Howden Moor / Sheffield Incident — DEFE 24/1997 (March 1997 sonic boom and triangular craft reports)

Brief

The file's core is the 24 March 1997 Howden Moor event, in which South Yorkshire Police, the RAF, and Mountain Rescue investigated a low-flying craft and twin sonic booms over the Peak District; investigation materials reside in the file's 339 un-provided pages. The opening section documents standing MoD postures: pre-1967 UAP files were deliberately destroyed every five years, only 1,470 civilian and one military report were acknowledged between 1995 and 1998, and the department flatly denied press claims that RAF Fylingdales' Phased Array radar had tracked UAP. Internally, the UFO desk coordinated with intelligence staff (CS[RM]1) to locate the missing 1951 Flying Saucers Working Party report—never found in MoD holdings—and sought CIA assistance to trace a surviving copy at Langley. A Daily Express clipping preserved as a file enclosure quotes an unnamed senior RAF officer stating that craft of unknown origin had been observed whose shape, speeds, and height were measurable but wholly inexplicable.

Metadata

Agency

UK Ministry of Defence / Sec(AS)

Release

2011-03-03

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

397 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED on release

Programs

Flying Saucers Working Party, JTIC (Joint Technical Intelligence Committee)

Tags

triangular craft, sonic boom, Howden Moor, Peak District, Sheffield, 1997, battleship-scale UAP, shape-changing ovals, North Sea, phased array radar, 24000 mph, low-flying

Key points

• The core incident is the Howden Moor/Sheffield event of 24 March 1997, when South Yorkshire Police, the RAF, and Mountain Rescue investigated a low-flying craft and twin sonic booms over the Peak District; the investigation record is contained in the file's truncated later folios.p.3
• MoD confirmed that pre-1967 UFO files were routinely destroyed every five years on the grounds there was 'no long term interest in this subject'; only files from 1968 onward were systematically retained and transferred to the Public Record Office.p.12
• From 1 January 1995 to the date of the letter, MoD acknowledged 1,470 civilian UAP reports and one military report—a ratio that reflects the structural under-reporting of in-service encounters.p.13
• MoD's reiterated policy confined its interest solely to whether a UAP sighting represented an incursion of the UK Air Defence Region by hostile or unauthorized foreign military activity.p.13
• A 1990 RAF Tornado patrol over the North Sea reported being overtaken at high speed by an unidentified craft; a 1993 RAF Shawbury meteorological officer reported a UAP. Both were assessed as not of 'defence significance.'p.14
• Internal traffic from Hd of CS(RM)1 reveals the 1951 Flying Saucers Working Party report—produced under Sir Henry Tizzard, Chairman of the Defence Research Committee—could not be located in MoD holdings, and a CIA contact was approached to check whether a copy survived at Langley.p.18
• Of over 2,000 Joint Intelligence Bureau and Directorate of Scientific Intelligence reports issued between 1946 and 1992, only approximately 100 were known to have survived, indicating widespread destruction of the primary postwar UAP intelligence record.p.18
• MoD issued a flat denial of April 1998 press claims, stating all reports were 'incorrect and speculative' and that RAF Fylingdales had not tracked any UFOs on its radar.p.21
• The Daily Express (27 April 1998), preserved as a file enclosure, quoted a senior RAF officer describing craft tracked by Fylingdales' Phased Array radar, including a battleship-sized object that zig-zagged at up to 24,000 mph for 15 minutes, co-observed by the Dutch Air Force.p.25

Verbatim

• The MOD's policy in respect of reports of 'unidentified flying objects' has not changed. The Department's interest in these matters relates solely to whether a sighting represents an incursion of the UK Air Defence Region by hostile or unauthorized foreign military activity.

  p.13

• Since 1 January 1995 to date the MOD has received: one 'UFO' report from a military source. 1,470 'UFO' reports from civilian sources.

  p.13

• No firm conclusions were drawn about the nature of the phenomena reported but the events were not judged to be of defence significance.

  p.14

• Under the direction of Sir Henry TIZZARD, then Chairman of the Defence Research Committee, the Joint Technical Intelligence Committee was directed to form a Working Party to investigate future reports of ufos.

  p.18

Most interesting

• The 1951 Flying Saucers Working Party report—approved by the JTIC on 20 March 1951 under Defence Research Committee chairman Sir Henry Tizzard—was unaccounted for in MoD holdings as of May 1998, prompting a request to a CIA contact to search for a surviving copy at Langley; of over 2,000 contemporaneous DSI reports, only roughly 100 were known to have survived.
• A Daily Express article (27 April 1998), retained in the file as a double enclosure, claimed Fylingdales' new Phased Array radar and the Dutch Air Force jointly tracked a battleship-sized craft zig-zagging at 24,000 mph over the North Sea for 15 minutes—a claim MoD denied in writing within days.
• The same newspaper article described a second tape showing 12 oval objects apparently changing shape in mid-air, with both tapes said to be scheduled for presentation at a RAF Cranwell Space Symposium in June 1998; MoD stated the Symposium 'is not concerned with alleged UFO sightings.'
• A Caernarfon correspondent who reported an unidentified aircraft on 4 May 1996 received written confirmation from both MoD and NATS that no military or civilian aircraft had been logged in the area that night; the MoD's response expressed no follow-up interest in the apparent airspace anomaly.
• The file's administrative tracking logs (pages 4–7) record MoD compliance with its 20-working-day Citizens' Charter response target for public UAP correspondence throughout 1997–1998, treating UAP inquiries as a routine ministerial correspondence category.
• The correspondent from Caernarfon directly cited Nick Pope's published account of the 1990 RAF Tornado incident and asked whether MoD indifference to structurally unidentifiable aircraft constituted 'an error of judgement in maintaining the integrity of UK airspace'—a question the MoD's reply did not address substantively.
• A PRO file reference chain surfaced by the Caernarfon correspondent—PREM 11/855, AIR 20/9321, AIR 20/9320, AIR 20/9994, DEFE 31/118—documents five radar-tracked unidentified objects from the early Cold War era that the correspondent argued demonstrated MoD had previously acknowledged UAP incursions while publicly denying evidence of them.