SICK JOKE? - or COVER?

   Pronouncement from a British Defense Department spokesman as
   reported in the London `Observer' for February 26 1978: -

  "Any messages transmitted from outer space are the responsibility 
   of the BBC and the Post Office. It is their responsibility to
   track down illegal broadcasts"

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   Quoted, almost incredulously, by Carl Sagan in "Cosmos"


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              FURTHER REFERENCES

  GO - "search perceptions" - in SEARCH-ENGINE


file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/ukpolitics.txt