Ministry of Defense (MoD -- UK) Reveals Real Life UFO Files
Sam Marsden
A PASSENGER jet coming in to land at a British airport had a near miss with a UFO, according to newly released Ministry of Defence files.
The captain of the Italian airliner was so concerned, he shouted "look out" to his co-pilot after seeing a brown, missile-shaped object shoot past them overhead.
The incident near Lydd in Kent in 1991 was investigated by the Civil Aviation Authority and the military.
But having ruled out the object being a missile, weather balloon or space rocket, the MoD closed the inquiry and left the matter unsolved.
The unexplained close encounter is one of many recounted in military UFO documents made available online today by the National Archives.
The 19 files cover sightings between 1986 and 1992.
The incident involving the Alitalia airliner happened at about 8pm on April 21, 1991.
The McDonnell Douglas MD80 aircraft was en route from Milan to Heathrow Airport at 22,000ft with 57 people on board when pilot Achille Zaghetti saw the strange object 1000ft above him.
He told investigators: "At once, I said, 'Look out, look out,' to my co-pilot, who looked out and saw what I had seen.
"As soon as the object crossed us, I asked the area control centre operator if he saw something on his screen and he answered, 'I see an unknown target 10 nautical miles behind you'."
A CAA document notes that Southern TV broadcast a story about a 14-year-old boy who reported seeing a missile flying at low level before climbing through the cloud and disappearing on the same evening.
Radar images of the UFO were labelled "cruise missile??" but it was quickly established that it was not a military weapon.
By July 2, the MoD had concluded that the object had not come from Army firing ranges in the Lydd area and that there was no known "space-related activity" that night.
An unnamed Whitehall official wrote: "It is our intention to treat this sighting like that of any other unidentified flying object and, therefore, we will not be undertaking any further investigation."
There were a number of other similar incidents recorded the same year.
On June 17, four passengers on board a Dan Air Boeing 737 saw a "wingless projectile" pass beneath the aircraft as it climbed from Gatwick Airport.
Gatwick air traffic control were alerted but said they were "unaware of anything unusual occurring at that time".
The MoD said a weather balloon had been released in the area but noted that the description and timing did not match.
On July 15, the pilot of a Britannia Airways 737 reported seeing a "small black lozenge-shaped object" travelling at speed as they approached Gatwick.
An investigation found that the object "did not seem to fit any recognisable piece of aviation equipment" and failed to reach a firm conclusion.
Crop circle cover-up
THE MoD tried to stop military helicopter crews photographing crop circles for fear that this contradicted the official line that they had no interest in the phenomenon.
In 1991, the Centre For Crop Circle Studies wrote to the MoD, saying aircraft had hovered over fields where the patterns had appeared and on at least one occasion taken pictures.
This concerned the MoD so much that they wrote to Army and Navy chiefs, asking them to ensure this did not happen again.
But both services refused, saying they would "not be taken seriously" by air crews if they issued such an edict and suggesting the department was being "over-sensitive towards the UFO lobby".
The department then replied to to the Centre For Crop Circle Studies' letter.
An unidentified official insisted: "I should state at the outset that the Ministry of Defence has no interest in crop circles and is conducting no research or investigation into this phenomenon.
"There can be no question of MoD resources being used to support investigation of the crop phenomenon."
Woman claimed to be alien
ONE of the more bizarre letters in the MoD's UFO files came from a woman who claimed to be an alien.
In March 1990, she insisted her spaceship landed in Britain during World War II and was found by the military.
She wrote: "The crashed vehicle contained two males from Spectra, a planet orbiting the star Zeta Tucanae, and a female from one of the two inhabited planets in the Sirius system, Amazon, the planet of warrior women. That female was me.
"Whilst my body lay in the UFO, I was taken into the Spectra computer.
That was a strange experience.
"The parents of my present body were chosen in 1940. They saw a rocket-shaped UFO trailing a blue flame.
Although Spectra rule me, they will not tell me why I am here."
She included a sketch of herself in a flowing gown alongside a Spectran with "Oriental features, no hair and 'Mr Spock' ears".
In 1991, another letter told of an encounter with aliens near Warminster barracks in Wiltshire.
The author wrote: "Saddam Hussein might be a threat to world peace but he won't last long. Flying saucers are a bigger threat."
The MoD don't appear to have replied.
Pilot told to shoot down UFO
FORMER American fighter pilot Milton Torres was ordered to shoot at a UFO over England in the 1950s.
The aircraft got away before he could fire - but Torres, now 77, is convinced it was an alien spaceship.
Torres had been scrambled from RAF Manston in Kent to chase the object, which he says was about the size of a B52 bomber and travelling at more than10 times the speed of sound.
He said: "I think it was an alien spacecraft. It had a propulsion system that was beyond us - either magnetism or anti-gravity."
The retired professor says a man claiming to be from the US National Security Agency threatened him with losing his flying status if he told anyone what happened.
But he finally revealed his experience at a veterans' reunion in 1988.