Unidentified Flying Objects research guide

Soviet expansion. Reports and correspondence between the Foreign Office, Air Ministry
and the British air attaché in Stockholm are contained in FO 371/56988 and FO
371/56951. An air intelligence report on the ‘ghost rockets’ of 1946 can be found in AIR
40/2843.
Reports of ghost rockets preceded by six months the first sightings of ‘flying saucers’
over the mainland of the United States. In December 1947 the newly created US Air
Force set up a project, code-named Sign to investigate the growing mystery. USAF
Lieutenant General Nathan F Twining's initial conclusion was ‘the phenomenon reported
is something real and not imaginary or fictitious.’ (See further reading)
3. British Government interest, 1950-1951
The British Government did not begin any official inquiry into the UFO mystery until
1950. During the spring and summer of that year a large number of 'flying saucer'
sightings were made in Britain for the first time and the media started to take an interest.
Two Sunday newspapers serialised the first books on the topic that had been published
in the USA. This led a number of senior figures, both in the establishment and the
scientific community to treat the subject seriously for the first time. The Sunday Dispatch
was encouraged to publish stories by Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was later to become
Chief of Defence Staff. Mountbatten was one of a small group of influential military
officials who believed UFOs were real and of interplanetary origin.
Another senior official who took reports of UFOs seriously was Sir Henry Tizard. He is
best known for his work on the development of radar before the Second World War.
Post-war Tizard became Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence and came to
believe that ‘reports of flying saucers should not be dismissed without some
investigation’ (DEFE 41/74). It was as a direct result of his influence that the MoD was
asked to set up a small team of experts to investigate reports of flying saucers under the
Directorate of Scientific Intelligence/Joint Technical Intelligence Committee (DSI/JTIC).
The Flying Saucer Working Party operated under such secrecy that its existence was
known to very few. However, a reference to a study of flying saucers emerged in 1988
when a file of correspondence between Winston Churchill and the Air Ministry was
opened under the 30-year rule, PREM 11/855. On 28 July 1952 the Prime Minister
asked the Air Minister: 'What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What
can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience.' The
response, dated 9 August 1952, began 'The various reports about unidentified flying
objects, described by the Press as “flying saucers”, were the subject of a full intelligence
study in 1951'.
Several unsuccessful attempts were made to trace this study but in 1998 the minutes of
the DSI/JTIC were released in DEFE 41/74 and DEFE 41/75. These revealed how the
working party was established in August 1950 under the following terms of reference:
• 1. To review the available evidence in reports of 'Flying Saucers'.
• 2. To examine from now on the evidence on which reports of British origin of
phenomena attributed to 'Flying Saucers' are based.
• 3. To report to DSI/JTIC as necessary.
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