Calling residents… Can you guess which leading royal family was fascinated by interplanetary craft? He was a regular subscriber to Flying Saucer Review!

Whether it was removing the back of a watch to see exactly how the mechanism worked, or addressing a visiting bishop about the sermon he had just delivered, Prince Philip was known for his inquisitive mind.

What is not widely known is that one of the Duke's diverse interests was a fascination with the paranormal, particularly UFOs.

This went back to the early part of the Queen's reign, when he became a regular subscriber to Flying Saucer Review.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s there was a wave of apparent UFO sightings, mainly in the US, which were widely reported in the press.

The Ministry of Aviation had a 'UFO desk' to record reports of interplanetary craft. Even the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was moved to write a provocative memo to the Minister of Aviation, Lord Cherwell: 'What does all this fuss about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me make a report at your convenience. WSC July 28, 1952.'

Churchill was not the only member of the establishment involved. Philip's uncle, Earl Mountbatten, wrote to his eldest daughter Patricia that he was convinced that UFOs “came from another planet” and that they were “not 'airplanes' with crazy, almost human pilots, but were themselves the real inhabitants: Martians , Venusians, Jupiterians. or what have you.'

He even wrote a detailed report on an alleged sighting over his own estate at Broadlands, witnessed by a retired British Army sergeant, Frederick Briggs, who worked as a mason on the estate and who 'says he saw a large vessel looked like a child's top'. floating above a field. He says a column came down from the center of the craft and a humanoid figure appeared to come down with the pillar.”

An influenced Mountbatten felt that Briggs 'did not appear to be the sort of man who would be subject to hallucinations, or in any way concoct such a story.'

The other influence on Philip's otherworldly quest was a member of his own household, Sir Peter Horsley, the Duke's equerry from 1949-56.

Horsley had been Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Strike Command during the war, someone whose honesty and integrity should not have been in doubt.

That said, he was a man who was the victim of a strange paranormal encounter. After his Mosquito aircraft was shot down during a mission, the recovering Horsley believed he had received messages from several of his fellow officers, all of whom were in fact dead.

The stable master clearly convinced Philip of his position. The Duke asked him to follow up on any credible reports of sightings and invited witnesses to Buckingham Palace to tell their stories in person.

He even wrote to Timothy Good, a renowned ufologist, pointing out that “there are many reasons to believe they exist.”

It is unclear how convinced the prince was about UFOs and whether it was another example of his ever-inquiring mind, which kept all options open.

Certainly Sir Peter Horsley drew the line when he told his boss about his encounter with what he claimed to be an alien in a London flat.

The alien guy called himself 'Mr Janus' and said he could read minds. Horsley recalled in his memoirs: 'He didn't say he was a visitor from another planet, but I had that impression.

'I believe he was here to observe us. I never saw him again.'

During their meeting, Mr Janus said he wanted to meet Prince Philip – who he described as “a man of great vision, a person of world renown and a leader in the field of nature and the environment.”

He is a man who strongly believes in the right relationship between man and nature, which will prove to be of great importance in future galactic harmony.'

(Sounds like even the most cynical reader would have to admit that, if aliens exist, they're pretty well informed about the British Royal Family.)

Not all of the establishment was as willing to consider Horsley's position as Prince Philip.

When his memoirs were published in 1997, a senior Ministry of Defense official commented: 'What a shame that the public will learn that the man who had his finger on the Strike Command button saw little green men.'

The late queen was also made aware that there could be something out there. In March 2009, a UFO researcher in Victoria, Australia, sent a letter to Buckingham Palace, addressed directly to “Your Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

The message was equally direct: 'I am writing to inform you, Madam, that the British Government continues to refuse to reveal the truth behind their files and reports on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

The writer told the Queen that UFOs were more than “weather balloons, planes, helicopters, lights or natural phenomena” and said they had tried to contact several British government departments, from the RAF, the Ministry of Defense and even MI5, to investigate them. to convince them of the 'seriousness of this UFO safety problem'.

It continued: “As I write this letter to you, Your Majesty, I am considering whether or not you will see reason and whether you will choose to act Madam?”

The letter ended with an urgent appeal: 'As a UFO researcher, I must strongly recommend that you take action now, Your Majesty.

'You are able to determine your own destiny. The question is Your Majesty, which path will you choose?

“I await your immediate action and response on this serious UFO issue. “I have the honor to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant.”

The Queen's Private Secretary replied on her behalf: 'While this is not a matter in which Her Majesty would intervene, the letter has been passed on to the Secretary of State for Defense so that this approach from The Queen can be known and taken into account. the points raised in the letter.'

The Ministry of Defense wrote to the Inquirer saying that while the government took the defense of British airspace very seriously, there was no evidence that UFOs posed a threat to national security.

Whether the Queen actually acted, as instructed, and discussed the threat of a UFO invasion with those in power remains a mystery, but it would have been good to be a fly on the wall when she mentioned this to the Duke.

• Ian Lloyd is author of The Duke: 100 Chapters in the Life of Prince Philip, published by The History Press