Churchill covered up UFO close encounter claim

Published on Wednesday 4 August 2010 15:28

SIR Winston Churchill was accused of covering up a close encounter between an RAF aircraft and a UFO during the Second World War, newly-released files revealed today.

The former prime minister allegedly ordered that the unexplained incident over the east coast of England should be kept secret for at least 50 years because it would provoke "mass panic".

The claim, made by a scientist who said his grandfather was one of Churchill's bodyguards, is recounted in declassified Ministry of Defence UFO files made available online by the National Archives.

Allegations of the cover-up emerged when the man, from Leicester, wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident.

He described how his grandfather, who served with the RAF during the war, was present when Churchill and US General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.

The man, who is not named in the files, said Churchill was reported to have exclaimed: "This event should be immediately classified, since it would create mass panic amongst the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church."

The incident allegedly involved an RAF reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany towards the end of the war.

It was near the English coastline when it was suddenly intercepted by a metallic object, which matched the aircraft's speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing.

The scientist said: "This event was discussed by Mr Churchill and General Eisenhower.

"There was a general inability for either side to match a plausible account to these observations, and this caused a high degree of concern."

He added: "During the discussion with Mr Churchill, a consultant (who worked in the Cumbria area during the war) dismissed any possibility that the object had been a missile, since a missile could not suddenly match its speed with a slower aircraft and then accelerate again.

"Another person at the meeting raised the possibility of an unidentified flying object, at which point Mr Churchill declared that the incident should be immediately classified for at least 50 years and its status reviewed by a future prime minister."

The scientist said his grandfather did not talk about what he heard, other than to tell his daughter when she was aged nine.

He added: "(He] remained convinced until his death in 1973 that technological capabilities existed that were not generally known to the public or indeed even to world leaders.

"He would occasionally hint that our flight technologies were far inferior to the possible limits of development without elaborating on the events he witnessed during the war."

Whitehall officials investigated the claims but could find no records of the discussions between Churchill and Eisenhower, the newly-released documents show.

An MoD official wrote back to the man in September 1999: "It was generally the case that before 1967 all UFO files were destroyed after five years as there was insufficient public interest to merit their retention.

Therefore, any UFO report files from the WWII era would most probably have been destroyed."

Churchill is known to have expressed an interest in UFOs.

Intelligence chiefs mystified

BRITAIN'S top intelligence chiefs were advised that a number of UFO sightings remained unexplained when they discussed the phenomena in the 1950s.

The files reveal the issue was raised at an April 1957 meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which prepares briefings on national security and defence for ministers and senior officials.

The committee was at first told all reports of strange sights in the skies had been "satisfactorily explained", either as mistakes in interpreting radar readings or as balloons and aircraft. But a week later the Air Ministry prepared a memo for the Red Book, the JIC's weekly intelligence survey, which disclosed that some sightings were in fact still shrouded in mystery.

It said six out of the 16 sightings since 1 January, 1957 were either unexplained or still under investigation. The note stated: "Attempts are being made to trace the cause of these sightings to aircraft known to have been near, inexperienced operators or spurious echoes of unexplained origin."

Cold War incursions kept RAF jets scrambling

RAF jets were scrambled to investigate UFOs picked up on radar 200 times a year during the Cold War, the previously-secret files show.

This fell to zero after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as Moscow stopped sending anti-submarine aircraft and spy planes into British airspace.

But the RAF continued to scramble aircraft in missions against known targets, including hijacked airliners, suspected drug smugglers and jets launched from a Russian aircraft carrier.

The information is revealed in a Ministry of Defence briefing note for a response to a July 1996 Parliamentary Question from Martin Redmond, then Labour MP for Don Valley in South Yorkshire. Mr Redmond asked how many times RAF aircraft had been scrambled or diverted from tasks to investigate "uncorrelated targets" picked up on radar.

A background note to the MoD's response said: "Prior to the demise of the former Soviet Union, aircraft were scrambled some 200 times annually to intercept and investigate uncorrelated tracks penetrating the UK air defence region from the north."

The last scramble of this kind took place in September 1991.

Punter sought MoD backing for alien bet

A GAMBLER appealed to the government for help after a bookmaker refused to pay out on his 100-1 bet that aliens would land on Earth, the files show.

The punter had 17 placed with Ladbrokes on extraterrestrials being found dead or alive by the end of the 20th century. But the bookie said it would not pay up because the United Nations had not confirmed the existence of aliens.

Asked to intervene, MoD agreed there was no evidence of visits by lifeforms from other planets and backed Ladbrokes.

The man, from Beeston, Leeds, who is not named in the files, placed a successful 2 bet on West Germany winning the 1990 World Cup at 6/1. His winnings were added to a 3 wager on "aliens to have landed (dead or alive) on Earth before December 31 1999" at 100/1, meaning he stood to win 1,700 if extraterrestrials were found.

But Ladbrokes refused to pay out, writing to him in April 1999: "We advise that at present your bet is not a winner, as the United Nations, who we use as our source of authenticity, has not yet confirmed the existence of aliens.

"However, as the bet stipulates 'before 31 December 1999', should the UN confirm this before that date we will be only too pleased to make payment to you."

The punter made a complaint "as a last resort" to the minister for sport, which was passed to the MoD.

He said he had found 19 books in Leeds Central Library reporting the Roswell incident, in which an alien spaceship was reported to have crashed in New Mexico in the US in July 1947.

He wrote: "Ladbrokes hide behind government propaganda weighted heavily to prevent public panic.".

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