Revealed: How the government probed Britain's greatest UFO mystery

telegraph.co.uk ^ | 22 Mar 2009 | Chris Hastings and Jasper Copping

[JoeProBono]

Declassified government files have revealed how Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials launched a top-level probe into a diamond shaped aircraft seen hovering above a Scottish village. Officials were so alarmed by the object, which was captured on camera, that they broke with established procedures and referred the sighting to ministers. They also overrode rules prohibiting investigations into UFO sightings not considered an immediate threat to national security, and spent more than a year trying to crack the still unexplained mystery. The disclosure about the incident is contained in more than 1,000 pages of official documentation, detailing hundreds of UFO sightings between 1987 and 1993, which has been made available publicly at the National Archives in Kew for the first time today. Their release comes at a time of increased reports of UFO activity in Britain.

[JoeProBono]

The Ministry of Defence are thought to have taken the unexplained sighting very seriously Photo: THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES/ PA WIRE

The files show that a year after the original photographs were taken, the MoD tasked experts to produce line drawings of the UFO which would give officials an idea of scale.

Even the creation of the drawings was shrouded in strict secrecy. One undated document suggests "very special handling" because of "sensitivity of the material". It also orders "minimum handling by listed personnel".

[silverleaf]

a lot of nothing about swamp gas and weather balloons, eh

[JoeProBono]

Scotland 1979

[simonpaul]

I wish the world would wake up and realize that UFO’s are demons. We will never have physical evidence of UFO’s - just photgraphs and images captured on film. Why? Because they are non-physical beings - but entities from a spiritual realm looking to divert peoples attention away from the supreme creator - The Almighty GOD.

[Levante]

And there was also the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980, involving the USAF:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident

[Mariner]

"I wish the world would wake up and realize that UFO’s are demons. We will never have physical evidence of UFO’s - just photgraphs and images captured on film. Why? Because they are non-physical beings - but entities from a spiritual realm looking to divert peoples attention away from the supreme creator - The Almighty GOD".

Gee, that sounds Talibanesque...

[JoeProBono]

BBC NEWS: MoD took UFO sighting seriously

[waxer1]

Why do you say that? They are real. My brother and I had an experience when I was a teenager.

[CivilWarguy]

Joe, your display might be more credible if you spell the city’s name, “Glasgow”, correctly. If you post about a UFO sighting at “Glascow”, Scotland, you’ll deserve to be laughed at.

[FreeManWhoCan]

I think simonpaul makes a good point. If people believed in faries and Aleister Crowley spoke to greys (http://www.boudillion.com/lam/lam.htm) why could they not be something else besides little green men, Lemurians, or time travelers?

[JoeProBono]

What you see is how it came...prepackaged ;-}

[simonpaul]

What does UFO’s have to do with the Taliban? The Taliban is a muslim sect - straw man...

We are talking about hundreds of years of documented photographs and footage of strange ship like objects in the sky not known to man.

To disregard this as weather balloons and toy ships on fishing lines is ridiculous.

The bible provides the best explanation. Yes, we are living in a spiritual world.

[Vaduz]

A kite a upside down pan with large lid and a hub cap from a 1956 oldsmobile.

[JoeProBono]

By George you've got it!

[JoeProBono]

Talibanesque

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Not just hundreds of years...

[DCPatriot]

Welcome to FreeRepublic....I think. ;^)

[thecabal]

Thanks for the link. It is pretty wild, but very interesting. You can chalk me up as one who suspects that the “greys” phenomena could be manifestation of evil spiritual forces.

[Las Vegas Dave]

J.Allen Hynek deeply regretted that he used the term "swamp gas for at the Michigan sighting;

< SNIP > J. Allen Hynek's own writings, "The press conference, however, turned out to be no place for scholarly discussion: it was a circus. The TV cameramen wanted me in one spot, the newspaper men wanted me in another, and for a while both groups were actually tugging at me. Everyone was clamoring for a single, spectacular explanation of the sightings. They wanted little green men. When I handed out a statement that discussed swamp gas, many of the men simply ignored the fact that I said it was a "possible" reason. I watched with horror as one reported scanned the page, found the phrase "swamp gas," underlined it, and rushed for a telephone.

Too many of the stories the next day not only said that swamp gas was definitely the cause of the Michigan lights but implied that it was the cause of other UFO sightings as well. I got out of town as quickly and as quietly as I could.< /snip >

http://www.cohenufo.org/sepost_66_hynek.2.html#hynekmichigan

By the way, the Scotland 1979 UFO photo(below)

is nearly identical to the McMinneville UFO photos taken in 1950...

[thecabal]

Yes, that does look like the very same object that is depicted in the famous McMinnville photos. FWIW, I have seen some interesting things in the sky near McMinnville. Not saying it was aliens, but I don’t know WTF it was.