'Close encounters' revealed in UFO files
Files containing more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports, letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by MPs in Parliament, have been released by The National Archives.
These 18 files are the latest to be released as part of a three-year project between the Ministry of Defence and The National Archives. The files show that, as far back as 1957, the Joint Intelligence Committee was receiving an average of one UFO sighting each week.
The papers also include an account of a wartime meeting claiming that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting to be kept secret for half a century. The encounter involved an RAF bomber and a UFO off the east coast of England. Churchill is alleged to have said it would create "mass panic" amongst the British population and would destroy their faith in religion. Churchill is said to have made the order during a secret war meeting with US General Dwight Eisenhower, who was commander of the Allied Forces at the time.