Driven to question everything - From engineering to investigative journalism

The Light speaks with Richard D Hall about his journey into journalism

- DARREN SMITH

After taking legal advice, all references to an ongoing court case have been removed from this article and The Light offers no opinion on those proceedings.

YOU have been a well established investigative journalist for over 15 years. What's your story? It started in the 1990s. As an engineer, I am interested in how things work, and I heard an interview with an American whistleblower called Bob Lazar on a local radio programme. He claimed he'd worked on recovered flying saucers at a secret base in the Nevada desert, and the way he described the physics of the craft fascinated me.

The UFO mystery and alleged secret technology, which may have been gleaned from recovered UFOs, is what first triggered my interest in government cover-ups and opened my eyes to a degree.

Of course, many of the unexplained craft in the sky may well be man-made advanced aerial vehicles whose technology has not yet been disclosed to the public.

I used to read The Observer every Sunday, and was a fan of one journalist in particular named John Naughton. Naughton wrote a book in 1999 called A Brief History of the Future - the Origins of the Internet.

The book describes the history of how the internet came to exist in its present form.

Naughton was an advocate of allowing people the right to communicate privately, and was highly critical of the government's 2000 RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).