UFOS - the serious new deep political research topic?

[David Guyatt]

I think the following article clearly explains the historic interest shown by the RAF in the topic of UFO's.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk...950460.ece

From The Sunday Times
March 22, 2009

Is that a flying saucer? No, it’s a stealth bomber

Jack Grimston

INTELLIGENCE officers scoured hundreds of UFO sighting reports in the 1980s and 1990s looking for top-secret American stealth-plane projects, newly released files have shown.

At the end of the cold war, the Ministry of Defence was worried that America was developing mysterious planes but not telling its closest ally. Staff at department DI55 of the Defence Intelligence Staff logged and investigated hundreds of sightings by pilots, air-traffic controllers and private individuals who believed they had seen an alien presence.

“The MoD did not believe Britain was being visited by aliens but these files show they were obsessed with the fear that our closest ally was developing spy planes and keeping them secret from us,” said David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, and UFO specialist at the National Archives (which today releases hundreds of official UFO files on its website).

In one incident logged in 1989, an oil-rig worker trained in aircraft observation saw a “perfect black triangle” escorted by two American fighters. An official noted: “Attention is now focusing on this, despite a recent US Air Force ‘denial briefing’. This is bound to prompt parliamentary interest.” In 1990, the crews of six RAF Tornado jets flying over Germany reported seeing a UFO. Staff at RAF West Drayton, where many sightings were initially collated, noted that the pilots had reported the “aerial phenomenon” overtaking them, and said: “Possibly idented [identified] as a stealth aircraft.”

In another 1990 incident, the MoD believed two men had had a chance sighting of a spy-plane called Aurora, thought to be in development by the Americans. They reported a diamond-shaped UFO above the A9 at Calvine near Pitlochry, Perthshire.

The intelligence task sheet notes: “Sensitivity of material suggests very special handling . . . minimum handling by listed personnel.” The files, the latest in a series of UFO reports being released by the MoD, also settle a long-standing UFO conspiracy theory – the death of American fighter pilot Captain William Schaffner during an exercise over the North Sea in 1970. To the distress of his family, it has been claimed by some that officials covered up a sinister incident possibly involving a UFO.

The files include the RAF’s official inquiry into the crash, which concluded Schaffner’s Lightning fighter had brushed the sea during a delicate, low-speed manoeuvre.

When he tried to eject, the cockpit canopy remained stuck because of poor maintenance, and Schaffner is believed to have drowned.

The vast majority of the files record calls from the public reporting various cigar-shaped objects, mysterious lights and saucer-shaped craft.

In 1989, RAF Wattisham in Suffolk was phoned by a “distressed female” who described being engaged in conversation by an alien with a Scandinavian accent while walking her dog. The alien then departed in his spaceship.

The same year, the RAF was told of a large flying object seen approaching “from Filton airport” by a “pleasant lady” from her sofa in Bristol. It had an object on top “like a teapot lid”.

In 1992, a secret memo reported nocturnal sightings in the eastern suburbs of London of “a bright cigar-shaped object, moving very slowly and making little or no sound”.

An intelligence analyst recorded that the craft was “almost certainly a brightly illuminated airship advertising the new Ford Mondeo”.

See UFO files at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos