UK government begins releasing UFO files

The National Archives has released its first batch of UFO files, as part of a four-year release programme of all the Ministry of Defence's UFO files from 1978 to the present day.

The ministry dismisses 90 percent of the reports as having mundane explanations and leave 10 percent with a question mark and the assurance they are no defence threat.

A 1983 report from a 77-year-old out fishing at midnight tells of following aliens in green overalls on to a spaceship and then being told to go away because he was too old and decrepit for their purposes. This is the well know case of Alfred Burtoo (click here for more details on this fascinating case).

Another incident reported is the case of the air traffic controllers who witnessed a UFO land on a runway and take off again at high speed:

The men were air traffic controllers. Experienced, calm professionals. Nobody was drinking. But they were so worried about losing their jobs that they demanded their names be kept off the official report.

No one, they knew, would believe their claim an unidentified flying object landed at the airport they were overseeing in the east of England, touched down briefly, then took off again at tremendous speed. Yet that’s what they reported happened at 4 p.m. on April 19, 1984.

The air traffic controllers’ "Report of Unusual Aerial Phenomenon" was filed from an unspecified small airport near the eastern coast of England.

The men, each with more than eight years on the job, described how they were helping guide a small plane to a landing on runway 22 when they were distracted by a brightly lit object approaching a different runway without clearance.

"Everyone became aware that the object was unidentified," their report said. "SATCO (code name for a controller with 14 years experience) reports that the object came in 'at speed,' made a touch and go on runway 27, then departed at 'terrific speed' in a 'near vertical' climb."

The incident is one of the more credible in the newly public files because it was reported by air traffic controllers, said David Clarke, a UFO expert who worked with the National Archives on the document release.