Is the truth out there? Secret UFO files released

The extra-terrestrial files reveal how the phenomenon was discussed at the highest level of government and by security services worldwide, including at the United Nations, and the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was even the subject of a debate in the House of Lords.

The 35 files which are free to view online for the next month contain 8,500 pages of UFO sightings and reports, colour photographs and drawings, RAF investigations, unusual radar detections and – for the first time – documents on the Government’s policy on UFOs.

The tranche of files were detailed in full after the Ministry of Defence was inundated with freedom of information requests and letters from “persistent enquirers.” Following its introduction, questions on UFOs ranked in the top-three most popular FOI requests received by the Ministry of Defence

In one of the documents a man said he believed he had been “abducted” by aliens in October 1998 after seeing an unidentified craft hover over his London home and finding he had gained an hour of time in the process.

“It was a large cigar-shaped vehicle with big projectiles on each side like wings,” he told the MoD.

“It seemed to have two very bright lights at the front and a white light flashing round and round underneath… As you can imagine, I felt quite shaken.”

The MoD wrote to the man informing him that the object was probably an airship, adding that the time he had gained was probably the result of the clocks being put back one hour on the night of his close encounter.

Another document describes an incident that was treated as a real alien invasion of the UK. The RAF received a number of calls reporting six flying saucers in a perfect line across southern England from the Isle of Sheppey to the Bristol Channel.

Four police forces, bomb disposal units, the army and the MoD’s intelligence branch were all mobilised before it emerged the saucers were a hoax by engineering students from Farnborough Technical College.

Standard policy until 1967 was to destroy UFO files at five yearly intervals as they were deemed to be of “transitory interest.” A summary released along with the new documents concludes that “a large number of records dating from the period before 1962 have been lost.”

Between 1959 and 2007, Britain’s Defence Intelligence branch has logged more than 11,000 UFO reports. The National Archive note that investigations found “ordinary explanations” for most UFO reports but it allowed the existence of “some cases on record where no common explanation can be found. For the Ministry of Defence, these types of report remain ‘unidentified’ rather than ‘extraterrestrial’.”

In January 1979 – during the peak of the “Winter of Discontent”- in addition to discussions on trade union strikes, the House of Lords held a debate of the subject of UFOs – the only full debate on UFOs ever held in British Parliament.

They also reveal that in December 1977 the government used its influence to talk down a call by Grenada president, Sir Eric Gairy, for a UN agency to conduct research into UFO sightings.

Sir Eric eventually withdrew his proposal but continued his campaign for a full UN debate on UFOs – calling on the UN General Assembly to make 1978 “the year of the UFO.”