Aliens? No, just the Pentagon playing with its latest toys[UK]

Daily Mail ^ | 23 Mar 2009 | Luke Salkeld

[BGHater]

A flurry of UFO sightings was troubling the spooks at the Ministry of Defence.

Hundreds had been reported, by everyone from RAF pilots over Scotland to a woman walking her dog in Norfolk.

But it wasn't the threat of an alien invasion that tormented defence officials during this period of overhead hyperactivity at the end of the 1980s.

Their theory was that our American allies had been building and testing stealth aircraft and spy planes without telling us.

In fact,in many cases they were probably right.

A series of simple,almost childish drawings produced by some of the witnesses have just been released from secret files.

And many appear to show the angular lines of a stealth fighter.Not all the sightings could be explained this way,however.

One woman claimed to have spoken to an alien with a Scandinavian accident while a series of reported sightings in London turned out to be an airship advertising the latest model of the Ford Mondeo.

Details of around 1,200 UFO sightings have come to light after seven files produced by the DI55 branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff from November 1987 to April 1993 were released by the National Archives.

The stealth bomber and fighter – aircraft that are almost invisible to radar because of their shape and the materials used to build them – are now a major element in the U.S. Air Force. Russia is also developing models.

But in the late 1980s the MoD was watching for evidence that either side was developing the technology.

And the files just released provide a fascinating insight into that obsession.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, said the documents showed the MoD was 'not in the slightest bit interested in aliens'.

[JoeProBono]

[SnakeDoctor]

I have always figured the Roswell, UFO, alien nonsense was a useful and clever cover for military tests.

SnakeDoc

[Gitche Gumee]