MoD's secret UFO files tell of 'alien Toblerones' over Scotland

Published on Sunday 16 August 2009 22:08

ON A dark night, in the middle of an electric storm, a motorist in Dumfriesshire had an unnerving encounter with what appeared to be beings from another world.

The man said he witnessed a "Toblerone-shaped object" descending from the sky in Annandale. Climbing into his car, he drove to the field where he thought it had landed. As he approached the area, though, the man said his car packed up and the torch that he had taken with him refused to work.

Unable to find the object, he went to the police who, unable to explain the mystery, reported it to the Ministry of Defence's special UFO investigation unit.

The 1994 story is one of many contained in documents released today by the National Archives, which detail about 800 UFO reports made to the MoD between 1981 and 1996.

They include tales of attempted abductions, along with sightings of aliens with lemon-shaped heads and flying saucers over Glastonbury.

In Scotland, the Stirlingshire town of Bonnybridge became a touchstone for UFO-ologists after it became an apparent hotspot for sightings in the mid-1990s.

At the height of its fame, it was claimed 3,000 sightings had been reported, and such was the hysteria surrounding the area that local councillor William Buchanan wrote to then prime minister John Major, calling unsuccessfully for an inquiry to be launched. He also tried to have Bonnybridge twinned with the UFO hotspot Roswell in the United States.

Across the UK, there were 285 alleged UFO sightings reported to the MoD in 2008 – twice the number recorded in 2007.

Nick Pope, who ran the British government's UFO project at the MoD in the early 1990s, believes that, while many sightings could be explained away, there were those for which no rational explanation could be given.

Having investigated many of the Bonnybridge incidents himself, he said that there were some that could not be explained.

"Our position at the MoD was, while not trying to cover it up, we had a policy of not talking these sightings up," he said.

"There were clearly a large number of UFO sightings in the area, but we felt that the public was creating a self-fulfilling prophesy, whereby any aircraft light seen above Bonnybridge was being reported.

"But, certainly, the reports were more interesting to us when they featured large black triangular aircraft. That was a description that we had from many people around the country."

Mr Pope said it was during the same period that Scotland became the focus of rumours that the US air force was carrying out secret tests on a spy plane code-named Aurora, which matched roughly the description of the sightings.

The Scotsman reported in 1992 that a jet travelling at more than three times the speed of sound was being tested near Machrihanish air base in Argyll. Despite questions from the UK at the highest level, the Americans denied any involvement.

The releases are part of a three-year project by the MoD and the National Archives, aimed at opening up the records to a worldwide audience.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, said: "It's evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programmes and films about alien visitors, and the numbers of UFO sightings reported to the MoD.

"Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD over the past half century was 1978 – the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released.

"Obviously, films and TV programmes raise public awareness of UFOs and it's fascinating to see how that appears to lead more people to report what they see to the authorities."

Far out, man. ET was on the bill at Glastonbury

SUMMER music festival Glastonbury is no stranger to weird sights but in 1994 two revellers reckoned they saw a UFO over the jazz tent.

A woman and a friend were "standing soberly" in a field when the craft appeared from nowhere and seemed to "communicate" with them.

In documents released today, above right, the woman wrote she and her friend saw a "twirling set of moving lights attached to what must have been a circular object".

"It was unlike anything we knew and so I immediately said it must be a UFO/spaceship," she said. "The lights were below this circular object and flashing in a way that was communicating to us."

She added: "It was also silent and the way it glided was the smoothest and most effortless motion I had seen in the sky."

The woman – who insisted she was sober – said the lights on the "flying saucer" – yellow, red and green – spun round.

"And it was as if once we had both agreed it must be a UFO that it swirled around and glided down straight towards us, as crazy as this sounds. As this happened we really became quite frightened but awestruck. Hair stood on end on my arms and my heart was pounding. It then glided to the right and away again."

None of the other revellers spotted it. But the woman's friend, a metaphysics students, told investigators the same story and the pair drew similar diagrams.

He said: "It appeared to be coming towards us and quite suddenly it changed colours. It went from red and orange to yellow and green. This really had an amazing impact on me because I was wearing yellow and green."

Lemon-headed alien told us: We want you, come with us. I said: Let's run

A LEMON-SHAPED head told two schoolboys, "We want you, come with us," one report revealed today.

The boys had stopped in a field at 23:55 on 4 May, 1995 in Chasetown, Staffordshire, to stare at what they believed was an UFO.

The pair ran to a local police station and breathlessly asked the officers on duty to come outside and look across the distance at the glowing-red, saucer-shaped object. Police thought it was an aircraft.

The officer's report says the boys arrived "agitated and distressed" after gazing at the UFO which emitted an intense heat before zigzagging off east to west.

"They stated the object was about four houses high in the sky and about 40 foot away from them," says the report. "They then, reluctantly, went on to say that a voice which came from a lemon-like head, which appeared beneath the machine, said, 'We want you, come with us'.

"Both appeared upset and shocked and as such it was increasingly difficult to obtain detailed information from them."

The boys were sent home and told to write up their account, above and below.

One of the boys said they were drawn to the field by an intense heat.

When they walked into the field, there was a flash of light then some sort of spaceship allegedly appeared. It sent his friend's face "the colour of beetroot", one of the boys wrote.

His friend wrote after hearing the command to go with the lemon-head: "I just said, run."

He added: "It just shot off in the air. It just went. Vanished."

Files reveal 'spacecraft' may have been secret US spy plane

A SECRET US spy plane – the existence of which has never been officially admitted – may have been behind a number of UFO sightings, newly released files suggest.

More than 70 witnesses, including police and military personnel, reported sightings in Devon, Cornwall, South Wales and Shropshire in the early hours of 31 March, 1993, with many describing a large, low-flying object which made a low humming sound.

In a briefing note to the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (ACAS), Sir Anthony Bagnall, the head of the Ministry of Defence's UFO desk wrote that there was evidence of an unidentified craft evading UK defences.

He said he would not normally concern Sir Anthony with UFO sightings but continued: "You may wish to be aware of a recent particularly unusual incidence of UFO sightings over the UK, involving descriptions that match some of the reported characterisations of the so-called 'Aurora'."

The Aurora was the name given to an unmanned US reconnaissance aircraft supposedly developed in secret "black" programmes in the 1980s and alleged to be capable of hypersonic flight.

The plane was the subject of much speculation at the time and the British government was forced to deny allowing experimental flights over the UK.

In his message, dated 22 April, the head of the UFO desk wrote: "

There would seem to be some evidence on this occasion that an unidentified object (or objects) of unknown origin was operating over the UK.

"If there has been some activity of US origins which is known to a limited circle in MoD and is not being acknowledged it is difficult to investigate further."

A response from Sir Anthony came back stating: "In spite of the quantity of the many witnesses who reported the unusual sightings on 31 March, I can add nothing to the debate."

The head of the UFO desk was later urged to drop the subject.

'More serious concern' urged over famous sighting

A FORMER head of the armed forces wrote to the defence secretary urging him to "demonstrate a more serious concern" over a famous UFO sighting.

Lord Hill-Norton, a former Chief of Defence Staff, wrote to Michael Heseltine some years after a mysterious incident in which several US air force personnel reported seeing a strange metallic object hovering in Rendlesham Forest near RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk.

The incident, in the early morning of 27 December, 1980, has become known as "Britain's own Roswell", and has never been fully explained.

The late Lord Hill-Norton

referred to the USAF report submitted by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt in which the deputy base commander details the account of three patrolmen who reported seeing a hovering glowing triangular metallic object illuminating a forest with a white light.

Later he was among several men who saw a "red sun-like light" through the trees which "moved about and pulsed". He said: "At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and disappeared."

'Wailing light the size of house followed boy and fired laser beams into ground'

ONE youngster claimed he saw a UFO hovering over a cemetery before it fired burning laser beams into the ground.

The young man – "a sensible sort of lad and genuine", according to a police report, above – was making his way home after a night out in Widnes, Cheshire, at 2.30am on 15 July, 1996.

According to the police log, a bright yellow light followed the youngster, who was crossing a footbridge.

The light was "two houses high", he reported, and it pursued him when he tried to walk away from it.

The lad told police the UFO made a high-pitched noise "like cats wailing", before blasting light beams downwards.

He and his father later returned to the spot and found four railway sleepers smouldering, one with a 4in hole burnt through it.