Thirty-five mysterious, super-fast flying craft were tracked on RAF radar and witnessed by over 30 military and civilian personnel,  the UK national newspaper The Sun reported today. Six military radars, plus operators at London’s Heathrow airport spotted the vessels in 1971 as they flew east of Salisbury Plain, craft appearing and disappearing as they did so. The operators filed reports, and three days later were visited by officials from the Ministry of Defence who instructed the RAF “never to speak of the incident again.”

According to a statement recently submitted by Wing Cmdr Turner, who witnessed the events at  RAF Sopley, to UFO Data magazine, a series of six or seven “blips” moved on a south-easterly track, about six miles apart from each other. When about forty miles from where they first appeared, one would disappear and quickly be replaced by another at the point of origin. They first appeared at an altitude of about 3000 feet, and climbed so rapidly that when they disappeared they were 60,000 feet high. Such a climb was then above the ability of any fighter aircraft. The Meteorological Office confirmed that there were no Met balloons or probes in the air at that time, and in any event the winds were blowing in a different direction from the line of flight.

The pilot of a Canberra aircraft agreed to investigate and reported “in a very agitated voice” a radar return of an object about a quarter of a mile away “climbing like the clappers”. Neither he nor his navigator saw it, despite the fact that they were clear of cloud by about 1,000 feet and had a forward visibility of five nautical miles, more than adequate to see the object, had it been visible. There was no noise.

Wing Cmdr Turner was a chief operator of the RAF’s radar system for 29 years and was awarded an MBE in 1984. “UFOs are a fact — I tracked them on military radar units,” he told The Sun. “What I saw defied all logic and was, quite frankly, extraordinary.”