FT267

News coverage of the latest UFO files released by The National Archives focused almost entirely upon the claim that Winston Churchill ordered the cover-up of a wartime encounter between a UFO and an RAF bomber crew. Although repeated as fact by the media, the story was based entirely upon an anecdote reported in a letter received by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as late as 1999. The letter writer said he was the grandson of an RAF officer who was “part of the personal bodyguard” of the PM during WWII and was present when the sighting was discussed with US General Eisenhower. Following a discussion of the incident, Churchill was supposed to have declared: “This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general population and destroy one’s belief in the Church.” This was one of hundreds of similar rumours that found their way to the ‘UFO’ desk at Whitehall, and the MoD found nothing in wartime records to support it. It appears to be an urban legend of the ‘deathbed confession’ type – frequently found in the UFO literature. The letter writer, whose name has been removed, reveals that his grandfather died in 1973 so the information was never first-hand. It wasn’t even second-hand. The writer says that, fearful of his obligation to secrecy, his source only mentioned the incident once to his daughter when she was nine years old. She in turn remembered the conversation decades later and passed it on to her son whose letter ended up in the MoD files. So, in effect, the whole story is pure hearsay. But even so, it may contain a grain of truth. Churchill’s famous 1952 memo demanding to know the truth about flying saucers is a matter of public record. We also know both the USAAF and British Air Ministry studied “foo fighter” sightings by bomber aircrew during the latter stages of the war. Perhaps a discussion about one of these incidents was overheard in the Cabinet War Rooms and, repeated years later to a nine-year-old child, became transformed into yet another UFO legend. We’ll never know for sure. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos DEFE 24/2013; D.Mail, D.Express, D.Telegraph, Times, 5 Aug 2010.