13.3.06

British Rail flying saucer unearthed


One from El Reg (and the frontpage of thegrauniad...hadn't quite got round to buying it when I posted)

Seems that British Rail submitted a patent for a flying saucer back in 1973. Powered by thermonuclear fusion, the story is much enlivened by the description of Prof Colin Pillinger, he of Beagle 2 infamy, as a 'hilariously mutton-chopped space wurzel'.

Scroll down the pages at UFo Today for some entertaining, nay unhinged, speculation on the device being tested over Iran, New Zealand and anywhere else where stoned hippies used to congregate. Not to mention a bit where Tom Cruise's involvement in Spielberg's War of the Worlds is seen as a way of softening up the public for news of a forthcoming alien invasion.

Marvelous.

As to the BRUFO: "However the patent expired in 1976 as British Rail decided that, technically, the saucer was too far in advance of its time." Bit like getting a train to run from Didcot to London on schedule then...

No comments: