Few figures in recent history have had more books written about them than Winston Churchill, most notably during his tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during WWII. Today, we look at TikTok viewership as a measure of popularity… Sir Winston recently amassed a significant sum for a tape obtained from yet another forerunner of present success – the Joe Rogan Show. The clip is of Harvard professor and noted extraterrestrial life and spaceship theorist Avi Loeb, who proposes in the clip that Churchill was also a believer in extraterrestrial life and that if the money spent on World War II had been invested in the search for it, humanity and aliens would have met by now. What did Churchill have to say about ETs and is Loeb right?
“In 1939, Winston Churchill penned an essay about the possibility of life on other planets and stars, and how we should look for it.” He didn’t get to publish it because he became Prime Minister and then had to fight the Second World War against the fascist dictatorship.”
Loeb is referring to an article unearthed in the US National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, where an 11-page piece titled “Are We Alone in the Universe?” by Churchill was discovered in 2016. In the journal Nature in 2017, astronomer Mario Livio evaluated the letter, noting that Churchill was passionate about science and technology and was the first prime minister to hire a science adviser.
Churchill forecasts the discovery of planets surrounding other suns and human travel to the Moon, Mars, and Venus in the essay, but warns that voyages to other solar systems will be long and difficult. However, this should not deter us because:
“… with hundreds of thousands of nebulae, each containing dozens of millions of suns, the odds are enormous that there must be vast numbers of planets with conditions that do not make life impossible.”
Churchill desired “scientists in the world but not a world of scientists,” and viewed science as “the servant, not the master of man.” Unfortunately, World War II diverted Churchill’s scientific focus to warfare, where he backed the creation of radar and a nuclear program, and met with Winston Churchill on a regular basis. He instructed his generals to battle using “slide rules” as well as weaponry. (If you don’t know what a slide rule is, ask your grandfather.)
“So much money was squandered in that war.” If that money had been committed to the hunt for extraterrestrial life, as Churchill envisioned it before the war, we would have had the answer by now. And what I’m saying is that this is just one illustration of how stupid we are. We are not cooperating to create a better future. We’re at odds with one other.”
While most people would agree with Loeb that looking for extraterrestrial life is a better use of our time than fighting wars, did Churchill agree with him? The BBC and other media outlets revealed in 2010 that the unnamed grandson of Winston Churchill’s British military aide wrote to the Ministry of Defence in 1999 about a meeting his grandfather allegedly attended with Prime Minister Churchill and then US General Dwight Eisenhower during the war about an object seen by an RAF reconnaissance crew that “appeared to hover noiselessly relative to the aircraft” and then “very suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace of it.” Documents proving the meeting and Churchill’s decision to conceal the claimed encounter were ultimately revealed in 2010.
To avoid “public panic,” the relationship between a UFO or foo fighter and RAF bombers was kept secret for at least 50 years. Former Defence Ministry UFO investigator Nick Pope stated at the time that any more documentation on that UFO sighting, as well as most others from the war, were destroyed.
The unsolved question is why Churchill chose to conceal this UFO incident rather than collaborate with Eisenhower to make it public. If the argument is that it was wartime, Churchill and Eisenhower both had plenty of opportunities after the war when they were both in positions of power to expose the encounter – or at the very least have scientists analyze it. Instead, it remained hidden for far longer than the “50 years” Churchill reportedly commanded.
Avi Loeb is correct in saying that the money spent on World War II would have been better spent on the hunt for extraterrestrial life… ALL monies wasted on war may have been better invested elsewhere. But what does he think of Churchill’s decision to keep UFOs secret in the postwar era? We might never find out what Churchill was thinking… Unless other records are unearthed.
RAF
The Royal Air Military (RAF) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom. It was founded near the close of World War I on 1 April 1918, creating the world’s first independent air force, by combining the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied triumph over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF became the world’s largest aviation force at the time.The RAF has played an important part in British military history since its inception. It was particularly important during the Second World War, where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain.
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