The British X Files
The MOD has declassified the fourth instalment of documents detailing UFO sightings in Britain, along with the results of any investigations.
Some of the reports are easily explained. In 1993, bright lights in the sky were seen over a wide area of central England and more than 30 reports were received. It was later discovered that this was caused by a piece of Russian space hardware burning up as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
Other less explicable sightings include one from two schoolboys who said aliens with lemon-shaped heads tried to abduct them in Staffordshire, whilst a schoolboy in Widnes reported a flying saucer which hovered above ground whilst firing laser beams into the local cemetery. My favourite has to be the report from two people at the Glastonbury Music Festival who claimed they were "standing soberly" in the field when a flying saucer covered in moving lights appeared over the Jazz Tent and tried to communicate with them. Strangely enough, they were the only two people at the festival to have noticed this alien apparition.
1996 saw a peak in sightings, more than five times as many as the previous year, and it just happens to coincide with the release of Hollywood blockbuster Independence Day. Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert from Sheffield University, said "It is evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programmes, films about alien visitors and the numbers of UFO sightings reported to the MOD. One of the busiest years for UFO sightings over the past half century was 1978, the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released."
The UFO files can be found in the National Archives:
ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
As for the picture used on this article, of two glowing objects seen in the skies above Oxfordshire, one of which is clearly firing its phaser,... sorry, but those are street lamps.
26th August 2009