Former Canadian cabinet minister Paul Hellyer takes up the cause of believers in UFOs

September 11, 2005 – 17:11

Former Canadian cabinet minister Paul Hellyer takes up the cause of believers in UFOs

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?"

This story can be found at:
 

Former cabinet minister Paul Hellyer takes up the cause of believers in UFOs

http://toronto.24hrs.ca/News/2005/09/12/1212828-sun.html 

http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/050911/n091117A.html

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ce75dea2-bf15-44eb-ad82-4dbf0931d9e8  Montreal Gazette

http://www.680news.com/news/national/article.jsp?content=n091111A 

http://www.canada.com/news/national/story.html?id=e4276a03-70ea-4017-9445-26a610e1ddf7  National Post

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/09/11/1212477-cp.html  (Canoe)

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=2027207 

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1126478107539&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
Toronto Star

http://www.news1130.com/news/national/article.jsp?content=n091111A