The Great British Flying Saucer Hoax: Six Saucers Across Southern England (1967)

The apprentices of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough had a reputation for pranks. In 1967 a group of them planned something bigger for Rag Week. Chris Southall, 21, led it, with co-organiser Roger Palmer. Over roughly eight months, from January to September, they built six saucers in the apprentices' workshop. Each cost about £30.

The shells were glass-fibre-reinforced polyester resin, the gel-coat mixed with aluminium powder. Joined and polished, each looked like "a smooth, solid form of dull aluminium with no joints, holes or protrusions." Inside sat a loudspeaker, a transistor oscillator, a mercury switch and a battery. Tip the saucer and the sound changed. The rest held about 60 lb of fermenting flour-and-water paste.

Overnight into 4 September, around 2 a.m., six teams of two or three set the saucers down along a line across southern England. From the Isle of Sheppey in Kent to Dial Hill at Clevedon in Somerset. Then morning came. In Clevedon, 15-year-old paperboy Neil Batey found one. In Chippenham, farmer Dick Jennings and his daughter Mary Puntis found another in a field at Elm Tree Farm. Silvery. Seamless. Bleeping. Postal worker Eva Rood found one at Welford. Caddy Harry Huxley found one at Sundridge Park Golf Club in Bromley. Christopher Lever found one in a horse paddock at Winkfield.

Somerset Police Sergeant John Durston studied his. "The object does look just as one imagines a spaceship should look." RAF officer David Pepper said he "had never seen anything like it."

Police forces, the Army's Southern Command, bomb disposal teams, RAF helicopters and Ministry of Defence intelligence all moved. At Chippenham, Army Captain Freddie Cantrell opened the saucer with plastic explosives. On the Isle of Sheppey, by one account, an RAF helicopter lifted a saucer and its crew was sprayed with putrid paste. Scotland Yard bomb disposal X-rayed another. One went to AWE Aldermaston. In Clevedon, engineer Reg Willard first took the liquid for "pig swill."

A newspaper reporter knew the apprentices' taste for pranks. The same day, the hoax was exposed. Southall explained: "We believe Flying Saucers may land one day so we thought we would give the authorities a bit of practise." Frank Dummett of Wiltshire police called it "obviously a very elaborate hoax… exceedingly well organized."

Charges were considered. Wasting police time. Littering. "Causing public mischief." None were brought. At the RAE, Chief Engineer F.H. Beer said: "I thought it was a very fine effort." The stunt raised its £2,000 target for charity.

In March 2011, Ministry of Defence papers were released to The National Archives. They called it an "(obviously very successful) practical joke." Investigating officers had been reminded of the Official Secrets Act, because the ministry did not want to reveal how it investigated UFOs. Speaking to NBC News in 2011, David Clarke said the episode raised questions about whether anyone would be prepared for a real incident.

Some threads never closed. A seventh saucer appeared on a traffic island on Kingsway in central London. Its origins are unknown. In Bromley, Cynthia Tooth reported seeing the saucer fall from the sky at night. Residents of "Lower Spanton" reported a silver "flying bubble." At Bicester, motorists saw a silver "cigar-shaped" object. Nobody has tied these to the plant. UK sighting reports rose from 95 in 1966 to 362 in 1967, though no source shows the hoax caused the rise. Chris Southall later became an environmental activist who builds geodesic domes. In 2025, John Keeling told the whole story in his book LANDED!.