The recent release of UFO files from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) include two files, DEFE 24/2033/1 and DEFE 24/2034/1, dealing with Parliamentary Questions. A substantial amount of these—over 350 pages—show the tireless advocacy for UFOs in general and the December 1980 incidents in the Rendlesham Forest near the RAF bases of Woodbridge and Bentwaters in particular, by Admiral of the Fleet Peter Hill-Norton, a former Chief of Defence Staff and a peer in the House of Lords until his death in 2004.
Because of his senior military rank, his parliamentary position and his stubborn personality that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Lord Hill-Norton was a formidable foe to the MOD bureaucrats trying to spin and minimize the significance of UFO incidents over British airspace. The people at MOD knew this, as shown by the amount of drafts with careful editing in their official responses to the various UFO questions raised by Lord Hill-Norton. However, this never seemed to satisfy him and the exercise was repeated over and over again.
The frustration of an official from D/Sec(AS)—the name has been censored as usual in the MOD files—with Lord Hill-Norton’s persistence is shown in a hand-written comment on a “Loose Minute” from October 1998 (see document) in which the “Issue” itself was scratched and replaced with the following: “Lord Hill-Norton’s dissatisfaction with the Department’s limited interest in ‘UFO’ phenomena.” Then in the “Background” section, the unnamed official wrote the following:
“4. Lord Hill-Norton believes in UFOs and has taken on himself the mission of persuading Government to take seriously the notion that we are being visited by craft of extra-terrestrial origin. He pursues this with evangelical fervour through numerous PQs [Parliamentary Questions] and PEs [Parliamentary Enquires], and is something of a champion of the cause of ‘ufologists’ in this country.”
Before describing some of these PQs and PEs, let’s take a brief look first at the illustrious military career of Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Peter Hill Norton, and why he was able to intimidate so many government officials regarding the UFO issue. Although he certainly never used the term, Lord Hill-Norton was practicing—particularly during the last years of his life—exo-politics, raising the issues concerning UFOs and possible ET intervention in the realm of politics and government.
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