page_title: UFO sightings in the United Kingdom
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: UFO sightings in the United Kingdom / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Tableau de formes résumant des observations d'Objets Volant Non Identifié (Unidentified Flying Object sightings) - catalogue AIR 20/11612 de l'année 1969. - Cette image est tirée des collections des Archives nationales britanniques (sa bibliothèque d'images English: Unidentified Flying Object sightings. Date: c.1969 Our Catalogue Reference: AIR 20/11612 This image is from the collections of The National Archives. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons. For high quality reproductions of any item from our collection please contact our image library.
context_page_description: This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in the UK. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release of the MoD UFO sighting reports by the National Archives in 2008. In recent years there have been many sightings of groups of slowly moving lights in the night sky, which can be easily explained as Chinese lanterns. Project Condign, undertaken from 1997 to 2000, concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the U.K. could be assigned to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena.
context_section_description: February 1942: A woman named Eileen Arnold was walking down Cheltenham high street when she suddenly experienced an altered state of consciousness as she became "tuned into another reality". She became aware of a large oval shape moving slowly above the rooftops.  She stated that it radiated light from holes in its side and had quills which detached one by one, also emitting light.  Following this, Eileen believed she had numerous psychic experiences.
  September 1942: Albert Lancaster believes he was abducted by aliens while working as a guard at a radar site near Newbiggin-on-Sea, Northumbria. He claimed to have a sudden urge to go outside followed by a "strange impulse to look at the sky." He claims he saw a glowing light surrounded by dark mist and, assuming it was a German weapon, went to raise the alarm before being struck by a beam of light from the cloud followed by a floating sensation then becoming aware he was back at his post.  Following this experience he believed he had psychic powers for a period of time.
  5 August 1944: According to records released on 5 August 2010, British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill banned the reporting for 50 years of an alleged UFO incident because of fears it could create mass panic.  Reports given to Churchill claimed the incident allegedly involved a Royal Air Force (RAF) reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany toward the end of the Second World War. It was over or near the English coastline when it was allegedly suddenly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched the aircraft's course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing.  The plane's crew were reported to have photographed the object, which they said had "hovered noiselessly" near the aircraft, before moving off.  According to the documents, details of the cover-up emerged when the man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident. He described how his grandfather, who served with the RAF in the Second World War, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.  The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports and letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by Members of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  They are available to download for free for a month from The National Archives website.
  1 June 1950: A Gloster Meteor at RAF Tangmere passes a flying saucer lit up with lights; this was described as 'Britain's first flying saucer'. The object was reported to be shining, revolving, and disc-like at 20,000 ft at 14.30, flying eastwards over the Portsmouth area. RAF Tangmere asked the radar station at RAF Wartling in Sussex if it had seen the object, and it had on its PPI screen. It led to the setting up of the Flying Saucer Working Party.
  14 August 1950: A 50 ft-diameter disc UFO is seen over the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at 11.27 by an experienced pilot F/Lt. Hubbard. He claimed to see another similar object on 5 September 1950 at 16.09.
  26 August 1950: In the early hours of the morning a 20 year old woman was walking back to her home in the village of Stanton Drew, Somerset from a party when she decided to take a shortcut through a field near to the stone circles where upon she heard a buzzing sound, she turned to her left and noticed a bright saucer shaped object hovering over the next field. The moment that a door on the craft began to open she screamed and started to run and didn’t stop until she got home.
  14–25 September 1952: Operation Mainbrace - many UFOs were observed. On 19 September at 11 am a silver disc-shaped object followed a Gloster Meteor returning to RAF Topcliffe, and seen by observers on the ground. It rotated whilst hovering. It then travelled towards the west at high speed. On 21 September, six RAF planes followed a spherical object over the North Sea. It followed one of the planes back to the base. It was the front-page headline on 20 September 1952 on the Yorkshire Evening Press
caption: Worldwide sightings of unidentified craft, including some from the UK (from the UK National Archives)
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