HL Deb 04 March 1982 vol 427 cc1370-1

3.4 p.m.

The Earl of Clancarty

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many reports have been received by the Ministry of Defence on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in each of the last four years, and what action has been taken in each case.

Viscount Long

My Lords, in 1978 there were 750 sightings; in 1979 there were 550 sightings; in 1980, 350 sightings; and in 1981, 600 sightings. All UFO reports are passed to operations staff who examine them solely for possible defence implications.

The Earl of Clancarty

My Lords, while thanking the noble Viscount for that Answer, may I ask him whether or not it is a fact that over 2,000 authenticated UFO reports were published last year in the national press? If so, were they accepted or passed on to the Ministry of Defence? And what happened to them?

Viscount Long

My Lords, they did not all get to the Ministry of Defence. I have just informed your Lordships of the numbers sighted. If the noble Earl is suspicious that the Ministry of Defence is covering up in any way, I can assure him that there is no reason why we should cover up the figures which he has mentioned if they are true. The sole interest of the Ministry of Defence in UFO reports is to establish whether they reveal anything of defence interest—for example, a Russian aircraft or an unidentified aircraft —which might have breached our security systems. That is the sole reason why we are interested in the reports.

Lord Wynne-Jones

My Lords, does the Answer given mean that since there has been a Conservative Government the UFOs have done a U-turn and departed?

Viscount Long

Not according to my reading, my Lords.

The Earl of Kimberley

My Lords, as my noble friend said that 600 UFOs had been officially reported or acknowledged by the Ministry of Defence in 1981, may I ask him how many of those sightings still remain unidentified and were not subject to security, or were Russian aeroplanes, or anything like that?

Viscount Long

My Lords, I do not have those figures. They disappeared into the unknown before we got them.

Lord Strabolgi

My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether the present Government adhere to the view of the previous Government which I put forward when I replied to the debate three years ago in your Lordships' House, that most of these so-called sightings can be accounted for as natural phenomena?

Viscount Long

Yes, my Lords, they can be. Many of them are accounted for in one way or another, but nobody has got a really constructive answer for all of them.

Lord Hill-Norton

My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether or not it is true that all the sighting reports received by the Ministry of Defence before 1962 were destroyed because they were deemed "to be of no interest"? And if it is true, who was it who decided that they were of no interest?

Viscount Long

My Lords, my reply to the noble and gallant Lord—I was wondering whether he was going to say that the Royal Navy had many times seen the Loch Ness monster—is that since 1967 all UFO reports have been preserved. Before that time, they were generally destroyed after five years.

Lord Paget of Northampton

My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us whether, out of these thousands of sightings which he has mentioned, there has been a single one which suggested any menace to our defences? In the circumstances, is not an awful lot of time being wasted on this nonsense?

Viscount Long

My Lords, I think Her Majesty's Government are waiting for an invitation from them to discuss these problems.