British X-Files Describe Secret UFO Encounters

By Maria Golovnina
August 5, 2010 

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Britain released hundreds of previously
secret "UFO files" on Thursday including a letter saying that Winston
Churchill had ordered a 50 year cover-up of a wartime encounter
between a UFO and military pilot.

The files, published by the National Archives, span decades and
contain scores of witness accounts, sketches and classified briefing
notes documenting mysterious sightings across Britain.

One Ministry of Defense note refers to a 1999 letter stating that a
Royal Air Force plane returning from a mission in Europe during World
War Two was "approached by a metallic UFO."

The unidentified author of the letter says his grandfather attended a
wartime meeting between Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower during which
the two expressed concern over the incident and "decided to keep it
secret."

The MoD subsequently investigated the case but found no written record
of the incident, the files say.

"... the MoD does not have any expertise or role in respect of
'UFO/flying saucer' matters or to the question of the existence or
otherwise of extraterrestrial lifeforms, about which it remains
totally open-minded," it said in a 1999 note.

Britain has been slowly releasing long-classified files related to
sightings of mysterious craft in the skies above its cities, compiled
and investigated by the MoD over past decades.

Some cases subsequently received rational explanations, such as
meteors burning up in the atmosphere, but many are unsolved.

One memo, dated 1997, contains reports of "sonic booms" and a
mysterious plane crash in northern England. No wreckage was found in
an ensuing search by the police and rescue teams.

Another incident refers to sightings of a "black triangular UFO" over
the home of the shadow home secretary in Kent in the late 1990s. An
investigation showed no breach of security.

In a case filed in 1995, the captain of a plane approaching Manchester
airport reported a near-miss with an "unidentified object," and a
witness on the ground separately provided a sketch showing a UFO "20
times the size of a football field."