Odd, intriguing and alarming UFO files released
• US pilot was ordered to fire missiles at blip on screen
• MoD makes papers public after enthusiasts' pleas
* Ian Sample, science correspondent
* The Guardian,
* Monday October 20 2008
* Article history
On a cloudy night in Kent, Milton Torres, a US air force fighter pilot based at RAF Manston, was scrambled to intercept a UFO. Ordered to go full throttle towards East Anglia, within minutes he was 15 miles from a mysterious blip that looked as big as a B-52 bomber on his screen. He was ordered to fire a full salvo of 24 missiles, but before he could, the object vanished.
Details about the incident, on May 20, 1957, appear among 19 files released by the Ministry of Defence and newly revealed by the National Archives. It is the second tranche of UFO files to be made public since a handful were released in May.
The reports range from the bizarre to the intriguing. There is the Alitalia pilot who shouted to his co-pilot to "look out" as a brown, missile-shaped object shot past the cockpit, and a sketchy self-portrait of a pointy-eared woman in a gown, who told the MoD she had crashlanded on Earth during the second world war, having left her home planet of warrior women.
The MoD released the files, covering 1986 to 1992, after a flood of requests from enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists who are convinced the truth is out there.
Details of the East Anglia event only emerged after Torres, who was warned never to mention it, did discuss it with a military historian at a reunion at RAF Manston in 1988. The MoD, whose policy until 1967 was to destroy UFO files every five years, had no data on the event.
An account from Torres, now 77 and living in Florida, describes his anxiety at failing to fire after struggling to read codes on a scrap of paper in the cockpit of his F-86D plane. "It was totally black and the lights were down for night flying. I used my flashlight, still trying to fly and watch my radar. To put it quite candidly, I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," he said.
David Clarke, a UFO expert at Sheffield Hallam University, said: "If the UFO had turned out to be a civil aircraft that had strayed off its course, it could have been a major international incident, and yet it's been airbrushed out of history."
He believed the pilot was a guinea pig in a test of the Palladium system, developed by the US to make "phantom" aircraft appear on Soviet radars.
Another incident in Britain, in April 1991, recorded a captain of an Alitalia airliner, flying at an altitude of more than four miles on route to Heathrow from Milan, seeing a missile-like object. At first this was labelled "cruise missile?" but it was quickly found not to be a military weapon. There were a number of similar sightings within the next six months. Four passengers on a Dan Air Boeing 737 spotted a "wingless projectile" flying under their plane.
Other papers reveal the MoD's sensitivity to military helicopters taking pictures of crop circles, which they feared would undermine the line that the government had no interest in the phenomenon.
Documents also relate how a Tina Turner concert triggered a spate of UFO sightings in London in 1989, and how one person was "contacted by aliens" descended from "legendary feathered serpents from ancient Peru".
Clarke said the papers showed the government could not conceal anything and that people were not going to find "that elusive bit of evidence that proves we're being visited by aliens".
Good article highlighting the news that the UK Govt have released more UFO files under the FOIA.
ReplyDeleteWe can be sure, however, that the juicy bits have long been shredded or filed away in a distant repository long ago.
The 1957 interception case is intriguing.But we should be hesitant at jumping to conclusions, hower, as nowhere does it state that the pilot or any ground observer saw the UFO. It appears to have been only a radar contact case and therefore may have been an anomlaous radar return, or even a top secret military weapon with then purpose of creating a radar return.
The 1957 Bentwaters case provided far more material of interest which involved radar and visual observation with military cradft over East Anglia.
The other accounts sem very interesting inclusing the missile-like object spotted by several observers. Despite exhaustive invetsigations the object coold not be identified and we seem to have a rare genuine case of a UFO some kind of structured craft with intelligence.
If there are UFO's it is likely just some military or otherwise government "inspired" exercise. There are I'm sure, perfectly reasonable explanations and nothing to be alarmed about. I personally don't believe in alien beings.
ReplyDelete"It is likely" is not a sufficient rational, logical or indeed scientific explanation to account for the many eyewitness reports and documented trace evidence, photographic/video and radar evidence available.
ReplyDeleteWhen there are well-documented reports by many military and civilians observers of a ground landing and entities eg Rendlesham Forest case, 1980, involving the US military authorities occurring next to a (former) USAF air base in East anglia housing nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War, then "surely" questions have to be asked and one is entitled to be "alarmed" by the ease at which unidentifed craft have landed so near to a live military base.
Are the authorities helpless in the face of such occurrences, or are they allowing such encounters?
We need to be told!
Whether you or anyone else "believes" or "doesn't believe" in alien beings, UFOs or whate ver is irrelvent. The fact of the matter is that there is sufficient evidence to show that someting anomalous is going on that is beyound our present understanding.
The fact that humanity has been encountering beings that do not represent humanity for hundreds, if not, thousands of years, has demostated by the reports of beings as faeiries, is indicative enough of a phenomenon that cannot be easily swept aside with canons such as "I do not believe" , etc.
The fact that humanity has been encountering beings that do not represent humanity for hundreds, if not, thousands of years, has demostated by the reports of beings as faeiries, is indicative enough of a phenomenon that cannot be easily swept aside with canons such as "I do not believe" , etc.--Mr. Potter
ReplyDeleteMy response wasn't logical or rational but the possibility of the existence of fairies or aliens is? Surely you must understand why many would dismiss those claims.
When E.T. personally comes down from space and invites me aboard his ship to slug back some tranya while having a tour, I'll believe in little green men.
ReplyDeleteIs it probable there is life 'out there'? Sure. But, like I said, I'll believe it when I see it.
JMHO.
Lormarie replied...
ReplyDelete"My response wasn't logical or rational but the possibility of the existence of fairies or aliens is? Surely you must understand why many would dismiss those claims."
A good point Lormarie - and yes, I understand why many would dismiss those claims.
But I would argue that it is more logical and scientific to accept the validity of eyewitnes testimoney and experience,to collect that and any other evidence and to collate it in a scientific manner. that is the purpose and modus operandi (or it should be though science has frequently been corrupted itself by academic peressures, political pressures and by personal beliefs as much as any other field of human endeavour sadly).
The existence of such eyewitness testimoey is a rich field for psychologists, sociologists and folklorists. The problem is that "science" attacks the subject of UFOs as nonsense because it has its own ideology based on an outdated persception of the Universe, one which is Cartesian in notion. Even so-caled "ufologists" fail to study the subject scientifically as they too are often obsessed with such things as extraterrestrials and the modern dat folklore of that subject, along with government coverups etc. Often the "ufologists" themslves are responsible for the darknes sof that subject, covering up evidence or inventing evidence, in order to justify their own beliefs and paranoia.
No,what is needed is pure objective study, free from bias and prejudice and academic pressures. In the Victorian and Edwwardian period folklorists did a great job in speaking to the countrymen in rural districts, colecting stories of strange animals and beings, and many faeiry accounts.
Today, reasonable students of the subject of UFOS and related "disciplines" are beginning to realis ethat the faery phenomenon still continues to this day, even in the UK, and bears remarkable efatures to the beings and events described in accounts of UFO encounters and so-called abduction accounts.
Those who study comparative religions and hallucinatory drug use are beginning to realis that not only are folklorist accounts of faery encounters similar to UFO encounters but the accounts of those (both Western man and the indigenous peoples of, say Amazonia) who regularly use particular drugs in their religious rituals describe EXACTLY the same kind of beings and events as the above.
What we are at last beginning to glimpse now is the existence of other dimensions that can interact with humanity, which have their own inner ecology, and which have always existed with man on this planet, and have - at times - guided and even manipulated mankind.
Therefore, in brief, the beliefs of those who causally ignore or reject such accounts of say, faery or UFO encounters, do so with a technological-orientated and rational bigotry that owes as much as to religion as any other ideology. One cannot dismiss the valid acounts of individuals who experience such phenomenon as contrary to "rationality" or "consenus reality" any more than one can dismiss any other claim. To do so is the sign of a mechanistic and hyper-rational ideology that is embedded deep within the mindset of a secularist, anti-spiritual, technology-obsessed and materialistic worldview.
Faery and UFO experiences may indeed appear to be illogical or irrational to our current materialistic worldview but it is our worldview that is currently illogical and out of kilter with the actual reality that we exist in.
Ano said...
ReplyDelete"When E.T. personally comes down from space and invites me aboard his ship to slug back some tranya while having a tour, I'll believe in little green men.
Is it probable there is life 'out there'? Sure. But, like I said, I'll believe it when I see it."
No need to believe in little green men. You need to believe in yourself and the realities that exist outside of your narrow consensual reality. You need to think outside of the consensual opinions, beliefs and ideologies given to us by career-minded scientists, politicians and religionists. Think of "The Matrix" and decide what colour pill
you want to take. If you read this column then you are likely to be a nationalist or someone who thinks independently. Do so where it concerns reality and who determines the realities that we accept.