Documents / Document

The UFO files extract

The National Archives · 22 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

Open the PDF at page 5 Original source ↗

“RAF”14 pages

  • p. 6 …A G E 4 3 FIg.14 RAF test pilot Stan Hubbard, whose 1950 sighting triggered…
  • p. 7 …On this occasion he was standing with five other serving RAF airmen on the watch-tower…
  • p. 8 …had swelled to more than a dozen RAF personnel. ‘They were awestruck,’ Hubbard recalls, ‘but not…
  • p. 11 …circular silver object above the airfield at RAF Topcliffe, NorthYorkshire, on the afternoon of 19 September…
  • p. 12 …A sighting of a ‘flying saucer’ by RAF Shackleton aircrew inYorkshire during a NATO exercise made…
  • p. 13 …extract from the Operations Record Book of RAF Little Rissington that includes a sighting of ‘three…
  • p. 14 …Unexplained phenomena had been tracked on RAF radars early in the Sec- ond World War (see…
  • p. 15 …Selected RAF radar stations around the east coast were asked to send film from their radar…
  • p. 16 …This was brought home to me during a visit to a busy RAF radar control centre…
  • p. 17 …Walter 57 Bentine, Michael 25, 28 Bentwaters, RAF 64, 103, 108 Berkner, Dr Lloyd 57 Berlitz…
  • p. 18 …Watching the Skies 51 Greene, Francis 78 Greenham Common, RAF 106 Grigg Committee (1957) 9 H…
  • p. 19 …17 McDonald, Air Vice Marshal Bill 54 Machrihanish, RAF 136 Manston, RAF 67 Mantell, Captain Thomas…
  • p. 20 …67–8 Trefgarne, Lord David 109 Trimingham, RAF 52 Truman, President Harry 46 Tudor, Rear-Admiral…
  • p. 21 …UFO panic (1952) 46, 57 Wattisham, RAF 120–1 Watton, RAF 108 Waycott, Clifford 73 Weeden…
CHAPTER TWO ‘There may be flying saucers and there may not
be. But this was something I have never seen before.’
Sunday Dispatch, 21 September 1952
THE FLYING
SAUCER AGEAN EXTRACT
T his is an edited extract from Chapter 2 of The UFO Files
by David Clarke, published September 2009 by The
National Archives. This book is largely based upon the
real-life accounts of UFO experiences recorded in files collected
by Britain’s Ministry of Defence ( MoD ), many of which are today
held by The National Archives, based in Kew, Richmond. Where
applicable, National Archives document references are given in
the text; original documents can be searched on the Catalogue at
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue and viewed online at
DocumentsOnline ( www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline ).
6 S T R A N G E L I G H T S I N T H E S K I E S

Cited by

Cases discussed

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 22 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.