The Royal Extraterrestrial Connection

With the passing of Prince Philip this month, many tributes have been made to his life of duty to the British crown. But there haven’t been many stories about his lesser-known interest in UFOs and aliens.

One such story was first reported in 1997 in an article written by international bestselling author of UFOs and the extraterrestrial message, Richard Lawrence. Richard phoned and interviewed Prince Philip’s assistant, the late Sir Peter Horsley, who was residing in the Bahamas at the time.

Sir Peter related the story of his secret meeting with an alien in Chelsea, London, in 1954 – a meeting which had a profound effect upon him at a spiritual level and which he remained silent about until he retired decades later.

Sir Peter said the alien referred to himself as Mr. Janus and requested a meeting with Prince Philip. He appeared to be able to read Sir Peter’s mind and asked him about the UFO research he was undertaking for the Prince. He spoke about many things and his message aligned with the messages being received by Dr. George King, founder of The Aetherius Society, the world’s oldest international UFO organization. Dr. King was also contacted by extraterrestrial intelligences, known as Cosmic Masters, in the same year, and maintained communication with them throughout the remainder of his life. Interestingly, Sir Peter’s book came out in 1997, just a few months after Dr. King passed on.

It makes you wonder: What if Mr. Janus was an extraterrestrial, and what if Prince Philip had met him and spoken of his meeting to the world?

Below is an extract from Richard’s book UFOs and the extraterrestrial message (CICO Books) which provides more detail on the meeting:

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At least one high-placed British official in the 1950s had an experience of direct contact with what he believed could have been an alien being. The late Sir Peter Horsley was a member of the Royal Household who later became an Air Marshal and was knighted for his services. Only in later life was he willing to disclose his secret encounter, which he did in his memoirs, Sounds From Another Room. I was able to speak with him about it on the telephone just before the book was published. He was abroad at the time. As a result of this conversation I was among the first to reveal the full story of Sir Peter’s extraordinary encounter with an alien being. It appeared on the front page of the Sun on August 26 1997 and in several other newspapers. What I find of particular interest is not so much the physical conditions in which the incident occurred, as the spiritual significance of what Sir Peter discovered.

Sir Peter Horsley was, at the time, equerry to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. One of his tasks was quietly to investigate credible UFO reports and keep Prince Philip informed of his findings. In fulfilling this duty, he spoke with high-ranking officials, including the Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command at Stanmore, Air Marshal Sir Thomas Pike, who was later to become Chief of the Air Staff. Far from debunking the matter, which would have been in keeping with the public position of the government, Sir Thomas admitted to Sir Peter that he was concerned about UFO reports. He confirmed that reports were being examined in both Fighter Command and the Ministry of Defence, and that the United States defense authorities were also concerned. One of the many sightings Sir Peter investigated was an object said by Air Force personnel to be traveling at a thousand miles per hour. It is easy to see why, privately, they were taking UFOs very seriously indeed, despite the official stance.

Sir Peter’s fascinating encounter with what he took to be an alien visitor occurred in 1954, after he was introduced to a General Martin by the quaintly titled Gentleman Usher to the Sword of State, who was himself a retired Air Chief Marshal, Sir Arthur Barratt. General Martin arranged for Sir Peter to meet a lady, a Mrs Markham, at her apartment in Smith Street in Chelsea, a fashionable part of London. There, in a poorly lit room, he was introduced to Mr Janus, who sat in a deep chair by a not very warm fire, and who claimed to be from another world. Mr Janus asked Sir Peter about his UFO research, informing him with an unusual directness that he would like to meet Prince Philip. Before Sir Peter could respond fully with his concerns about security and so on in arranging such a meeting, Mr Janus responded to these thoughts in what could best be described as a telepathic manner. He demonstrated throughout the encounter what Sir Peter felt was an extraordinary ability to read his thoughts before Sir Peter could express them verbally.

Mr Janus proceeded to provide further background to his request. He spoke of a time when humanity would be able to explore the solar system and beyond; of traveling at the speed of light and even faster than this; of the possibility of gaining mastery over death; of robot and computer-controlled spaceships; and of discovering fields of gravity and anti-gravity where objects could travel across space and even other universes with different space and time formulae. These concepts are not unfamiliar to us now—they are the stuff of modern science as well as science fiction—but they were far removed from the science of 1954.

Mr Janus went on to discuss what he considered to be more important than the science of space travel—namely, the spirit of man and the universal designer. He spoke of belief in God as being age-old and inherent in even the most primitive people from opposite ends of the Earth. He made the key point that if space travel was conducted for the motive of material gain, it would achieve nothing, but if it was conducted for spiritual reasons, it would lead to a deeper understanding of God. He spoke of a golden age in the future when, providing humanity survives, the greatest advances would be in the development of the mind.

He talked of life throughout the universe, much of it more advanced than our own, and asserted that the humanoid form was not peculiar to the human race. He spoke of races who had overcome the urge to kill and fight wars, and had instead come to love all life, especially humanoid life. They had developed the power of will, and advanced sufficiently to be able to dispense with their physical bodies altogether. They were capable of integrating into the one great universal intelligence, which seems to be akin to the Buddhist concept of nirvana. He spoke of the creator, and the importance of prayer and collective willpower as the essential links to this source. Significantly, he said that these views do not contradict any of the great religious books and that there are many different paths to the same destination. This spiritual approach, he said, is the valid motivating principle behind space travel.

He claimed that the number of visitors who come to Earth from space is a tiny fraction of those who exist. They come to learn about a primitive and hostile race. Most of the vehicles, he said, are robot-controlled space probes, but some of them are manned. He answered the question of why they don’t land openly by pointing to the damage done by some of our explorers visiting more primitive cultures. He basically said, though not in these words, that the world was not ready for such a landing. He went on to describe how specific contacts have been made, with great care, through history, and said that this would continue. Finally, he spoke of the visitors’ mental abilities, extrasensory powers, and ability to operate in different dimensions.

Sir Peter wrote down his recollections of this meeting immediately after it happened, so we can take it as being an accurate account of what he experienced that day. He reported it to his superiors, but was in two minds about informing the security authorities, whose reaction to such a claim was unpredictable. He wondered whether these security concerns had been “picked up” by Mr Janus, who became mysteriously uncontactable. General Martin became distant and Mrs Markham went away in a hurry, leaving no sign of life in her apartment. Sir Peter never saw any of them again. However, he was, he says, changed by the experience at a profound spiritual level. He saw God in a new light as being a universal and not just a biblical figure, as he had before. He described how he had discovered a much greater intellectual peace as a result of this encounter with the powerful and hypnotic Mr Janus. It is strange to think that while Sir Peter’s memoirs containing his account of this extraordinary encounter are, to the best of my knowledge, now out of print, books that focus on the personal and romantic lives of historical figures are readily available, with new ones being commissioned all the time. In a way, that says it all about priorities in our world—and some people wonder why UFOs don’t land openly on Earth for all to see!

In the article in the Sun on this encounter, I was quoted as saying, “It must have taken courage finally to admit to this contact.” Yes it must, but it would have taken far greater courage to admit it openly forty-three years earlier, when it happened.

About the author
Rev. Julian Rosser is a Minister and full-time staff team member at the European Headquarters of The Aetherius Society in London. He hosted the  Mystic FM podcast.