British Government releases UFO files
The most comprehensive Government files on UFO activity are opened to the public for the first time today and they disclose that even air traffic controllers and police officers have seen mysterious craft in the skies over Britain.
The sightings range from incredible tales of little green men visiting the Wirral to corroborated accounts from policemen and pilots of Unidentified Flying Objects hovering above towns and cities.
All are recorded on official forms, held by air bases and police stations, and compiled by the Ministry of Defence between 1978 and 2002.
Disclosed for the first time is a report from three experienced air traffic controllers who attempted to "talk in" a UFO which landed on the runway before them. The incident occurred on April 19, 1984, at an East Anglian airfield which was operating two runways called 22 and 27.
In the control tower a senior air traffic controller (satco) was supervising his deputy and an assistant.
According to the report, the deputy was in contact with a light aircraft preparing to land on runway 22 when the satco noticed lights approaching the other runway.
The unidentified object came in at speed, made a touch and go on runway 27 then departed at terrific speed in a near vertical climb, according to the files.
It was described as a "brilliant solid ball of light, bright silvery in colour". The file noted that "witnesses do not wish to be identified in case their professional integrity is questioned".
Others in the aviation industry also encountered unidentified flying objects, including a Sea King helicopter crew who tracked two objects on their radar for 40 miles, travelling at almost one nautical mile per second, in September 1985.
Four months later two constables in Woking police station, Surrey, saw a white light with a tail above the town centre which then "descended into the Horshall area".
They reported it to their inspector, who recorded it as a "genuine report" but noted that the officers were slightly embarrassed because Horshall Common features in the works of the science fiction writer HG Wells.
They were not alone. In June 1984, three officers at Edgware station in north London had been called to a garden after a sighting in Stanmore.
On their arrival the uniformed officers found a "flashing light 45 degrees up in the sky" with a "dome on top and underneath" which they watched through binoculars.
"We observed the object for one hour. During this period of time the object moved erratically from side to side, up and down and to and fro, not venturing far from its original position," wrote the officers, who also sketched a cartoon-like image of the spacecraft.
But a couple in the Wirral claimed to have had an encounter of an altogether closer kind.
The husband reported visiting bases in Cheshire of green aliens, including one called Elgar who was killed by another race in 1984.
His wife saw their craft crash over Wallasey Town Hall but the official response was recorded as a terse "no reply".
The documents are contained in eight files that have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Over the next four years more than 150 files will be made available at the National Archive in Kew, south-west London.
Nick Pope, who worked for the MoD for 21 years and was responsible for investigating the sightings, said: "Most of the UFO sightings here are probably misidentifications of aircraft lights and meteors, but some are more difficult to explain."
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