Heathrow "Rugby Ball" UFO Near Miss (Airprox 2013086)

Britain's Ministry of Defence no longer investigates UFOs. One official body still looks closely at strange encounters in British airspace. The UK Airprox Board examines near misses involving aircraft and reports to the Civil Aviation Authority. Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University, a consultant on The National Archives UFO files, calls it "the only remaining official body in the UK with a remit to conduct detailed investigations."

19 July 2013. A Thomas Cook Airlines Airbus A320, flight TCX24HX, registration G-KKAZ, was flying from Ibiza to Manchester. It was cruising at 34,000 feet and 516 mph over Reading, about 20 miles west of Heathrow Airport. The time was 6:35 p.m. It was still daylight.

The captain looked through the left-hand cockpit window. Something was coming. It was bright silver, apparently metallic, and "cigar/rugby ball like." It seemed to be heading straight for the aircraft. The captain "was under the apprehension that they were on collision course with no time to react." The report goes on: "His immediate reaction was to duck to the right and reach over to alert the [First Officer]; there was no time to talk to alert him."

"The Captain was fully expecting to experience some kind of impact." None came. The object passed within a few feet above the aircraft. "Did you see that?" the captain asked. The first officer replied, "See what?"

The captain checked the instruments and called air traffic control. Controllers had seen no conflicting traffic and no radar return. Military radar operators could not trace the object either. No photograph was taken. The report went public in early January 2014, and the Telegraph broke the story. A follow-up later that month named the airline, the flight and the aircraft. Thomas Cook said: "All our pilots are trained and required to report any unexpected events that occur during the flight to the aviation authorities."

The Board logged the encounter as Airprox Report 2013086. It checked the traced aircraft in the area against data recordings. It ruled out weather balloons, since none had been released nearby. Toy balloons were excluded because they cannot reach that height. Nothing showed on military radar.

Its conclusion was brief. It was "not possible to trace the object or determine the likely cause of the sighting." No one has suggested the crew invented the report. It was a mandatory safety filing, and the Board offered no conventional explanation.

Clarke set the case beside another A320 encounter. On 2 December 2012, at Glasgow Airport, an object "bigger than a balloon" passed roughly 300 ft below an airliner on final approach. It was never traced. Clarke also noted aircrew's reluctance to report such sightings. He cited a 2012 FOI request that found ten UFO sightings logged by the CAA from 2004 to 2011, plus five more Airprox cases.

The blogger Micah Hanks reached further back. He tied the silver shape over Reading to the "ghost rocket" tradition of phantom projectiles in European skies. The official record holds a small silver object, a few feet above a flight deck at 34,000 feet. It holds no answer.