In Whitehall, ministers and civil servants took a deep breath to reflect. Why did no one see the emerging threat of Covid back in January, February, or even March 2020?

In contemplation and for comfort, many may have looked to their bookshelves. Julia Galef’s ‘The Scout Mindset’ had recently hit bookstores and offered some kind of explanation and lesson to those who had ignored the signs which had led to complete and utter disaster. 

Boris Johnson’s Chief Advisor Dominic Cummings was among those who believed Galef’s rationalist manifesto could have saved thousands of lives.

The book focuses on five core lessons:

• Challenge assumptions 

• Overcome inherent biases

• Transcend tribal thinking

• Avoid self-deception

• Be prepared to be proven wrong 

Galef argues that many of us protect our beliefs aggressively and ignore any evidence that we might be wrong. She argues that we must approach ideas like a scout, so that we can be correct more often. 

“Striving for an accurate map means being aware of the limits of your understanding, keeping track of the regions of your map that are especially sketchy or possibly wrong. 

“And it means always being open to changing your mind in response to new information. In scout mindset, there’s no such thing as a “threat” to your beliefs. If you find out you were wrong about something, great—you’ve improved your map, and that can only help you.”

- Julia Galef

It’s a very good book and I recommend you read it.

I have news to break. Despite the success of the book, even perhaps within the corridors of the UK government and press offices, lessons have not been learned from Covid.

Change is hard. Often, people flee to self-help books for a comfort blanket, affirming to themselves, “It’s okay, I’ll do better next time.” 

The pandemic was a Black Swan event. Such events are seen as a surprise and are inappropriately rationalised after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. 

Such events blindside people, as psychological biases are developed both individually and collectively. In other words, it’s difficult for most people to comprehend a reality which conflicts with the norm.

Let’s take a quick snapshot of the political and media elite in the UK. They’ve grown up  at the same public schools and gone to the same universities.

In 2019, two-thirds of Boris Johnson’s cabinet were privately educated. A 2020 article found that 68% of Johnson’s cabinet were Oxbridge educated.

Many politicians, media correspondents and lobbyists make up an echo chamber named the Westminster Bubble, cut off from much of the public. 

If there was ever a ripe environment for group-think and avoiding a topic associated with stigma, it’s at the top of the UK political tree. 

However, that’s not to say that there are no outliers at the top of UK society. It is more nuanced. And although not publicly, some MPs, including cabinet members, may even take an interest in a topic, which is fast emerging to topple Covid as the next Black Swan event - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), otherwise known as UFOs.

On the whole, to be seen as someone who believes that UFOs are of significance and should be taken seriously is viewed as career suicide by many, especially if someone pursues such a topic in their political or media careers.

This is especially true of Cabinet members looking to avoid embarrassment and lobby journalists who are obsessed with the Westminster gossip. Such politicians and journalists wield the most power when it comes to creating headline news in the UK. 

Despite the echo chamber, there are outliers. The late Prince Philip was, and Lord Black, the Deputy Chair of Telegraph Media Group (which runs Boris Johnson’s favourite newspaper), is a believer in UFOs.

It’s a well-known fact that Prince Philip’s library was stacked with UFO books. His fascination was kickstarted after a UFO allegedly landed on his Uncle Lord Mountbatten’s Estate. If rumours are to be believed, Prince Charles, Prince William and Harry are also fascinated by the topic.

Digging deeper, Sir Peter Horsley, who joined the Royal Household in 1949 and became friends with Prince Philip, claimed to have met an alien named Janus in London in 1954. Horsley would go on to serve as Air Vice Marshal and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of RAF Strike Command, before retiring in 1975.

In 2015, Lord Black accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of covering up a UFO investigation after a spate of strange sightings in 1970’s Pembrokeshire. Following the release of documents, Black said:

“A number of recently released Ministry of Defence files leave little doubt that a small number of sightings of aerial phenomena – particularly by military personnel, pilots and air traffic controllers – remain unexplained and unidentified.

“There needs to be further examination of these issues in the hope of learning something new.”

There has also been the suggestion by author Neil Spring, that a secret investigation was undertaken relating to the events, which politicians were unaware of. Although, perhaps the politicians are turning a blind eye to such events and do not dare to push the topic due to the stigma.

Despite recent UFO revelations by the U.S. government, which has led to the topic becoming normalised in mainstream political discussion, UFOs remain the butt of jokes in UK politics. 

Case in point – the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In 2019, he was in the middle of an election contest, up against Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. The National Health Service (NHS) was a hugely significant issue amongst voters. 

Corbyn famously claimed that the NHS under Johnson would be up for sale, something which is very controversial in the UK. In response, Johnson mockingly compared Corbyn’s claim to UFOs, stating:

"There are photographs which purport to prove that there are UFOs. But it's nonsense. Rock solid guarantee."

In another retort against this very same claim, Johnson called it a “UFO Idea”. Boris should perhaps know better. If his former neighbour can be believed, then Boris Johnson witnessed a UFO himself whilst standing outside his London home.

According to the neighbour:

"We were looking in the sky, there was a blue beam and it was aiming into the sky.

"We looked at each other and I went, 'do you see that?' and he goes, ‘I see that as well'.

"I couldn't explain it, he couldn't explain it, we were looking at each other scratching our heads, but we both knew what we saw.

"I thought about offering him my spliff, but he was talking about the light.

"He was just standing there and that's the main thing I remember about him.”

Spliffs aside, UFOs are not taken seriously by elected politicians in the UK. If they are, it stays private.

Lords on the other hand, who are not elected (such as Lord Black), have more freedom to discuss such topics. That’s why a House of Lords debate took place in June 2021, following the release of the US government’s UAP Task Force (UAPTF) report.

If any elected ministers were interested in UFOs following the release of the UAPTF report, the Lords would prove a good testing ground for optics.

After all, Lords don’t need to worry about elections or constituents questioning their sanity. Sadly, the UK has no politicians of the calibre comparable to Marco Rubio or Mark Warner, who can speak logically and seriously about such a topic by avoiding stigmatised terminology and sticking to facts. 

But a debate did indeed take place within the House of Lords. Surprisingly, many Lords displayed knowledge and made valid points when questioning Defence Minister Baroness Goldie. However, many of those participating in the debate couldn’t avoid the occasional joke, smirk or giggle. 

To the disappointment of those within the UFO community, Goldie gave a predictable boilerplate MoD response:

“My Lords, the Ministry of Defence notes the content of the report. The department holds no reports on unidentified aerial phenomena but constantly monitors UK airspace to identify and respond to any credible threat to its integrity, and is confident in the existing measures in place to protect it.”

Although the UK government appeared unmoved by the UAPTF report, the media did at least flirt with UFOs as a genuine topic of interest, both before and after its release.

The Telegraph (Lord Black’s newspaper) covered the topic extensively and respected political commentator Dan Hodges alluded to the once unimaginable prospect of the U.S. government confirming the existence of UFOs.

Above Photo by Eva Dang on Unsplash

Considering the fact that the UK’s biggest ally, the USA, is taking UFOs seriously, has identified UFOs as a flight safety, and possibly, national security risk - the MoD’s response simply doesn’t square.  

Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs on behalf of the MoD has criticised the UK’s current stance. Speaking to Liberation Times, Pope stated: 

“The MoD's apparent decision not to re-engage on the UFO issue is a mistake. If the US has flagged this as a potential national security threat, the UK should too.

“It's not even clear if the MoD's decision was based on the classified briefings various US Congressional representatives have received, as opposed to just the 9-page unclassified report the media and the public saw. If the latter, this would be fundamentally flawed, as it's a decision taken on the basis of incomplete data.”

This brings up an important question: are unelected defence and intelligence officials being honest with elected UK officials about UFOs? Perhaps elected officials are too afraid to apply pressure on the MoD and the intelligence services, due to the stigma surrounding the topic?

The stance is puzzling. It has been suggested by Lue Elizondo, former Director of the U.S. government’s investigation into UAP (we’ll use U.S. terminology now), that intelligence on UAP may have been shared with Five Eyes allies, which would include the UK.

If this is the case, it could suggest that officials have not been entirely honest with politicians, or that politicians are not being completely honest with the public. We should note that this is dependent on the information which may have been shared with the UK. 

But the U.S. stance on UAP is clear, as evident from the UAPTF report, that the phenomenon is a potential national security threat. So, why are the concerns of the world’s most powerful military not shared by the MoD?

There is increasing public pressure on the UK government since the creation of the UAPTF, which has only grown since the release of its report. 

A petition has recently been created, calling on the UK government to publish a comprehensive report into UAP. Furthermore, new advocacy groups, such as UAP Media UK have been launched, with the mission of engaging with politicians and raising public awareness around the topic in the context of recent and anticipated new disclosures from the U.S. government. 

Vinnie Adams from UAP Media UK argues:

“Usually, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold., it’s a well known saying, especially in the UK. This is true of cultural, social and importantly defence issues, which is where the UAP topic currently sits in the U.S. as officials evaluate what UAP is and its potential threat. 

“One thing which has been confirmed within the UAP Task Force report is that some UAP appear to demonstrate advanced technology, which could belong to a foreign adversary. 

“Whether the MoD holds information on UAP information or not, the potential that China or Russia has made a significant technological breakthrough should be of great concern to the UK government. 

“To not at least study UAP based on this potentiality, which has not been ruled out by the U.S. government, could prove disastrous.”

If craft with advanced capabilities, which are said to demonstrate instantaneous acceleration and transmedium capabilities - this should be reason for UK defence officials to take notice, even if such incidents have not taken place over UK airspace. Such craft may indeed belong to adversaries, such as China and Russia.

Nick Pope spoke to us about the potential threat presented by UAP and the perceived lack of action by the MoD, stating:

“Given that the US intelligence community recently sent a report to Congress, stating that UFOs were a potential national security threat, it's a serious mistake for the MoD not to re-engage on this issue and restart official research and investigation. 

“If there's something in our airspace, we need to identify it and determine whether we're dealing with Russia, China, or something else. But when the US, as the senior partner in NATO, says the phenomenon is a security threat and that we need to find out what's going on, it's shortsighted of the MoD to say that they're not interested. 

“It's not even clear whether the MoD made the decision not to reopen investigations on the basis of the classified briefing that some people in Congress got, or just on the 9-page unclassified summary that the media and the public saw. If the latter, as I strongly suspect, it's lazy, shameful and an absolute disgrace, given that issues of defence and national security are at stake.”

Following the release of the UAPTF report, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks instructed officials to take measures so that U.S. restricted airspace can be secured. This underlines the seriousness of the issue, given that UAP is confirmed to have penetrated military ranges.

It’s a sobering situation, and the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is now facing it head-on. Recently, the Committee drafted a bill, instructing the UAPTF, ‘or such other entity as the Deputy Secretary of Defense may designate to be responsible for matters relating to unidentified aerial phenomena’, to submit quarterly reports regarding UAP to appropriate committees in Congress. If any UAP events are left out, then these must be included within the next quarterly report.

Should this bill pass, it could be a wake up call for UK officials, especially if United States Air Force (USAF) incidents are reported. The USAF has a number of bases situated in Europe, including the UK. Should information deriving from UAP encounters within or in proximity of British airspace conflict with the UK government’s stance on UAP, then it may prove to be a national embarrassment and spark an urgent inquiry. 

So far, no UAP reports in the public sphere have originated from the USAF. There is some suggestion that it is not cooperating with the UAPTF. Furthermore, the Pentagon’s Inspector General (IG) has launched a probe looking into the U.S. military’s handling of UAP. 

This ought to be a warning to MoD officials, especially if information is being hidden from elected officials. It has also been speculated that the IG probe could involve military installations in Europe, which could include the UK. 

The stakes are high and will only get higher, especially if new revelations continue in the U.S. 

UK officials should be reading or rereading The Scout Mindset and asking themselves if they could be facing a new Black Swan event, which could have far reaching repercussions. 

Perhaps Julia Galef summed it up the best:

“If you’re not changing your mind, you’re doing something wrong.”