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The National Archives published this edited extract from Chapter 2 of David Clarke's 2009 book The UFO Files, which draws on Ministry of Defence UFO records. It covers Stan Hubbard's 1950 Farnborough sightings, which the Flying Saucer Working Party attributed to optical illusion or normal aircraft. It also covers Churchill's 1952 memo asking about flying saucers, the Topcliffe sighting during Operation Mainbrace, a Meteor crew's sighting from Little Rissington, and RAF research concluding that most radar 'angels' were birds.
“UFO Files”8 pages
in air intelligence and retired at the rank of Air Commodore, vividly remembers this encounter. The circular, plate-like objects were also clearly observed by his student, Lieutenant David Crofts. They became visible when the Meteor punched through a layer of cloud at around 12,000 ft. Ini- tially Swiney thought they were three parachutes descending towards them. Crofts described them as elliptical in shape and iridescent, like circular pieces of glass reflecting the sun. Shaken, Swiney abandoned the training flight and reported the sighting to ground control. The objects, stationary at first, appeared to change pos- T H E F LY I N G S A U C E R A G E 4 9 FIg.16 A sighting of a ‘flying saucer’ by RAF Shackleton aircrew inYorkshire during a NATO exercise made news headlines in September 1952. FIg.17 Details of the Topcliffe incident were circulated to Air Ministry intelligence in this message dated 20 September 1952. aIR 20 /7390
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