Sightings of little green men who tried to abduct a fisherman and the descent of a UFO in the area where Martians came to Earth in the H.G. Wells novel "The War of the Worlds" are among reports of extraterrestrial activity released today by the U.K.'s National Archives.
The eight files, from 1978 to 1987, contain reports to the Ministry of Defence by members of the public and the military who said they saw unidentified flying objects, alien visitors and crop circles. The ministry took an interest in the reports to rule out the presence of Soviet military planes in U.K. airspace.
An archived 1985 account by three "embarrassed" policemen is reminiscent of the H.G. Wells classic. The officers, who "appeared sober and sensible," reported seeing a "pyramid object with white headlights to the front and red and white sparks coming from the rear" in Woking, a town in the southern English county of Surrey. They said the object descended into nearby Horshall, where the first of many cylindrical Martian spacecraft lands in "The War of the Worlds."
A World War II veteran reported having a lucky escape from alien abduction while fishing in the southern town of Aldershot. In a 1983 report, titled The Close Encounter Case, the angler described "a vivid light" that came toward him. Two "forms" about 1.2 meters (4 feet) tall approached him "dressed in pale green coveralls from head to foot," and "helmets of the same color with a visor that was blacked out."
Entered Spaceship
The man followed the little green creatures to their ship, into an octagonal, black room. "All of a sudden, a voice said to me, 'Come and stand under the amber light,"' he reported. The space traveler let the man go after asking his age. At almost 78, he was told he was "too old and too infirm for our purpose."
The files were created during the Cold War, when the government was only interested in "the possible defense significance" of UFOs, David Clarke, an expert in UFO history who helped research the files for the National Archives, said in a podcast accompanying the release.
Once the Ministry of Defence was sure a sighting wasn't a Soviet military aircraft, "they weren't interested in it any further," Clarke said. "There's no evidence that any of these 'contact reports' or sightings of aliens were followed up by the Ministry of Defence."
In a 1983 note, the ministry said explanations for reports of strange things in the sky included satellite debris re- entering the atmosphere, lightning, unusual cloud formations, meteorological balloons and aircraft lights.
The ministry said it "certainly has no evidence that alien spacecraft have landed on this planet."
The reports were made available today in response to the large number of requests each year for government information on the phenomena, Tim Matthews, an archives spokesman, said in an e- mail. The rest will be released over the next three years.
