Welsh UFO sightings made public

Secret Ministry of Defence (MoD) files detailing sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in Wales have been made public for the first time.

They are among hundreds of sightings of UFOs across the UK released in eight MoD files to the National Archive.

Detailed accounts of sightings over Anglesey, Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Swansea are included in the files.

They cover the period from 1978 to 1987 and have been released as a result of Freedom of Information requests.

The information can be downloaded from the website of the National Archives for free for the first month. There will be almost 200 files released in total over the next four years.

Among them are the following sightings:

• In Cardiff in January 1982 when a "very bright silver light" with a red tail traversed the sky from east to west and "disappeared before reaching the horizon".

  Another eyewitness in the city saw a ball of bright red light intensifying to a brilliant red light moving in the direction of Caerphilly mountain in November 1981.

• Three people saw a "very large" triangular object with three bright lights on each corner and one flashing white light in the middle three times in November 1981 in the Amlwch area of Anglesey.

  It was first sighted stopping over Amlwch before making a 90 degree turn and accelerating inland.

• Police were told about an "aerial phenomena" with large white flashing lights spotted by a motorist on the mountain road between New Tredegar and Aberbargoed in March 1982.

  A similar object appears to have also been spotted on the same night from Pengam "darting in a southerly direction".

• A object which moved up and down like a bouncing ball was observed by a aircraft enthusiast who had been closing his curtains in his living room in Cwmbran in January 1985.
• A UFO was also seen above Glan Conwy in February 1982. It had "one solitary flashing light plus deep throbbing noise".
• A huge bright orange circular light along with two smaller lights which appeared to separate from and rejoin the main light, were spotted over Caernarfon, Gwynedd in December 1981.

  This was also the location where a comet-like object was observed travelling south west in October 1986.

• In January 1985 an "exceptionally large reddish" star "several times the magnitude of Venus" was seen by three generations of the same family in a stationary position 12 miles south of Aberystwyth.

Sightings of a variety of objects including cylinders with bright lights, round grey objects, oval and triangular shapes have been spotted from places like Bridgend, Swansea, Bethesda, Port Talbot and Caerleon.

However, the MoD in a memo written in 1983, has its feet firmly on the ground when it comes to an explanation.

Although it does not deny there were "strange things" to see in the sky, there were adequate explanations for the phenomenon.

These include space junk burning up in the atmosphere, unusual cloud formations and weather balloons.

"The sole interest of the Ministry of Defence in UFO reports is to establish whether they reveal anything of defence interest (e.g intruding aircraft)," said the memo.

Visitors to the National Archive website will be able to listen to a podcast from Dr David Clarke from Hallam University in which he will discuss the files and their release.

Dr Clarke said: "It has taken 10 years of campaigning to get these papers out and now that they are it lays to rest some of the claims of a cover up by the MoD.

"But I don't think for a minute that the conspiracy theorists will drop their theories."

The truth is out there: National Archives lifts lid on UFO files

There was the man on a fishing trip who was shown around a flying saucer by aliens in green overalls; another who befriended an extraterrestrial called Algar and wanted to introduce him to the government; and the astonished air traffic controller who watched a UFO land on his airport's runway, then disappear.

Inevitably, the Ministry of Defence papers, released to the public for the first time, will be known as Britain's X-Files. Over the next three or four years, 160 files will be handed over to the National Archives. Covering 1978 to 1987, the first group of eight files, one of which is more than 450 pages long, is available via its website today.

Some of the incidents are truly bizarre, but although some UFO sightings remain unexplained there is no evidence in the files for alien contact. "There simply is no saucer-in-a-hangar smoking gun," said Nick Pope, a former civil servant who worked at the MoD for 21 years, spending three years on its UFO desk.

The MoD has decided to release the files because of the deluge of requests it has received from UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists under the Freedom of Information Act. "They are sinking in a sea of FOI requests on UFOs," said Pope. "The administrative burden in dealing with them on a case by case basis is horrendous."

Link to this audio
James Randerson on the supposed UFO sitings recorded in government archives

The National Archives is expecting huge interest in the release. "This is a subject that interests a vast number of people, believers, sceptics and agnostics. My understanding is that this is possibly the largest launch event they have done since the census," said Pope.

A similar release of UFO files by France's national space agency last year attracted more than 220,000 users on its first day, causing it to crash. To avoid such problems, the National Archives is using an external hosting company which can add extra capacity as needed to handle the web traffic.

The files consist of a variety of documents, including numerous individual sightings, accounts of investigations and briefings prepared by MoD staff for ministers on the subject. "There are a lot of conspiracy theories that have grown up about the military interest in UFOs. What we are getting to see in these papers are the actual facts," said Dr David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, in a podcast prepared for the National Archives on the release.

"The vast majority of them are just ordinary people who have seen something unusual and thought that they ought to tell someone about it." In the great majority of cases, the MOD did very little if anything to follow them up.

At the more colourful end of the spectrum is a letter dated January 1985 from someone who claimed to have been in contact with aliens since he was seven. He said he had visited alien bases in Wirral and Cheshire and had observed a UFO being shot down next to Wallasey town hall. "As I was watching, the front end of the UFO hit the water, then the whole UFO disappeared leaving the water to splash, as if done by an invisible entity." He later tried to arrange a meeting between an alien called Algar and the British government, but said Algar had been killed by other aliens before the meeting could take place.

Other reports are more credible. At quarter past midnight on Christmas Day 1985, three police officers in Woking were surprised by a white light descending on the Horsell area. The officers were worried their report would not be taken seriously, because Horsell Common features in HG Wells's War of the Worlds as the place where the first Martians land. The account reads: "Genuine report. Two competent officers slightly embarrassed."

In another credible sighting, from September 5 1986, a civil pilot described a UFO that shot past his aircraft 1.5 nautical miles to its left. He speculated about whether it might have been a meteorite or a missile and then wrote: "If it's a missile, myself and my crew are not impressed."

The files include a damning verdict on the so-called Rendlesham Forest incident, an apparent UFO contact near an RAF base in Suffolk in 1980 which is often referred to as "Britain's Roswell", a reference to a famous UFO incident in the US.

In a briefing document, an MoD official wrote: "We believe the fact that Colonel Holt [the RAF base commander] did not report these occurrences to the MoD for almost two weeks after the event, together with the low-key manner in which he handled the matter, are indicative of the degree of importance in defence terms that should be attached to the incident."

Clarke said releasing the files was a good move. "The very fact that these documents are being released shows that there isn't a cover-up. It's a good move on the part of the Ministry of Defence to demonstrate what they know, which doesn't amount to much, on this subject," he said.

But Pope said that conspiracy theorists are unlikely to be satisfied. "If that's what people believe, absolutely nothing will dissuade them," he said. "If 100% of the UFO material from every nation on Earth was disclosed and there were no aliens, those that believe there are aliens would cry foul."
Close encounters

· Early on August 12 1983, a 77-year-old Aldershot man who was out fishing said he was contacted by the inhabitants of a flying saucer. Four feet high and wearing pale green overalls with helmets and black visors, they gave him a tour of their craft and told him: "You can go. You are too old and too infirm for our purpose."

· On August 5 1985, crop circles appeared in a wheatfield near Andover. An officer in the Army Air Corps investigated and reported his findings to the MoD. The officer said there were no tracks in the wheat: "To have set the holes in such a precise pattern manually would have required a tape measure or string, and the users would have been bound to leave tracks ... none of us could offer any reasonable explanation."

· On April 26 1984, two police in Edgware, north London, investigated a call from a 29-year-old woman who had seen lights in the sky. They watched the object for an hour with binoculars, describing it as circular with blue lights around the middle. "During that time it moved erratically from side to side, up and down and to and fro, not venturing far from the original position."

A UFO seen from the shuttle Atlantis in 2006

A UFO seen from the shuttle Atlantis in 2006. Photograph: Nasa/Getty Images