X FILES

Revealed! Secret UFO encounters

UFO files

Britain released hundreds of previously secret ‘UFO files’ on Thursday including a letter saying that Winston Churchill had ordered a 50 year cover-up of a wartime encounter between a UFO and military pilot. The files published by the National Archives, span decades and contain scores of witness accounts, sketches and classified briefing notes documenting mysterious sightings across Britain.

Top secret

One Ministry of Defence note refers to a 1999 letter stating that a Royal Air Force plane returning from a mission in Europe during World War Two was “approached by a metallic UFO.” The unidentified author of the letter says his grandfather attended a wartime meeting between Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower during which the two expressed concern over the incident and “decided to keep it secret.” 

No trace

The MoD subsequently investigated the case but found no written record of the incident, the files say. “... the MoD does not have any expertise or role in respect of ‘UFO/flying saucer’ matters or to the question of the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life forms, about which it remains totally open-minded,”. Britain has been slowly releasing long-classified files related to sightings of mysterious craft in the skies above its cities, compiled and investigated by the MoD over past decades. 

Unsolved mystery

Some cases subsequently received rational explanations, such as meteors burning up in the atmosphere, but many are unsolved. One memo, dated 1997, contains reports of ‘sonic booms’ and a mysterious plane crash in northern England. No wreckage was found in an ensuing search by the police and rescue teams. Another incident refers to sightings of a ‘black triangular UFO’ over the home of the shadow home secretary in Kent in the late 1990s. 

Huge size

In a case filed in 1995, the captain of a plane approaching Manchester airport reported a near-miss with an “unidentified object,” and a witness on the ground separately provided a sketch showing a UFO “20 times the size of a football field.” An inquiry failed to identify the object, the memo said. Buried deep among meticulous sketches and MoD memos, some files refer to curious episodes in Britain's history.