This book is based upon the real-life accounts of UFO sightings recorded in files collected by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), which are today held by The National Archives, based at Kew, Richmond. The phrase ‘close encounter’ was coined by an astronomer, Dr J. Allen Hynek, who acted as consultant to the US Air Force’s UFO Project Blue Book between 1952 and 1969. He defined the typical UFO experience as ‘a statement by a person or persons judged responsible and psychologically normal, describing an object or light in the sky’ that could not be explained by any obvious physical or psychological cause.1
In the aftermath of the Second World War some countries, such as the United States, Canada and Great Britain, established official projects to collect and scrutinise unusual sighting reports for any clues that might suggest UFOs could be a threat to national security. In Britain, these were investigated by the Air Ministry and the MoD. But for many years the only publicly available information about the British government’s UFO unit was its name, Secretariat Air Staff 2 or Sec(AS)2. The MoD’s UFO files are often referred to as ‘Britain’s real X-Files’ after the popular 90s TV show The X-Files, which chronicled the adventures of maverick FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The two fictional agents fought a battle with sinister forces who were determined to close down their investigations of strange phenomena. The overall theme of the series was summed up by an iconic poster in Mulder’s office that featured an image of a ‘flying saucer’ with the caption: ‘I want to believe.’
The X-Files phenomenon reflected a widespread belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life that has grown since the end of the Second World War. Flying saucers were first sighted in 1947, but just seven years later an opinion poll for a London newspaper found that 16 per cent of Britons believed in them. The Cold War saw the launch of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the success of the Apollo programme that put men on the moon. By the fiftieth anniversary of the UFO, another poll revealed that one third of the 1,092 adults questioned believed aliens had visited Earth – and 21 of them claimed to have had a direct experience with E.T.!
Regardless of whether UFOs actually exist in the popular sense of flying saucers from other worlds, the subject is unquestionably part of our social and cultural history. The MoD files provide both an insight into UFO beliefs themselves and a unique database of reports from those who have seen them.
The files contain the stories, many first-hand, of ordinary people from all walks of life who have undergone extraordinary and often life-changing experiences. They usually take the form of short accounts submitted by phone or letter by those who felt they should report what they had seen to the authorities. UFO witnesses include people of all ages and professions, from schoolchildren and refuse collectors to police officers and RAF pilots.
The first surprise to emerge from the files is that although the terms ‘flying saucer’ and ‘UFO’ date from post 1945 era, the chronological spread of the documents actually begins before the First World War. They range from strange sightings made in the early 1900s and during both world wars, to the first reports of ‘flying saucers’ during the late 1940s and 1950s, to contemporary accounts of stealthy, triangular-shaped craft. There are a great variety of stories and some are far more credible than others. Some describe the classic lights and shapes in the sky that were categorised as close encounters of the first kind by Dr Hynek. Others involve close encounters of the second kind, where some form of physical evidence – such as marks on the ground or photographs – have been left behind. A small number describe encounters of the third kind: sightings of UFO occupants and even alleged ‘alien abductions’.
The most recent of these documents were opened to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in a four-year programme that ended in 2012. The Ministry of Defence described the release as a major exercise that was ‘unique in MoD history’. Their aim was that greater openness would help counter what they described as ‘the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation’ that surrounded their involvement, both real and imagined, in the UFO mystery. But for those who suspected a whitewash, many questions remained. What did the files contain that justified them being kept secret for so many years? Why was government releasing them now? And how can we be sure these files really do contain the truth? This book is both an account of my attempt to answer those questions and a history of official investigations into the UFO mystery in the United Kingdom. During the past decade I have methodically ploughed through every surviving UFO-related file held by The National Archives, including all the records on 12,000 sightings recorded in official files since 1962. Between 2008 and 2012 I was the consultant and media spokesman for The National Archives’ project that prepared the most recent files for release. This high-profile role was the culmination of my own personal quest to discover what the British government really knew about UFOs.
I first became gripped by the UFO bug in 1978 on seeing Steven Spielberg’s movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Inspired by the true-life experiences upon which the movie was supposed to be based, I joined a UFO society and began to collect accounts of sightings. But my first close encounter with the ‘real X-files’ happened a decade later when I was a rookie journalist. In 1988 hundreds of people in the Midlands and North of England reported seeing strange lights and objects in the sky. After writing about these experiences for my newspaper, I compiled a dossier of the most impressive eye-witness reports and decided to send it to the fabled ‘UFO desk’ at Whitehall.
I was aware, from the UFO literature, that a ‘UFO desk’ had existed since the 1950s and knew that its name had changed occasionally following reorganisations of the MoD. Some UFO ‘experts’ had even described it as the British equivalent of the US Air Force’s UFO investigation unit, Project Blue Book, which closed in 1969. But due to the British government’s obsession with secrecy, no one really knew much about Sec(AS)2. The polite reply I received from this mysterious unit in 1988 was signed by the desk officer at the time, Clive Neville.2 The letter said the MoD had only a ‘passing interest’ in UFO reports. There was, he explained, no department within the MoD that was solely responsible for the investigation of sightings or anyone employed full-time to investigate sightings, so any comparison with Project Blue Book was misleading. Their only concern was to decide if UFOs ‘present a threat to the security and defence of the United Kingdom’. Reports were forwarded to ‘specialist staff’ in other branches responsible for the air defence of the UK for examination. But unless clear evidence of a threat was identified, ‘and this is not normally the case’, no attempt was made to investigate or categorise them.
Mr Neville said the information held in the MoD files was ‘limited to the brief details of the sightings passed on to us by those who witnessed the phenomena.’ Most disappointing of all, the letter claimed the MoD had never carried out any study ‘into the scientific importance of these phenomena’. I soon realised that Neville’s letter followed a standard template sent out to members of the public since at least 1955. It is therefore no surprise that those who suspected the MoD knew far more about UFOs than it was prepared to admit, smelled a cover-up. But before the arrival of Freedom of Information, there was simply no way that anyone from outside the MoD could check if the official line was true or false. Allegations of cover-up came not just from the small minority of UFOlogists (as those who studied UFO sightings are known). Occasionally MPs, peers of the realm and even aircrew who witnessed unexplained phenomena in the sky had gone on record to claim the public were being misled by government denials.
Secrecy provides a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Layers of it surrounded many aspects of military operations and intelligence during the Cold War and the MoD’s interest in UFOs was no exception. My first correspondence with the ‘UFO desk’ made me even more determined to discover if there was any truth behind the claims made by the conspiracy industry. I was convinced that persistence, along with the careful use of new legislation that made access to official documents possible, could help me to peel back the layers of mystery that engulfed government interest in UFOs.
I soon realised that for much of the twentieth century the British public had no automatic right to examine any government papers. Individual requests for access to files relating to UFOs were treated in exactly the same way as those for any other category of public record, from hospital records to MPs’ expenses. Enquirers were told all government papers were retained for a minimum of 30 years before they were reviewed for preservation at The Public Record Office (as The National Archives was known until 2003). Any material deemed ‘sensitive’ could be withheld for longer periods and, in the case of some intelligence records, this could be 50 years or more.
But from 1994 John Major’s government introduced a limited right to access to records younger than 30 years. This legislation was known as ‘The Code of Practice for Access to Government Information’ and was a precursor to the full Freedom of Information Act promised by the Labour party under Tony Blair. From 1999 I began using the Code to frame specific requests for access to files on UFO sightings that had become causes célèbres. My first success came early in 2001 when, in response to a request under the Code, the MoD agreed to send me the papers they held on the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. The Rendlesham sightings were known to many as the British equivalent of the famous Roswell incident (see Chapter 5).
This was merely the opening salvo in what would become almost a full-time crusade for the disclosure of all British government papers on UFOs. By the time the Freedom of Information Act arrived in 2005, UFOs were among the three most popular subjects for requests received by the MoD. Behind the scenes, working with a small group of motivated colleagues, my strategy of using carefully targeted FOI requests to persuade the MoD and other government departments to reveal what they knew was gaining momentum. I soon became known throughout Whitehall as the MoD’s most ‘persistent correspondent’ on UFOs, and papers from my FOI campaign have been preserved for posterity in the files themselves.3
By 2005 more than 200 UFO files had already been opened to the public at The National Archives, but a similar number remained locked away in the MoD Main Building at Whitehall. Under normal circumstances the public would have had to wait at least 30 years before they were allowed to see them. Growing public demands for their full disclosure ultimately led the Ministry to transfer the remaining UFO files to The National Archives. How and why that decision was made is the real story at the heart of this book.
The release of ‘Britain’s X-files’ was closely followed by the international media and received extensive coverage from national and regional newspapers, radio and TV news. During the days that followed the opening of the first tranche in May 2008, The National Archives’ UFO webpage – set up to provide direct public access to the files – received more than 1.7 million visitors. This was more than double the number recorded for earlier online releases of documents, such as the Domesday Survey in 2006. Internet searches on UFOs tripled overnight across the globe and it was even reported that the bookmakers William Hill had lowered the odds of finding extraterrestrial life from 100/1 to 80/1.
Since the first media event, The National Archives UFO website has been visited more than 3 million times. Over 5.7 million pages have been viewed and more than 3.8 million documents have been downloaded. Visitors come from 160 different countries, with most from the United States (approximately 42 per cent) followed by the UK (35 per cent) and even South Korea (2 per cent) and China (1 per cent).
The National Archives UFO page, launched in 2008 following the transfer of MoD files to Kew. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos.
As the rolling disclosure programme continued, it seemed the public could not read enough about the files. Interest reached a peak in the summer of 2010 when a further 5,000 pages of information were released, including a story concerning British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s involvement in a wartime UFO sighting (see Chapter 1). This release alone generated no less than 196 separate news items in the national and international media and reached an estimated print/online readership of 25 million people.
Currently, The National Archives hold a complete collection of official UFO documents up to the present day. This consists of approximately 400 files dating from 1912 to 2009. The more recent are arranged thematically, with chronological sequences of UFO sighting report files beginning in 1962. One series follows the UFO desk’s protracted correspondence with members of the public, MPs and peers of the realm. Others deal with the evolution of British government policy on UFOs, Parliamentary questions, statistical analysis and media issues.
Of course the official paper trail is just one aspect of the UFO files story. Wherever possible I have followed up information I found in the files to track down and talk to those people who reported their experiences to the MoD and to those who were responsible for official investigations. What they had to say often casts new light on the nature of the MoD’s interest in UFOs and the twists and turns of official policy.
Those files that survive contain approximately 100,000 pages and this is a just a fraction of the total number that once existed. It is not possible, in a book of this size, to provide a comprehensive guide to the entire collection. The UFO Files is based upon a selection of the more fascinating highlights from the files and charts how the government, the scientific establishment and media have reacted to experiences that defy attempts to explain them.