Have You Seen the Saucers?

Have You Seen the Saucers? by Chris Green

Following the numerous sightings of inter-galactic visitors around Warminster in the 1950s, former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan developed a keen interest in UFOs. He paid regular visits to the Wiltshire locations where sightings had taken place and his library contained many papers on the subject. On file, a copy of a letter to Chief of Defence Staff, Lord Mountbatten was headed Have You Seen the Saucers, this accompanied by grainy photos. How close had Macmillan come to contact? Had he indeed had contact? What form might this contact have taken?

Macmillan’s diaries reveal that in September 1959, he arranged to meet an extraterrestrial called Alfa at an apartment in Pimlico. There is nothing to confirm that Macmillan attended the meeting. But if he did not make it to Pimlico, it could well be that he struck a deal with Alfa by other means. Charlie Bilk thinks so. Charlie is the editor of Life and Times, a historical magazine that investigates the post-war period. L and T aims to reveal what really took place in those years and what has been covered up. Charlie believes that in the wake of the loss of Empire and the Suez backdown, Macmillan’s larger-than-expected majority needed an explanation. The never had it so good moment of 1957 would surely have been wearing a little thin by 1959. Charlie suggests Mac’s big majority was down to electoral manipulation, and that Alfa’s technological wizardry may have facilitated this.

Along with stag hunting and collecting rare erotic literature, telecommunications was one of Harold’s primary interests. His use of red telephone communication was well documented. He practically pioneered the idea of the hotline. He had as many as a dozen unlisted private numbers. Under cover of the election hubbub, unmonitored telephone communication with Alfa would have been easy.

Charlie also believes that Macmillan secretly entertained Alfa at Downing Street, possibly in the dead of night when his wife Dorothy was entertaining her lover, Bob. At this secret meeting or series of meetings, it is likely that he and Alfa hatched a plan for aliens to be introduced and systematically integrated into British society. As an advanced civilisation, Alfa’s people would presumably have been able to take on human form to be undetectable.

To back his theory up, Charlie points out that from 1960 onwards, the fabric of the British way of life began to change radically. He claims certain key individuals were instrumental in this, although few of these would become familiar names.

When Eddie Dancer pitched up in sleepy Cirencester with his silver suit and his magic tricks, he must have been irresistible. Susan evidently thought so. Susan had had a sheltered upbringing and Eddie must have seemed like a God. Their trysts in the back of Eddie’s big Humber that brought the wedding bells and heralded the birth of young Natalie, steered them neatly into the nineteen-sixties, with Susan none the wiser to Eddie’s origins. Natalie too would have no idea of the circumstances of her pedigree, but Charlie believes she was the first child born of a relationship between an extraterrestrial and a human.

With optimism and hope flowing freely and opportunities for betterment opening up, though, Natalie had every chance of a good outcome. The sixties were the perfect time to raise a family, and as more extraterrestrials were introduced, many other interspecies relationships blossomed and many mixed race births followed. Despite this, the secret of the newcomers has remained intact. Those children over the years that have raised concerns about their heritage have been silenced. The one and only time a case made it into the Sunday papers, the story was universally ridiculed.

Charlie suggests Britain’s standing in the scientific community received an enormous boost from the newcomers. In almost every field, someone emerged to take up the challenge. Georgia Nicholson not only discovered a range of new drugs to treat diseases, but a selection of new diseases for them to treat, too. His services were fought over by all the top pharmaceutical companies. Lucy Collett, meanwhile, discovered pulsars, which are rapidly spinning dead stars that emit radio waves. Her discovery is considered one of the most significant astronomical discoveries in recent history. The moon landings at the end of the decade would almost certainly not have taken place were it not for the trailblazing research of extraterrestrial astrophysicist Norman Goodson. And we need to thank Roger Powell for his investigations into global warming, melting ice caps and the impact of rising sea levels. His contribution to the climate change debate was invaluable, in fact, he coined the term. Without Roger’s input, we would still be heading towards Armageddon drunk on fossil fuels.

As science does not enjoy a substantial media profile, none of these figures became household names. Even now, with the resources of the internet, it is difficult to find a mention of them. But let’s not forget Peter Higgs, who gave us the Higgs boson and Tim Berners Lee, who gave us the World Wide Web, although it should be mentioned here that the jury is out on the veracity of Charlie’s claim regarding this pair being aliens.

On the other hand, entertainment has always been lapped up by the media, so other names did become familiar. In the music business, given the new creative input, the UK took over from the US in setting the trends in the early sixties. London became the cultural capital of the world, this being at least in part down to the new arrivals.

His biography states that he was born Paul Pond in Portsmouth, but Charlie Bilk believes that Paul Jones was one of the first extraterrestrials to be introduced. Given a name that blended in and a pleasing demeanour, Paul was easily accepted in creative and fashionable circles, where he settled into becoming a sought-after musician. It was easy peasy, child’s play for a focussed space migrant on a mission. Playing with upcoming artists like Brian Jones and Keith Richards, Paul established a distinctive musical style which was perfect for the times, and as the frontman of the Manfred Mann band, he became part of the new cultural elite.

William Hartnell, the original Doctor Who, and in many people’s eyes the best, was part of the second wave of new arrivals in 1962. It could be argued that the phenomenal success of the series was to a large extent down to Hartnell’s realistic portrayal of an alien in those early black and white episodes. He played the part for five years, by which time it was established as the benchmark for sci-fi dramas.

Popular myth has it that before he became a rock star, Jimi Hendrix was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne of the US Army, and that on being discharged, he played for years on the chitlin’ circuit with soul legends like Wilson Pickett and The Isley Brothers. According to Charlie, this is simply not true. Jimi arrived with the third or fourth wave of extraterrestrials on Salisbury Plain in the mid-sixties. He had not come across a guitar before; they did not have them back home. If further evidence were needed, Charlie says, you can tell that Jimi was unfamiliar with the instrument by the fact that he played a right-handed guitar turned upside down and restrung for left hand playing. And the sounds he got the instrument to make were nothing if not other wordly. No other guitar player has managed to recreate these. With his colourful ward52. robe and outrageous on stage persona, the media couldn’t get enough of Jimi. It was this twenty-four-seven adulation that ultimately brought about his premature demise in 1970.

Charlie suggests the introduction of extraterrestrials to Britain may have stopped around 1966, as he can find no evidence of any new arrivals after this date. Perhaps Macmillan’s successor Lord Home, and Wilson’s Labour government, were not as sympathetic to the idea as Harold had been in 1959, or perhaps more sophisticated surveillance had simply become too difficult for them to conceal the landings.

We look forward to further revelations about the inter-planetary invasion in future editions of Life and Times, and hope that in the meantime, Charlie Bilk does not get silenced by the authorities.

Copyright: Chris Green, 2024: All rights reserved