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MoD 'X-Files' fail to solve Ramsey UFO mystery
MYSTERY still surrounds the sighting of an unidentified flying object in the skies near Peterborough – after Ministry of Defence "X-Files" failed to come up with a definitive explanation.
MYSTERY still surrounds the sighting of an unidentified flying object in the skies near Peterborough – after Ministry of Defence "X-Files" failed to come up with a definitive explanation.An MOD investigation was launched after a Ramsey resident spotted a saucer-like craft hovering above the Fens and watched in amazement as two smaller "ships" appeared to silently descend from within.
For the first time, documents relating to the 1993 sighting have been made available for the public to view along with dozens of others from around the country – but its conclusions remain mysteriously vague.
Although MOD officials believe the strange vessel was probably a large rescue helicopter from a nearby Royal Air Force base, records show that no such aircraft were in flight when the sighting was made.
On the morning of July 26, 1993, staff at RAF Brampton, near Huntingdon, received a call from a Ramsey man claiming his father had spent more than an hour watching a UFO from his home. The men's names and addresses have been blacked out in the released report.
The caller had already tried to report the sighting to nearby RAF Wyton, but was dismissed as a hoaxer, however, the Brampton operator took him more seriously and dutifully recorded their conversation.
He claimed his father had observed what at first appeared to be just a "light in the sky" through a pair of binoculars, witnessing "little lights around the outside and windows" and then two or three small ships detaching from the main craft and descending towards the ground.
"You are not talking to cranks here," he assured the operator. "We are business people. Sane people. I know my father doesn't tell porkies, see? You'd have picked them (the aircraft) up on radar, wouldn't you?"
The report was treated sufficiently seriously to be handed over to the MOD, and an investigator contacted the original witness who described the craft as looking like "a saucer with lattice work" and told how he saw "two things shot out of the side of it".
He then reported a similar sighting a week later on August 2, 1993.
Following contact with RAF bases close to the sighting, which was thought to be above the village of Benwick, the investigator concluded it was most likely to have been a large rescue helicopter.
He said the American Sikorsky HH-53 helicopters operating from RAF Alconbury would have fitted the man's description – even producing sketches to explain how they might have appeared to an eyewitness – and said its searchlights may have given the appearance of objects descending.
"The coincidence of this UFO sighting happening close to a base operating the large helicopters that could produce this impression in the sky really means its interpretation as a UFO is unlikely," he said.
Curiously, however, no such aircraft were said to be in operation at the time.
"We asked RAF Alconbury whether or not they were operating helicopters in the Benwick area at the times concerned, but they have advised that they were not," the investigator said.
The Government's newly-released UFO files are available to view online at www.nationarchives.gov.uk/ufos.
First Peterborough sighting was a century ago
UFOs have fascinated the Peterborough public for decades, and a quick look through The Evening Telegraph's archives show how reported sightings crop up time and again.
Only yesterday, The ET received an e-mail from a reader in the Ortons telling how he witnessed a "flame" travelling steadily across the sky above the city on Sunday night and appealing for an explanation.
"The flame was travelling at a constant speed and without sound," he said. "We all thought it was a hot air balloon, but do hot air balloons fly at night? If it was a balloon, why was the flame constantly on but the envelope didn't light up as I've seen many times.
"If it was a plane or helicopter, why no sound, and what plane has a constant yellow flame coming out of it?"
Reports of similar sightings in recent months have turned out to be Chinese lanterns, which are increasingly released into the sky during weddings and other celebrations.
In October last year, The ET was inundated with calls and e-mails from city people crying UFO after witnessing a ball of flame streaking across the sky. It turned out to be a meteor.
And delving even deeper into the archives reveals Peterborough's long preoccupation with the paranormal:
The first recorded UFO sighting was in 1909 when two policemen reported a strange object hovering above the cathedral.
In 1981, city postman Thomas Thompson claimed he saw a pyramid-shaped spacecraft performing aerobatic tricks just yards above his head.
Bizarre crop circles, hundreds of metres wide, appeared at Sibson airfield near, Wansford, in 1990,
A jet black triangular shaped UFO was spotted above the A47, between Peterborough and Wisbech, by a student and his family in 1997.
Also in 1997, two black shimmering discs were spotted gliding by Graham Palk above his home in Millfield, Peterborough.
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