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Newly released Ministry of Defence files have this week revealed how a passenger plane inbound for London’s Heathrow Airport experienced a mysterious close encounter with an unidentified flying object in April of 1991.
Alitalia flight buzzed by UFO over Kent is just one newly released Ministry of Defence case file. Image: Salvatore88/Flickr.
The incident, which took place over Lydd in Kent as the Alitalia jet was making its descent, resulted in the plane being suddenly buzzed by what the pilots later described as a beige, missile-shaped object that shot across their flight path.
According to the unsolved Ministry of Defence file in question, which has been released today via the National Archive, the Alitalia captain shouted “Look out, look out!” to his co-pilot as the UFO sped past.
With the object clearly seen by both captain and co-pilot, the Alitalia crew immediately relayed the event to Air Traffic Control, which confirmed the sighting by saying: “Yes, we can see an object behind the aircraft quite clearly, primary return.”
Dr. David Cooke, UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, explains that the Alitalia incident was investigated by the Ministry of Defence and also by the Civil Aviation Authority.
“They checked to see if any real missile had been fired, perhaps by one of the army ranges or by a ship at sea, but ruled out all the usual explanations,” he comments via the National Archive. “The end result was this was a genuine UFO and the file was simply closed: there was nothing more they could do.”
The Alitalia encounter is just one of some 19 files involving unidentified flying objects in UK airspace between 1986 and 1992. All of the files, released in the official “Flying Saucer Report,” can be freely viewed online through the National Archive.
While this latest batch of MoD files is likely to stoke the fires of conspiracy and intrigue for UFO-chasers everywhere, any such reaction will probably intensify between now and 2012 as the Ministry is expected to release around 200 more unexplained case files in the next four years.
Another file report offered up by the National Archive outlines how a U.S. fighter pilot was ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object that was monitored on radar over East Anglia.
Read the case files by clicking here.
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