On return to the UK, the camera film from the aircraft's radar was examined by RAF intelligence. They found a "strong response" from the direction of the sighting. The UFO was captured as "an elongated shadow" of a "large-sized" object traveling at a similar height to the Vulcan. An intelligence report sent to the MOD the same day says the crew "were unable to offer a logical explanation for the sighting."
Although hailed as the complete disclosure of the UK's UFO files, questions are likely to remain over whether all available information will be made public.
Despite the Vulcan sighting being investigated by DI55, no details remain in the file indicating what they found or what became of the radar film. The disclosures are more likely, claim some experts, to lend credence to the theory that such UFO incidents were, rather than alien visitations, military activities such as missile launches, testing of prototype aircraft and other activities during the Cold War.
UFOs remain one of the most popular subjects for Freedom of Information requests and the release is certain to generate a massive public response when the files are placed in the National Archives.
David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and author of Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy, recently discovered that the government was considering destroying the 24 files created by the DI55 because they were contaminated by asbestos. Not only were the UFO records polluted, but a total of 63,000 files estimated at between 6 million and 12 million pages -- most of them classified as secret -- were facing the same fate.
The MOD opted to instigate a &POUND3 million (US$5.9 million) project to digitally scan the files before they were destroyed.
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