on the fringe of breaking out into space, so other older civilisations in the universe might already have done so.”Horsley’s autobiography Sounds From Another Room (1998) reveals how reports of flying saucers were enthusiastically discussed at Buckingham Palace throughout his time as equerry.
In 2000 he told us that Prince Philip ‘agreed that I could investigate the more credible reports [of flying saucers] provided I kept it all in perspective and did not involve his office in any kind of publicity or sponsorship.’
Sir Peter Horsley, Prince Philip’s former equerry who investigated UFO reports for the Duke, 1952-55, interviewed by the author at his home in Hampshire 2000 (Copyright David Clarke) |
These included the captain of a BOAC airliner, James Howard, who had reported, along with other crew members and passengers, a formation of UFOs while flying over the North Atlantic in June 1954. Another visitor was schoolboy Stephen Darbishire who had taken two photographs of a ‘saucer’ above Coniston in February of that year.
During our interview with Sir Peter Horsley, shortly before his death in 2001, he explained his reason for inviting UFO witnesses to the Palace was partly to ‘put them on the spot’ and test their honesty in the presence of royalty, a method as effective as any truth serum.
Sir Peter told us the sincerity of the RAF and civilian witnesses he interviewed was evident and this led him to conclude that UFOs were a real and unexplained phenomenon.
But he was less impressed by the burgeoning UFO movement and what he described as ‘the growing body of people promoting sightings for mercenary reasons or self-advertisement.’
A confidential memo from Peter Horsley to Prince Philip in 1954 reporting on his inquiries into a UFO sighting by a RAF fighter pilot, James Salandin (Copyright Dr David Clarke) |
Among these less than objective influences he included Desmond Leslie, who was
on friendly terms with General Sir Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning. The General, who
was the husband of author Daphne de Maurier, led the British airborne forces
during the disastrous Operation Market Garden in 1943.
In retirement Browning became a private secretary to the Queen and like other
former military officers became fascinated by flying saucers. But Browning
went further than any other establishment figure by taking seriously the
claims of those who said they had met the space people.
This situation came to a head in 1959 when a plot was hatched to engineer a
meeting between Prince Philip and the famous Polish-American author and mystic
George Adamski. Adamski had co-authored the 1953 best-seller
Flying Saucers Have Landed with Desmond Leslie. The book contained his
personal account of a meeting with the Venusian pilot of a ‘scout-ship’ that
landed the Mojave Desert of California and communicated with Adamski by
telepathy. According to his account the space people wished to warn us of the
impending threat posed by nuclear weapons in future warfare.
Adamski’s message combined old-fashioned spiritualism with the new craze for
seeing flying saucers and this appealed to many who feared for the future of
planet Earth, including some members of European royalty.
In April of 1959 Adamski embarked on a European lecture tour that included an
audience with the Dutch royal family. Shortly before the 68-year-old contactee
arrived in London Desmond Leslie wrote to both Browning and the Duke,
enclosing a personal invitation for them to meet Adamski, in strict secrecy if
necessary.
The Duke immediately realised the danger this would place him in and he
annotated Leslie’s letter with the words
‘Not on your Nellie!’ And in a note to Browning he added: ‘He may not be
a crank but he’s a bit too fanciful for me!’
(Sir Peter Horsley, personal communication 2000).
Nevertheless both General Browning and Peter Horsley met Leslie and Adamski
during his visit at a private address in London.
Horsley told us was not impressed by either. He felt that Desmond Leslie was
‘probably sincere but gullible, sucked into the saucer cult by people who
hoped to profit from it such as Adamski’ and he warned Browning against having
any further contact with them.
Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands also met Adamski and at a
press conference in The Hague on 20 May when he made the bold claim that the
British royal family were keen to meet him and that ‘Prince Philip so far has
been the most interested.’
This summary is an extract from my 2007 book with Andy Roberts:
Flying Saucerers: a social history of UFOlogy (Heart of Albion
Press).
POSTCRIPT:
In 2017 I wrote to Prince Philip to ask if his ‘flying saucer’ file had been preserved in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. I said there was considerable public interest in its contents and in particular the private study of the subject, completed on the Duke’s behalf, by Peter Horsley in 1955.
On 27 June Prince Philip’s private secretary, Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell, responded, after a lengthy delay: “I am afraid that extensive searches have not yielded any papers that would be of help to your research. This letter comes with His Royal Highness’s best wishes.”
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