Hellyer
takes up the cause of believers in UFOs
By JOHN
WARD
OTTAWA (CP) - Paul Hellyer, onetime cabinet
minister and a political chameleon who went through Liberal
and Tory colours before founding two political parties of his
own, has a new cause - UFOs.
Hellyer
is to be a featured speaker at a UFO conference in Toronto later
this month and organizers are making much of his credentials
as a former defence minister in the Pearson administration 40
years ago.
Skeptics
are, well, skeptical.
The 82-year-old
Hellyer says he believes not only that UFOs are extraterrestrial
visitors, but that some governments - the United States at least
- know all about it and are covering up.
He says
he believes American scientists have re-engineered alien wreckage
from a supposed UFO crash at Roswell, N.M. in 1947 to produce
modern technical marvels.
"I
believe that UFOs are real," he said in a recent
interview. "I'll talk about that a little bit and
a bit about the fantastic coverup of the United States government
and also a little bit of the fallout from the wreckage, by that
I mean the material discoveries we have made and how they've
been applied to our technology."
Hellyer
was once a political star. He was first elected to the Commons
in 1949 at the age of 25, at that time the youngest person ever
to win a seat.
He went
on to become a cabinet minister, ran for the Liberal leadership
against Pierre Trudeau, switched parties to the Conservatives
and ran for that party's leadership, too. He eventually founded
two other political parties, Action Canada in 1971 and the Canadian
Action party in 1997.
He says
his conviction that UFOs are real arose from reading in recent
years, not from anything gleaned from secret archives during
his time in office.
"I've
been a skeptic for quite a while but I've been exposed to more
and more information recently and have just decided to take
a stand," he said.
Organizers
of the MUFON conference - the name is an acronym for the Mutual
UFO Network - see Hellyer's participation as giving legitimacy
to the cause.
The conference
is billed as "Canada's first major UFO symposium
calling for complete government disclosure concerning the reality
of UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence on Earth."
"Mr.
Hellyer's involvement will increase the impact of the symposium,"
says a conference news release.
Victor
Viggiani, a retired educator who is an organizer of the event,
calls him a featured speaker.
"We're
depending on him to be a real focal point,"
Viggiani said. "We're using his sort of experiences
to demonstrate that national political figures can come out
and talk about this."
He says
Hellyer has a simple point to make: "Let's start
telling the truth about what we all know is really happening
in the skies and journalists start paying attention, that's
basically going to be his message."
Does Hellyer
feel he's being used?
"I
think they are trying to make the most of my appearance."
His participation
is exasperating for David Gower, a spokesman for Skeptics Canada,
a group dedicated to rational thinking and to debunking paranormal
claims.
"This
sort of thing is a big feather in their cap, to come across
people like him," says Gower, who is dismissive
of the whole UFO mystique.
"There's
no convincing evidence that can be anything other than personal
anecdotes or allegations that can't be proven,"
he said.
He said
UFO enthusiasts have a quasi-religious fervour that often makes
them impervious to doubt.
"There
is a deep-seated need, a desire in people, to feel that there's
something in control somewhere, bigger than they are, something
that can give some kinds of answers."
Trying
to wean people away from UFO beliefs is like "nailing
Jello to the wall," he said.
Viggiani
says UFOs could be a boon for mankind. He says they have technology
that could solve the world's energy problems "in
one fell swoop."
This is
where the conspiracy theory takes off for him.
"For some strange reasons, our governments can't
come forward to talk to us about what these energy sources are,"
he says. "Because oil is just about $70 a barrel
and that would undercut a lot of the power structure, the World
Bank . . . the fossil fuel industry.
"They
are just not prepared to handle this."
Hellyer,
too, thinks there are important secrets to be learned.
"I
think, frankly, that the subject should be taken seriously,
because there are consequences that have real effects or could
have real effects on the people of the world and I think there
should be discussion of it."
While some
believers think western governments have actually negotiated
with extraterrestrials, Hellyer doesn't go that far.
"To
my knowledge, it's just visitations," he says.
Although
his participation in the conference is likely to draw ridicule,
Hellyer said he's used to that after his roller-coaster political
life.
"It
wouldn't be the first time, would it?"
