This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United Kingdom. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release, between 2008 and 2013, of the Ministry of Defence’s UFO sighting reports by the National Archives. In recent years, there have been many sightings of groups of slowly moving lights in the night sky, which can be easily explained as Chinese lanterns. Undertaken between 1997 and 2000, Project Condign concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the UK could be attributed to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena.[1]
12th century
- 1113: Religious pilgrims in South West England reported seeing a glowing fire-belching “dragon” emerge from the sea, flying into the air, and disappearing into the sky.[2][unreliable source?]
13th century
- January 1254: In St. Albans, England, a scribe wrote of a glowing floating light, thus recorded it, “…in serene sky and clear air, with stars shining and the Moon eight days old, there suddenly appeared in the sky a kind of large ship elegantly shaped, well equipped and of marvellous colour.”[2][unreliable source?]
- 1290: Friars of Byland Abbey, described of “a flat, round shining silvery object” flying overhead of them.[2][unreliable source?]However, this report is a hoax perpetrated by two teenagers in the 1950s.[3][4]
20th century
1940s
- February 1942: A woman named Eileen Arnold was walking down Cheltenham High Street when she suddenly experienced an altered state of consciousness as she became “tuned into another reality”. She became aware of a large oval shape moving slowly above the rooftops. She stated that it radiated light from holes in its side and had quills which detached one by one, also emitting light. Following the encounter, Eileen believed she had numerous psychic experiences.[5]
- September 1942: Albert Lancaster believed he was abducted by aliens while working as a guard at a radar site near Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland. He claimed to have a sudden urge to go outside, followed by a “strange impulse to look at the sky.” He claims he saw a glowing light surrounded by dark mist and, assuming it to be a German weapon, went to raise the alarm before being struck by a beam of light from the cloud, followed by a floating sensation, then becoming aware he was back at his post. After this experience, he believed he had psychic powers for a period of time.[5]
- 5 August 1944: According to records released on 5 August 2010, British wartime PM Winston Churchill banned the reporting, for fifty years, of an alleged UFO incident because of fears it could create mass panic. Reports given to Churchill claimed the incident involved a Royal Air Force (RAF) reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany. Allegedly, when flying over or near the English coastline, the aircraft was suddenly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched its course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing. The plane’s crew were reported to have photographed the object, which they said had “hovered noiselessly” near the aircraft, before moving off.[6] According to the documents, details of the cover-up emerged when a man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident. He described how his grandfather, who served with the RAF in the Second World War, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight Eisenhowerdiscussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.[7][8] The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports, letters, and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by Members of the UK Parliament. They are available to download for free for a month from The National Archives website.[9]
1950s
- 1 June 1950: A Gloster Meteor at RAF Tangmere passes a flying saucer lit up with lights, described as “Britain’s first flying saucer”. The object was reported[by whom?] to be “shining, revolving, and disc-like” at 20,000 ft at 14:30, flying eastwards over the Portsmouth area. RAF Tangmere asked the radar station at RAF Wartling in Sussex if it had seen the object, and it had on its PPIscreen. It led to the setting up of the Flying Saucer Working Party.[10][11][12]
- 14 August 1950: A 50 ft-diameter disc UFO is seen over the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at 11:27 by an experienced pilot F/Lt Hubbard. He claimed to see another similar object on 5 September 1950 at 16:09.[citation needed]
- 26 August 1950: In the early hours of the morning a 20-year-old woman was walking back to her home in the village of Stanton Drew, Somerset from a party when she decided to take a shortcut through a field near to the stone circles where upon she heard a buzzing sound, she turned to her left and noticed a bright saucer-shaped object hovering over the next field. A door on the craft began to open and she screamed, started to run and did not stop until she got home.[citation needed]
- 14–25 September 1952: Operation Mainbrace. On 19 September at 10:53, a silver disc-shaped object followed a Gloster Meteorreturning to RAF Topcliffe and was seen by observers on the ground. It rotated whilst hovering. It then travelled towards the west at high speed. On 21 September, six RAF planes followed a spherical object over the North Sea. It followed one of the planes back to the base. It was the front-page headline on 20 September 1952 on the Yorkshire Evening Press and on 21 September 1952 on the Sunday Dispatch., and was reported by 31-year-old Shackleton pilot Flt Lt John Kilburn of 269 Squadron, from Thornhill, Cumberland[13]
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