Earl Mountbatten of Burma
One senior Establishment figure who took an active role in this subject was Earl Mountbatten, whose interest is well known to most ufologists and has been widely documented, not least in Philip Ziegler’s 1985 book Mountbatten: The Official Biography.
In chapter four of his book Flying Saucers and Common Sense, published in 1955, Waveney Girvan reveals that Earl Mountbatten had written a personal letter to the editor of the Sunday Dispatch early in 1950. This letter followed an earlier article concerning a wave of UFO sightings in America, in the town of Orangeburg. The letter read as follows:
“These extraordinary things have now been seen in almost every part of the world - Scandinavia, North America, South America, Central Europe, etc. Reports are always appearing and the newspapers generally try to ridicule them. As a result it is difficult for any seriously interested person to find out very much about them. I should therefore like to congratulate you on having had both the intelligence (and, incidentally, the courage) to print the first serious helpful article which I have read on the Flying Saucers. I have read most other accounts up to date, and can candidly say yours interested me the most”.
Girvan goes on to reveal that Mountbatten and the editor of the Sunday Dispatch had a lengthy conversation about UFOs in mid 1950, which led directly to the serialisation of Scully and Keyhoe’s books, as mentioned previously.
It is also well known among ufologists that on 23 February 1955 it is alleged that a UFO was sighted at Mountbatten’s estate at Broadlands in Hampshire. The witness was Frederick Briggs, a bricklayer employed at Broadlands. Briggs said that the craft had been shaped like a spinning top, was metallic and about 20 or 30 feet in diameter with portholes around the centre. Watching from a distance of less than 100 yards, Briggs estimated that the craft was 80 feet above the ground. Briggs saw a humanoid figure dressed in what looked like overalls and a helmet descend from the craft on some sort of column with a platform at the bottom. He was then dazzled by a bright blue light from the craft and fell over, where he lay unable to move, as if held by a strange force. The craft then flew off at high speed.
Mountbatten took a personal interest in this incident, interviewed Briggs and searched the area of the meadow over which the UFO had been seen. He subsequently had a statement prepared, detailing Briggs’ claims. This story was written-up by Desmond Leslie in 1980, in Flying Saucer Review (Volume 26, Number 5). Mountbatten’s signed statement on the incident is held with many of his other private papers, at the Broadlands Archive.
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