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The National Archives issued this highlights guide in August 2009 to help readers navigate newly released Ministry of Defence UFO files. It explains how to use the PDF bookmarks and lists key stories highlighted by Dr David Clarke. These include the Rendlesham Forest incident, the 1989 to 1990 Belgian wave, the 1993 Cosford sightings (attributed to a re-entering Cosmos 2238 rocket), a Virgin airship over London, aircraft encounters and Bonnybridge. It also gives a regional index of file references to reports.
UFOs reported over Belgium - 1989-1990 A story which appears in a number of the files concerns a wave of sightings that occurred in Belgium during 1989-90. The files reveal how in March 1990 the Belgian Air Force scrambled F-16 fighters to intercept UFOs reported by police officers and others. An official statement from the Belgian Air Force sent to the MoD in November 1993 is at DEFE 24/1970 p86-87. A letter from Malcolm Rifkind to Lord Hill-Norton explains the MoD was not informed of the incident at the time and concluded there was no threat to the UK DEFE 24/1970 p58-59. In addition see (not an exhaustive list): DEFE 24/1970 p66, p70-71, p75-76 and p86-87 DEFE 24/1960 (p320-324) - a four-page account of the UFOs detected by NATO radars and F-16 fighters over Belgium in 1990, which remain unexplained. The account, from General Wilfried de Brouwer, Chief of Operations, Belgian Air Staff confirms that F-16 pilots obtained “lock-ons” with their radars but were unable to explain the phenomena. DEFE 24/1962 (p177-179) DEFE 24/1965 (p272) Cosford incident, 31 March 1993 The file DEFE 24/2086 covers sightings of bright lights seen across central England in the early hours by police officers and military witnesses (including a police patrol at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton). The file includes more than 30 sightings during a six- hour period. The MoD‟s UFO desk asked the RAF to replay radar tapes but this found nothing unusual had been detected. However, the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (ACAS), Sir Anthony Bagnall, was briefed that there was evidence a UFO had evaded UK defences. It soon emerged that the majority of sightings were caused by the Russian rocket that launched the Cosmos 2238 satellite, re-entering the earth‟s atmosphere. UFO sightings in London, 1993-94 Dozens of sightings of a brightly illuminated oval object were reported over London, caused by what was actually a Virgin airship advertising the launch of the Ford Mondeo. Some accounts include sketches and several people refused to believe the UFO was the airship (see DEFE 24/1963, 1959, 1960 – more details of pages are given in the regional highlights for London, below). Aircraft encounters A number of reports of UFOs sighted by pilots and air crews, along with near-misses between UFOs and airliners, are included in these files. DEFE 24/1961 (p381) – a “lit object” passed close to an aircraft approaching Manchester in January 1995 DEFE 24/1960 (p294) – a “black lozenge-shaped UFO” passed close to an aircraft over Berkshire in August 1994 DEFE 24/1963 (p198) – a UFO Solar balloon was blamed for an incident at Gatwick in July 1991 DEFE 24/1970 (p86-87), DEFE 24/1960 (p320-324) – UFOs seen by Belgian Air Force F-16 fighter pilots in March 1990 DEFE 24/1960 (p424-425) – An air crew flying from Moscow to Tokyo in March 1994 reported seeing a huge object was seen entering the Earth‟s atmosphere over the Arctic that created a shockwave 200 miles long. The crew reported that the UFO came in over the [North] pole at an estimated speed of 10-15,000mph. They initially
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 8 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.