Super-fast spacecraft and a giant, humming triangle hovering above the house of Michael Howard, the former Home Secretary, feature in the latest release of UFO-related files at the U.K. Public Records Office.
Almost 6,000 pages of declassified files were released online Thursday, the majority covering 1994 to 2000. Many sightings contained crude drawings.
Among the most puzzling of reports listed was an object tracked moving at more than 1,000 knots by Prestwick airport in 1999. Equally mystifying were UFO sightings by police over the North Sea near Lincolnshire, and a British Airways 737 that reported a near-miss with a mysterious object in January 1995, while there were more than 600 reported sightings of unexplained objects over what was dubbed the "Bonnybridge Triangle" in Scotland between 1995 and 1997.
Alongside reports of unexplained lights or mysterious craft, some witnesses claim to have had direct interaction with UFOs.
In one unexplained episode from Jan. 27, 1997, South Wales Police reported claims of a UFO encounter by a driver in Ebbw Vale. The man claimed that his car was enveloped in a "tube of light" which hovered over it for five minutes. During this time his radio and mobile phone ceased to work. The report said the man’s car was left covered in "dust and dirt."
The report goes on: “He felt and was indeed sick later on. He is still feeling ill today [28/1/97] and has developed a skin condition. Advised to see doctor.”
In March 1997 a man in Kingstanding, Birmingham, reported a 200 ft. triangle over his back garden. The hovering object caused dogs to bark, he said, before accelerating into the sky. It left a "silky white substance" on garden trees which the man collected in a jam jar. What became of the jam jar’s contents is not reported.
Several people reported a triangular, "humming" UFO near Howard’s home in Kent on March 8, 1997.
The incident provoked government correspondence, local newspaper reports and a Royal Air Force investigation. Ministry of Defense (MoD) correspondence concluded: “Although the MoD has received reports of an alleged UFO sighting near Michael Howard's home on March 8, 1997, MoD Air Defense staff have confirmed that there is no evidence to suggest any unauthorized incursion of the UK Air Defense Region on that date.”
For more on this story, see the Times of London.
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