The Truth Is Out There: British Govt Reveals (Sorta) Top-Secret Alien Files

Newly released Ministry of Defence files reveal that British investigators interviewed a woman about her dog-walking alien encounter. Good to know they were taking it seriously?

In 1989, while walking her dog, the woman in question had a 10-minute encounter with a man with a “Scandinavian-type accent” dressed in what CNN describes as “a flying suit-style outfit” on a playing field in Norwich. Upon returning home, she then observed a large, glowing object rising above some trees. The whole experience, she said, left her “completely terrified.”

Apparently this wasn’t the only UFO sighting the government investigated; according to CNN, there was a whole X-Files Bureau (okay, “a computer database of sightings”) scheme, which was abandoned on P.R. grounds. As it is, between 1987 and April 1993, the MoD recorder details of more that 1,200 UFO sightings. At the time, there were also reports that the United States was deleveloping “a top secret spy-plane known as Aurora,” with ET implications. The newly-revealed files are available for public view for the next few weeks.

According to the Evening Star, “Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, said the newly published documents showed the MoD was ‘not in the slightest bit interested in aliens’.” Except to the extent that they were? And what we’re curious about it, why are these suddenly on view? Is this standard practice? Has enough time passed that such actions have passed some kind of risibility statute of limitations? And why now? Everyone knows that the 1950s sci-fi boom had just a little something to do with the Cold War and threats of Nuclear aggression. The documents cited above would date from a time of Recession. We’ve heard, lately, that zombies are in and vampires abide – but are we due for a newly-revved interest in aliens and their sightings – or just governmental openness? Either one would probably bring a measure of reassurance to the troubled global psyche.

British Ministry of Defence briefed on UFO sighting [News.au]
Dog walker ‘met man from another planet’ [CNN]
UFO Files: dog walker’s alien encounter [Evening Star]