In your heart of hearts do you believe in little green men from outer space?

If you do don’t forget to celebrate next Wednesday July 2nd Because that is the 50th. anniversary of the famous "Roswell incident". What was it that came to earth on that day in a remote field some 75 miles from Roswell, New Mexico USA? Was it, as the unpoetic people said a crashed weather balloon? 0r was it a flying saucer bringing aliens to visit our planet, and failing at the final landing? And what were the bodies which were removed under conditions of great secrecy? Were they military personnel who alas had perished in at regrettable accident ? Or were they … them?

I have always had a soft spot for aliens and their vehicles ever since an occasion when struggling to get to the altar weighed down by an excessively long and heavy vestment, I was told I looked like ET. I took that as a compliment, ET is a peaceful creature full of love seeking only to extend the bounds of friendship.

Once upon a time we looked on Unidentified Flying Objects as something sinister and hostile that was in the time of the Cold War when we imagined that somehow the Russians had got the Martians at their beck and call. Now we look on extra-terrestrial creatures as more sympathetic, gentle, and able to offer us something valuable. Perhaps we are projecting into outer space our own longing for a better world, despairing of creating it here? Perhaps the world of the aliens is just the late 20th. century equivalent of Robinson son Crusoe's desert island?

We tend to think of space as being hundreds of light years away In fact those in the know remind us that "space" begins quite close to home. If we could drive our car vertically rather than horizontally, we would get from Waterlooville to space quicker than to Hindhead on a Sunday evening.

So whether we like to dream about spacecraft or keep our feet firmly on the ground, maybe we can see that the ability to affect our world for the better is not so far away from each of us after all. And if you do believe in flying. saucers don’t be embarrassed; even the Gospel of John begins with Simon Peter saying: "Take me to your leader." DS

[Illustration: UFO disguised
as Cardinal’s hat (no strings attached)]