15,000 UFOs over the UK: MoD Investigates!

[KeyserXSoze]

Source

Is there anyone out there . . .Yes, 15,000 times, yes.

IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent July 25 2005

THE Ministry of Defence has examined more than 15,000 alleged sightings of flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects over Britain since 1959 and is still keeping an open mind on the existence of aliens.

The sightings were reported from John o' Groats to Land's End by RAF and civilian pilots, air traffic controllers, policemen and even MoD employees as well as members of the public, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

They were examined by a special section of the directorate of air staff "to establish whether the UK's airspace might have been compromised by unauthorised air activity", a spokesman said. To date, there was no evidence of extraterrestrial activity.

The most common sightings included reports of orange-coloured discs, spheres, triangles and balls of fire which could change formation. An undisclosed but "considerable" number were seen over RAF and US air force bases in England.

The official policy line is that "the MoD does not have any expertise or role in respect of UFOs or flying saucer matters or to the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial lifeforms, about which it remains totally open-minded".

The spokesman added: "We know of no evidence which substantiates the existence of such phenomena. Unless there is evidence of a potential threat to the UK from an external source, and so far no report has revealed such evidence, we do not investigate the precise nature of each sighting.

"We believe that rational explanations such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena could be found for them if resources were diverted for this purpose. But it is not the function of the MoD to provide this kind of aerial identification service."

The figures show that the peak years for sightings were 1978, with 750 reports, and 1999, with 609.

As The Herald revealed in March, West Kilbride in Ayrshire was Scotland's UFO hotspot last year with 12 sightings.

8)

 

[HopoUK]

Nah. The MOD have stated that they do not have the resources to investigate every report of a UFO, which is probably true, although something as important as this should not be overlooked. They know someone or something is out there, so they always state that no evidence is found to corroborate witnesses sightings. It covers their backs. No panicking public ( and let's face it, some would panic ), no proof that their protection of the country is inadequate, and they word their statement with " and is still keeping an open mind on the existence of aliens", just in case ET's do decide to show themselves to the world.

So if I have another sighting ( the last one was in 1984 ), I will not be contacting them. I will be contacting a UFO researcher like Jenny Randles, who will investigate every aspect of the sighting, checking for earthly aircraft, stars, and satellites etc, etc. I know that she will give it a thorough investigation, whereas the MOD would just file it.

Countries around the world should pool their resources to investigate this, but we all know that is not going to happen as long as most of them wish to keep it from the public. So come on ET! Make a very public landing somewhere, in front of the worlds media so that we can say to the skeptics, " Told you so"!

 

[rynner2]

Cumbria falls off the intergalactic UFO map
By Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 09/08/2005)

It is three o'clock in the morning and you are driving along a deserted country road towards Cockermouth.

Suddenly, a beam of brilliant white light bars the way. Your engine fails and the dog begins to whine. Four hours disappear and you awake to find a strange orange tan covering the right side of your face. Over the next few weeks, you notice men in black suits hiding in the begonias.

It's time to ring British UFO Hunters (Cumbria Branch). But hurry, because if they don't get a call soon they're going to pack it in. ET, it appears, has had enough of Cumbria. If there is a rosette system in the Alpha Centauri tourist board Guide to Earth, Cumbria obviously isn't getting any.

Chris Parr, the Whitehaven-based co-ordinator for Bufoh, warned yesterday that he and his helpers will have to call it a day if the decline in sightings experienced over the past few years continues for much longer.

"In Cumbria we have gone from 60 UFO sightings in 2003 to 40 in 2004 and none at all this year," he lamented.

"It means that the number of people keeping their eyes on the skies is greatly diminished. There are only a handful of us now.

"We are a dying breed in this part of the country. I put it down to the end of the X-Files, a lack of military exercises in the area that would produce UFO sightings and a lack of strange phenomena." Mr Parr has tried to keep the extraterrestrial flame alive. He has three camcorders and whips them out whenever he hears of sightings elsewhere in the country in the hope that the flying saucer in question takes a wrong turn up the M6. But it never does. He doesn't exactly sell his subject, though. About 90 per cent of sightings, he says, are due to nocturnal military activity.

As the Royal Air Force now sports about four aircraft, the decrease in sightings is understandable.

The decline in British Ufology was illustrated last year by the closure of the Yorkshire-based UFO Magazine, which regaled its readers with tales of alien abduction, alien cattle mutilation and alien implants (or iron filings as they are known on Earth).

The end of Cold War paranoia and an increase in the quality of bi-focals are among the reasons cited for the fall in the number of Ufologists.

But the picture is not entirely bleak. Over in Filey is the other branch of Bufoh, and business is brisk.

Russ Kellett, the chief researcher at Filey, is enjoying what ufologists call a flap. The skies above the resort are seemingly crammed full of strange craft.

"We had two triangles appear straight out of the North Sea," said Mr Kellett.

"There have been a number of bright lights seen."

Could that be the local Butlins?

Mr Kellett has enjoyed two close encounters himself. In the second, figures appeared out of his bedroom wall. "We call them shadow people," he explained.

Mmmm.

Telegraph

 

[Graylien]

...which I suppose begs the question of why there seem to be so few new UFO reports these days. Are there fewer strange things in the sky? Are people less likely to notice them? If seen and noticed, are people less likely to report them?

I suspect that the 1990's obsession with little grey men, the increasing amount of air-traffic in our skies, the portrayal of UFOs in the X Files, and the decline of civic values may all have played a part.

Both the X-Files and the work of researchers like David Jacobs and John Mack (and the misrepresentation of that work in the tabloids) may have over-dramatised the UFO phenomenon. A UFO was no longer just an unusual light in the sky or a passing glimpse of an odd-looking craft - it was a huge alien mothership with lights blazing and a team of tiny grey humanoids beaming down to the ground. It wasn't the sort of thing you could be mistaken about - so if what you saw didn't resemble the enormous flying saucer in last weeks episode of the X Files then it probably wasn't a 'proper' UFO at all. (You could counter that UFOs have been portrayed in a ridiculously over-the-top manner in films since the early 1950s - but people don't expect realism when they go to the cinema. Television, on the other hand, is what you watch the news on. You get used to TV - at least sometimes - telling you about the real world; and the deadpan quasi-documentary style of the X Files may have invested its portrayal of a 'typical' UFO with far more authority than Earth Vs The Flying Saucers or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.)

Secondly, there is an increasing amount of air-traffic in our skies. The flying saucer phenomenon kicked off in America in the late 1940s - at a time when the country was still shell-shocked from the unexpected aerial attack on Pearl Harbour and paranoid about the new threat from Russia. If an aircraft flew overhead, you looked up, and if you didn't recognise it, you worried about it. Nowadays, people have become used to seeing lights of all shapes and sizes in the sky, and rarely give them a second glance.

Lastly, I believe that people are less likely to report UFO sightings than they were in the 'golden age' of UFOs simply because people are less likely to report anything. Back in the 50's and 60's it seems that if someone saw an unusual light in the sky, or a shifty-looking person scoping out their neighbours house or vandalising a phone box, then they reported it because they felt that it was their duty to. Nowadays, we're more likely to think "it's not my problem", look away and forget all about it.

 

[Jerry_B]

Well, it still seems that people are reporting in UFOs, and humanoids too, if (for example) the stuff here is anything to go by: http://www.ufoinfo.com/contents.shtml

 

[Jerry_B]

Countries around the world should pool their resources to investigate this, but we all know that is not going to happen as long as most of them wish to keep it from the public. So come on ET! Make a very public landing somewhere, in front of the worlds media so that we can say to the skeptics, " Told you so"!

Well, (a) that assumes that UFOs have an ET origin, (b) that any info is being hidden by the world's governments, and (c) it's very unlikely that any countries are going to band together to look into this subject. I imagine that there's far more pressing needs to be dealt with.

 

[Graylien]

There do seem to be a healthy number of reports coming in from Latin America (including some new sightings of Hairy Dwarves!) - but fewer from England and America. Of course, part of the problem may be that investigators filter out cases which don't fit their own interpretation of the UFO phenomenon. It's interesting, for example, that BUFORA state on their website that "A further 10% [of UFO reports] relate to paranormal events not involving anything that would be classed as a UFO." It begs the question of why the people who made the reports felt it appropriate to contact a UFO organisation, and why BUFORA seem unwilling to concede that UFOs themselves constitute part of the spectrum of "paranormal events".

 

[rynner2]

Of course, part of the problem may be that investigators filter out cases which don't fit their own interpretation of the UFO phenomenon. It's interesting, for example, that BUFORA state on their website that "A further 10% [of UFO reports] relate to paranormal events not involving anything that would be classed as a UFO." It begs the question of why the people who made the reports felt it appropriate to contact a UFO organisation, and why BUFORA seem unwilling to concede that UFOs themselves constitute part of the spectrum of "paranormal events".

Good point. :yeay:

Which is why it's a good thing that Forteans, with a much wider outlook on world weirdness, continue to keep an eye on such things.

 

[Spookyangel]

There were sightings of triangular craft over St Michael's Mount the other day apparently (If Pirate FM say it, it must be true!). Did anyone here see anything?

 

[rynner2]

There were sightings of triangular craft over St Michael's Mount the other day apparently (If Pirate FM say it, it must be true!). Did anyone here see anything?

First I've heard. Just searched the Beeb and WMN websites, no mention there.

 

[Graylien]

Well, here's an odd little news item (albeit 30 years after the event) which doesn't quite seem worth starting its own thread for. The story reads like a Weekly World News article, but it's featured on what seems like a fairly serious local news site. I'm particularily suspicious of the alleged "Harley Street specialist" who seems quite au fait with alien medical proceedure.

'Flying saucer surgeons cured my dodgy back'

Aug 11 2005

Nick Capehorn


A RUSH OF reports to the News about UFO sightings over Bracknell have prompted one man to go one better - he says he has been operated on by aliens.

And Terry Walters, 62, wants anyone who has had an extra-terrestrial encounter to get in touch.

In 1966, Mr Walters, of Nine Mile Ride, Crowthorne, was left in agony when his back gave way as he loaded heavy luggage into the back of a Mini.

He faced a trip to the doctors and possible confinement to a wheelchair.

But as he laid in bed that night, someone entered his room and told him to follow them.

When he awoke his back had been cured, so he went to Heatherwood Hospital to ask for the surgeon who operated on him.

But staff denied any knowledge of it. Further tests showed he had undergone then-impossible back surgery.

Not only that, but his blood makeup matched an astronaut who had spent 10 hours in space. Doctors said the only rational explanations for this could be if he were a lifelong smoker or had visited polluted Mexico City - but he had done neither.

A Harley Street specialist has since told him of other people who had experienced interstellar medical procedures.

He also said Mr Walters would later probably find other operations he did not remember. Mr Walters revealed he later discovered a further back operation and ear surgery. He added his claims have been supported by University of Connecticut scientists.

Mr Walters said: "Before the operation, if someone had spoken about UFOs I would have thought they were mad.

"But it is the way we are brought up, we are taught there must be an explanation for everything.

"Ninety per cent of me still doesn't believe what happened to me, but there is 10% that neither I, nor anyone in the medical profession, can explain.

"I am not airy-fairy about this. I don't sit in my garden at night waiting for another UFO to appear, but it has certainly made me believe that there is extra-terrestrial life."

Mr Walters has written a book on his experiences called Who on Earth am I?

He has also since lectured all over the country and met many celebrities and real-life alien investigators who do a similar job to fictional FBI X-File agents Mulder and Scully.

If you have had a close encounter, or have seen a UFO over Bracknell, contact the UFO hotline on 01344 456611.

Source

 

[Spookyangel]

There were sightings of triangular craft over St Michael's Mount the other day apparently (If Pirate FM say it, it must be true!). Did anyone here see anything?

First I've heard. Just searched the Beeb and WMN websites, no mention there.

Seems strange for something like that not to mentioned anywhere else. I know I was awake when I heard it!

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Cumbria falls off the intergalactic UFO map
By Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 09/08/2005)

It is three o'clock in the morning and you are driving along a deserted country road towards Cockermouth.

Suddenly, a beam of brilliant white light bars the way. Your engine fails and the dog begins to whine. Four hours disappear and you awake to find a strange orange tan covering the right side of your face. Over the next few weeks, you notice men in black suits hiding in the begonias.

It's time to ring British UFO Hunters (Cumbria Branch). But hurry, because if they don't get a call soon they're going to pack it in. ET, it appears, has had enough of Cumbria. If there is a rosette system in the Alpha Centauri tourist board Guide to Earth, Cumbria obviously isn't getting any.

Chris Parr, the Whitehaven-based co-ordinator for Bufoh, warned yesterday that he and his helpers will have to call it a day if the decline in sightings experienced over the past few years continues for much longer.

Telegraph

And:

The Martians aren't coming

British UFO-spotting clubs may have to close because of a lack of sightings. Have the little green men really stopped visiting, or do we earthlings just have bigger things to worry about?

Stephen Moss
Thursday August 11, 2005
The Guardian

It may only be a small, translucent green gleam on the horizon, but there are signs of a crisis in UFO-spotting. Chris Parr, coordinator of the Cumbrian branch of the British UFO Hunters, sent a shiver through the hearts of ufologists with his announcement this week that his group may be forced to wind up. There don't seem to be any UFOs in Cumbria any more.

Or maybe there just aren't any spotters. Parr's statement seemed to leave both possibilities open. "In Cumbria we have gone from 60 UFO sightings in 2003 to 40 in 2004 and none at all this year. It means that the number of people keeping their eyes on the skies is greatly diminished. We are a dying breed in this part of the country. I put it down to the end of The X Files, a lack of military exercises in the area that would produce UFO sightings, and a lack of strange phenomena." A lack of strange phenomena or a shortage of strange people? Take your pick.

It has not been a happy couple of years for ufology. The closure last year of UFO magazine, following the sudden death of its editor Graham Birdsall, was a disaster for the close-knit UFO-spotting community. Several websites have sprung up to try to fill the void, but the best-known one, Ufodata - launched by Russel Callaghan, who used to work with Birdsall, his father-in-law, on UFO Magazine - kept making my computer crash. Spooky.

Parr's statement echoes those of UFO groups in Indiana and New Jersey, where ufologists are also having a long, dark night of the soul. Meanwhile, a leading Scandinavian ufologist has suggested that "maybe people are just fed up with the UFO hysteria". The sceptics reckon they have enough evidence to pronounce ufology dead.

"The whole UFO thing is a kind of meme," says Susan Blackmore, a psychologist who studies paranormal activity. "It's a craze, a bit like sudoku. UFOs were just a rather long-lived version. But crazes thrive on novelty, and eventually that dies out. It's taken a long time, but it's good that the UFO era is over. My prediction is that it will go away for a long time and then come back."

Blackmore has spent most of her working life examining the paranormal. She became interested in the subject after what she describes as a "dramatic out-of-body experience", and reached the conclusion that there really is nothing out there. "Everything is explicable in terms of psychology," she says. "I'm as sure as you can be that there are no paranormal experiences, and I've spent 30 years looking."

She says belief in UFOs and the existence of extraterrestrials, while mostly harmless, can in some cases be very damaging. "For most people, belief in them is neither here nor there," she says, "but some people can become very frightened and obsessed. It can also lead to an anti-science attitude and the belief that everything is being hushed up."

Britain's beleaguered band of ufologists are not, however, going to give up without a fight. "Cumbria is a delightful part of the country, but it has a small population and you shouldn't read anything into the fact that no UFOs are being spotted there," says Callaghan. He is currently excited, for example, by the extra- ordinary level of UFO activity in Filey, North Yorkshire, where he says there have been 80 reports in the past eight months. Russ Kellett, who describes himself as a UFO researcher, has been documenting them. "In Filey Bay there have been sightings of something that looks like a flying triangle," he says. "They are not conventional aircraft. They keep appearing and disappearing, defying the laws of physics. I've got video evidence and will be showing it at the Great British UFO Show in Leeds in October."

As is often the case with committed ufologists, Kellett's interest dates from a personal "close encounter" in 1988. "I was sat at a level crossing on a motorbike," he recalls, "when suddenly I was aware of light all around me and a beam of light hitting me. The crossing went up so I carried on, but I saw this big ball of light moving towards Halifax." Kellett is one of those who believes there is an official cover-up of the number of UFO incidents. "You can't have panic," he says. "All we can hope is that someone will bring the truth out about this."

Veteran ufologist Denis Plunkett, founder chairman of the British Flying Saucer Bureau, accepts that "there is not a lot happening at the moment" and that "the loss of the magazine was a great blow - Birdsall was a shining light". But he, too, insists that ufology should not be written off. "Belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life has gone up from 10% of the population to 80% over the 50-plus years the BFSB has existed."

Plunkett, a former civil servant who says his career suffered because of his publicly stated belief in flying saucers, argues that the evidence for extraterrestrials is "incontrovertible". He believes extraterrestrial life forms visit earth frequently. "They seem to be observing us but not interfering with us," he says.

Nick Pope, author of Open Skies, Closed Minds, used to run the Ministry of Defence's UFO project. He began as a sceptic, but the difficulty he had in explaining some cases he assessed shook that scepticism. "I became more open when I was there," he says. "Now I won't rule out an extraterrestrial explanation. During my three-year tour of duty from 1991 to 94, I had to investigate 200 to 300 sightings a year: 80% of them had perfectly rational explanations - meteors, satellites, weather patterns; with another 15% it was difficult to reach any conclusion; but with about 5% there was evidence of something more intriguing."

It was 1978, he says, that was "the peak in UFO sightings [it helped that Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been released the previous year], when there were 750 reports. We have seen these UFO waves many times. If a paper runs a UFO story and puts a line at the bottom saying, 'If you have seen a UFO, ring us,' they will be inundated. You try it."

David Clarke, a historian at Sheffield University and the Fortean Times' UFO correspondent, is not convinced by the "peaks and troughs" line. "People haven't stopped believing, but they do seem to be seeing far less than they did and it's not clear why," he says. "There's been a massive drop in sightings since 1996, which is when The X Files was on TV. It may also be that since 9/11 people have had other things to worry about. There is not just less interest in UFOs, but in all supernatural phenomena. People are more worried about terrorist bombs. The MoD also lost interest in UFOs when the cold war ended: what they had really been looking for was Russian intruder aircraft. They only collate sightings now because MPs keep asking questions about UFOs."

So is there a crisis in ufology? Joe McGonagle, who runs UFOlogyinuk, the main internet newsgroup for British ufologists, believes there is. "Ufology has shot itself in both feet and needs drastic surgery in order to recover," he told his 1,000-strong membership yesterday in an emailed response to the news from Cumbria. "Ufology is suffering from the paranoid accusations of government cover-ups which some of the more vociferous groups and individuals are all too willing to believe and kick up a fuss about. All of these things drive people away from what is already a peculiar subject."

It isn't just Cumbria. McGonagle points to the decline in the number of local UFO clubs as ufologists get their information from the internet instead; apathy among the public (oddly, he links the failure to report sightings to the falling turnout in general elections); and a general "loss of focus" in ufology. The great flying saucer-spotting days of the mid-20th century are long gone. Contrast the panic generated by Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938 with the indifference which greeted Tom Cruise's recent "blockbuster" movie version.

David Clarke thinks the rise and fall of ufology is a rich subject for study and is currently trying to attract funds for just such an undertaking. "I see it as part of modern folklore," he says. "UFOs are like modern-day angels, and descriptions of meeting aliens are just like descriptions of people meeting angels in the Middle Ages." Filey was probably big on angels, too.

www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1546578,00.html

 

[rynner2]

The whole UFO thing is a kind of meme," says Susan Blackmore, a psychologist who studies paranormal activity. "It's a craze, a bit like sudoku. UFOs were just a rather long-lived version.

Hmm...

I just solved my first unaided Sudoku - am I helping to kill off UFOs? :shock:

 

[Graylien]

It's possible that future generations may look back on Ufology as a passing fad rather like mesmerism or table-turning. Certainly, we seem to be witnessing the end of an era with the recent deaths of many key players, including Philip Klass, John Mack, Gordon Creighton, and Graham Birdsall. Others, such as Jacques Vallee, have retired from the field, and the likes of Tim Good, John Keel, Stanton Friedman and Budd Hopkins are all advancing in years and must surely be contemplating calling it a day. Who do we have to replace them? The likes of Nick Pope and Nick Redfern are hardly likely to revitalise Ufology, and the post-X-Files public is obviously weary of the subject.

The paranormal shelves in the bookstores are groaning under the weight of new books about the Da Vinci code, but less and less space is being granted to UFO books, and there are few new titles coming out. Even this very forum provides evidence of the declining interest in the subject - the Ufology section now seems to be one of the least active areas of the site.

Probably the only thing now that can rescue Ufology from the doldrums is if aliens really do land on the White House lawn!

 

[Jerry_B]

That depends on whether Ufology is measured solely by the amount of various titles on the shelves. I think the internet has really taken over as far as this subject is concerned. Of course, the net's hardly an erudite source of info and discussion on the subject most of the time, but it seems that various aspects are still being reported and discussed. There are still parallels within the subject itself - for example, 'phantom airship' reports from the early 1900s have alot in common with modern 'black triangle' reports, so obviously as a phenomenon there are still some areas in development WRT this subject.

 

[Graylien]

More from Chris Parr, who is inexplicably convinced that British UFology is alive and kicking:

UFO expert bidding to revive county interest

Published on 16/08/2005

By Andrea Thompson

UFOLOGIST Chris Parr is writing a book on Cumbria’s fascinating UFO history as he seeks to resurrect interest in unexplained aerial phenomena in the county.

The 39-year-old researcher has spent the last 12 years trying to discover the truth about the numerous bizarre sightings which led to Cumbria being known as a hotbed of UFO activity.

He was recently forced to the review the future of Whitehaven-based British UFO Hunters (Bufoh) which he co-ordinates, following a dramatic decline in sightings. In 2003 there were 60 reported sightings in Cumbria, but that fell to 40 in 2004 – and there have only been two so far this year.

But Chris is determined to keep alive what he calls “the UFO dream” in Cumbria and has now teamed up with rival ufologist Sharon Larkin, of the North West Cumbria UFO research and investigations group. he hopes his book, which will also reveal the bizarre adventures of British ufologists, will generate new interest in UFOs locally and encourage a whole new generation of skywatchers to come to the fore.

“Despite the lack of UFO sightings for Cumbria for 2005, the state of British Ufology is alive and kicking,” he said.

“Although media interest in the subject has waned over the last couple of years and Cumbria has so far had a very quiet year, this is by no means a reflection on the dedicated work of ufologists throughout Britain who continue to monitor the skies and network with the public and local media in order to acquire UFO-related evidence.

“Ufology is a study that encompasses the whole field of unidentified flying objects and not just “alien craft” which is the usual image presented by the media.”

Chris will be concentrating on his book after completing the Cumbria UFO survey for 2005. It will focus on Cumbria’s UFO history and the bizarre adventures of British ufologists in their quest for the truth. Sometimes the characters in Ufology are just as fascinating as the UFO cases,” he said.

In the meantime, he and his team at Bufoh will continue scanning the skies above for evidence of unexplained aerial phenomena – and hope others will come forward with reports of their sightings. Anyone who spots a UFO can contact the British UFO Hunters hotline on 01723 514700, while would-be X-Files agents can check out the Great British UFO Show conference in Leeds on October 1. It will feature a range of speakers and a selection of the world’s best UFO footage.
Source

You can dowload a flyer for the Great British UFO show (which is to held in a venue which seats all of 200 people) here:
http://www.spiuk.net/other_events/UFODa ... _Flyer.pdf

The closest thing they have to a big name speaker is Philip Mantle: thankfully he won't be talking about Roswell or the infamous fake autopsy film which he helped promote.

 

[Timble2]

UFOlogy is a bit quiet at the moment, but the various categories of Weird Shit tend to go in and out of fashions. UFOs had peaks in the 50s, late 60s-early 70s (with ancient astronauts) and during the 90s with the X-files.

At the moment the hotter topics are Ghost and Psychics. Conspiracy is pretty healthy to (due to Al Quaeda and Dan Brown). Dan Brown's also raised a lot of interest in the Templars and Holy Blood Holy Grail story.

Perhaps after he's finished with the Masons in his next book, Dan Brown could do the Roswell/Majestic/MIB/area 51 thing...that'd revive UFOs

 

[rynner2]

To get back on thread:

Straight from the horse's mouth - the MOD lists of UFO sightings

It seems like not much detail, though, after a swift perusal.

But at least it shows that people are still reporting things, and asking questions.

 

[Graylien]

Yes - rather terse, those reports. Still, it's good to know the Phantom Airships are still around:

The witness didn't see the object but said that it sounded like a 1930's airship. There was a low humming noise over the house.

 

[Anonymous]

The day we get a decent UFO file from the MOD is when the pigs start to fly. How can anyone take seriously that the MOD would make an effort to be open about the presence of EBE's on British soil or actually open up their files? The media presence of Nick Pope who is essentially STILL working for the MOD and trying to pass himself off has a UFO researcher is hilarious.

Someone needs to step up and take control of the UFO scene in the UK away from the establishment monkeys. And put it back on a path where UFO reports can be collected without fear. Or debunking from the "Usual Suspects" (Pope, Dr Chris French, Roberts & Clarke)

If UFO buffs in the UK want to get hands on the info , they are going to have to do it for themselves and take risks and make an effort to collect and collate the info themselves. There are lots of British UFO site now attempting this but they are struggling at the moment and they are relying on second hand reports and Google search journalism. If people want the truth they will have to do it for themself.

 

[Timble2]

There is more detail on the site Rynner posted if you root around for example Rendlesham Forest

BTW: There's a bunch of sightings for Fife and Perthshire on 14 September 2005 about moving lights on clouds, these coincided with a lightshow using powerful searchlights at the opening of the Horsecross Concert Hall/Conference Centre, Perth. I know a witness from about 20 miles outside Perth, who saw the lights identified them as searchlights and commented that "some idiot will be saying that they're Flying Saucers"