- Pacific
The former Prime Minister allegedly banned reporting of the “bizarre” incident, off the east coast of England, for half a century amid fears disclosures about unidentified flying objects would create public hysteria.
He is said to have made the orders during a secret war meeting with US General Dwight Eisenhower, the then commander of the Allied Forces, at an undisclosed location in America during the latter part of the conflict.
The claims are contained in thousands of pages of declassified files on UFOs, released on Thursday online by the National Archives.
The 18 files, which cover from 1995 to 2003, are made up of more than 5,000 pages of reports, letters, and drawings drawn from correspondence with the public and questions raised in parliament.
The allegations involving Churchill were made by the grandson of one his personal bodyguards, an RAF officer who overheard the discussion, who wrote to the Ministry of Defence in 1999 inquiring about the incident after his grandfather disclosed details to his family.
According to the series of letters, written by the guard's grandson who is now a physicist from Leicester, a reconnaissance plane and its crew were returning from a mission over occupied Europe when they were involved in the war incident.
During their flight, on the English coast, possibly near Cumbria, their aircraft was approached by a metallic UFO which shadowed them.
Photographs of the object, which the crew claimed had “hovered noiselessly” near the plane, were taken by the crew.
Later, during discussions about the unexplained incident, the two men were claimed to have become so concerned by the incident that Churchill ordered it remain secret for 50 years or more.
During the meeting, a weapons expert dismissed suggestions the object was a missile as the event was "totally beyond any imagined capabilities of the time".
Another person at the meeting raised the possibility of a UFO, at which point Churchill ordered the report to be classified for at least half a century and reviewed by the prime minister to stop “panic” spreading.
“There was a general inability for either side to match a plausible account to these observations, and this caused a high degree of concern,” wrote the scientist, whose details are redacted.
"Mr Churchill is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following: 'This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church'."
Apart from telling his daughter – the scientist’s mother – about the incident when she was nine, the bodyguard, who was “greatly affected by his experience”, only disclosed the details to his wife on his deathbed in 1973.
The scientist, also an expert in astronomy who said he developed software for use in "spacecraft thermal engineering", was told years later by his mother.
Stressing he was not a “crackpot”, he said he wanted to investigate the science behind the incident after his grandfather, who was bound by the Official Secrets Act, remained convinced that the object was secret technology being tested by a foreign power.
After investigating the claims, an MoD official said there was no evidence to support the claims as all “UFO files before 1967 were destroyed after five years” due to insufficient public interest. This was supported by a Cabinet Office official.
While there was documents supporting the events, historians last night believed it more than likely occurred.
They said that Churchill had a known interest with UFOs, even asking for a report in 1952 on “flying saucers” and what it “amounted to”.
Dr David Clarke, author of The UFO files and Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, said the “fascinating” files showed the level of concern about such “bizarre incidents” during the war.
“It does tie in with what we already know as you have to remember that this was also long before the phrase UFO was created,” he said.
“I suspect there is an element of truth to the statement.” (8.05.2010, Andrew Hough, and Peter Hutchison) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7926037/UFO-files-Winston-Churchill-feared-panic-over-Second-World-War-RAF-incident.html
The world is weird. And we mean that in a good way. Weird is fun, weird is welcome, weird makes our job easier. This past week, there was a lot of weirdness on the Web. From a UFO sighting that was allegedly covered up by a famous world leader to an unexpected viewing of the Northern Lights by folks who don't live up north. Check out those stories and more with the Buzz Week in Review.
Churchill's UFO coverup
What if Winston
Churchill ordered a cover-up of a close encounter between a Royal Air Force bomber and
an Unidentified Flying Object? That's what a newly released report from the UK's National
Archives contends. According to a buzzy article from the Daily
Telegraph, Churchill feared that if word of the UFO hit the news, the public would
panic and lose faith in religion. All this took place during World War II, and Churchill
had to make sure his countrymen and women were focused on the task at hand, so he put a
lid on the story. But now it's out in the open for conspiracy theorists to breathlessly
obsess over. For more on the alleged incident and how it finally came to light, check out our post from earlier this week.
The Northern Lights head south
This past Sunday, the sun exploded. OK, maybe that's not entirely accurate. But there was
an eruption on the sun's surface that blasted plasma toward the Earth. Sounds scary, but
it turned out to be kind-of cool. The plasma helped to give millions of people a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the Northern Lights. People in southern Canada, parts of
the upper United States, and other countries around the world caught sight of nature's
spectacular light show and uploaded
their images to the Web. Lookups on "northern
lights" and its fancier-sounding alternative name "aurora
borealis" both soared more than 2,000% during the week. Yay, sun!
An underwater census? Really?
A group of scientists and researchers released the results of their "underwater
census" this week. The census, an attempt to offer us non-gilled creatures a
greater understanding of the different species underwater, was a huge hit on the Web.
Searches for "underwater census" swam their way to a 103% gain over the course
of the week. An excellent
article from CNN explains more about the processes behind the monumental task (no,
they didn't count every fish in the world), and offers some stellar photos of some
odd-looking residents of deep waters. (Mike Krumboltz
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Conastitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson