The East Anglian Incident 1996 (aka Boston Stump Wash Incident) - A Highly corroborated UK UFO 👽

Incident off the East Anglian Coast
(Document from the 'UFO FILES' declassified in July & accessible at The British National Archives)

Further to my previous thread detailing a range of documents that were included in the British 'UFO Files' that were declassified in July and placed in the British National Archive in Kew, London. (www.abovetopsecret.com...)

I thought that the following documents would benefit from their own thread.

From my understanding, of UFO incidents in the UK - this appears to be one of the most corroborated incidents yet.
The object was visible for 'several hours', seen by crew of a tanker, crew of a civil aircraft, videoed by police & caught on radar at 3 military bases.

There is information available online about this incident which is also called 'The Boston Stump Incident' or 'The Wash Incident'
Apparently, the following is an additional video taken of it:
This is an archived article of the incident from the Fortean Times
archive.is...

It appears that in 2010 some information about this incident was released in another 'UFO File'
www.telegraph.co.uk...

The corroborated sightings were documented in a detailed RAF investigation in files released today by the Ministry of Defence.
Police officers in Boston and Skegness, in Lincolnshire, saw the UFOs above the North Sea on October 5 1996 and contacted the coastguards, who in turn alerted ships in the area.
The lights were also observed by the crew of a ship in The Wash, the estuary on the north-west margin of East Anglia.
Simultaneously, RAF air defence radars at RAF Neatishead in Norfolk detected an unidentified blip over Boston.
But the RAF report concluded that the radar imagery was caused by St Botolph's church spire in Boston.

Yet, the following documents including this letter by an MP were held back until July this year as 'too sensitive' to declassify.
Pretty mysterious if there was just a 'reasonable explanation' like a 'Church Spire'!

According to the following letter to Michael Portillo MP who was Secretary of State for Defence - there was an order to "stand down" aircraft that was given at the highest level. All of these raises many questions as well as possible routes where members might be about to help each other in seeking out further information and requesting further documentation (including perhaps the video) via www.whatdotheyknow.com

I've tried to copy the letter as best as I can to aid people who may find difficulty reading directly from the images.
I'm hoping admin might kindly help images of the letter (& associated documents that I will post in the subsequent post) to display.


Letter to Michael Portillo MP, Secretary of State for Defence

Dear Michael,
I am very concerned about an incident that occurred off the East Anglian coast recently involving a visual unidentified flying craft sighting which was correlated by various different military radar systems. I have attached, for your information copies of some recent press reports.

From these press reports it would seem as if the unidentified flying craft was seen by the crew of the tanker, the crew of a civil aircraft; police at Skegness (who took a video) and police in Boston. Simultaneously, the object seems to have been picked up on military radar systems at R.A.F. Neatishead, R.A.F Waddington, RAF Northwood, together with the systems at London and Anglia radar.

What strikes me as incredible is that no aircraft were scrambled when an uncorrelated target was picked up so close to the coast. This raises for one, serious issues about the way which we police the UK Air Defence Region (UKADR). …. we have Tornado F.3 aircraft based at RAF (illegible), RAF(illegible) and RAF Coningsby, should not one of these bases have Air Defence aircraft on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) and should a launch not have been ordered?

I am also unclear on the involvement of RAF Kinloss in Scotland, home of our Nimrod Maritime Patrol Aircraft.

A story seems to have been put around that the radar system was picking up Sulton’s (?) church tower, air (?) sound clutter can give spurious returns around certain radar (illegible). My understanding is that the locations of such areas are (illegible) and that such (illegible) is unlikely to be repeated on different military radar systems. 500 of the Air Traffic Control Radars might have difficulty with ground clutter but Air Defence radar systems and their skilled operator's should know the difference. This ‘explanation’ also … (illegible) of the visual sightings.

Naturally all sorts of rumours are circulating, no QRA aircraft were available at RAF Couragsby, which is just a few miles from the Wash; the RAF wanted to scramble aircraft but were overruled “at the highest level”; the video taken by the police has disappeared into the bowels of your ministry’s Ain building. While I am interested in finding out what was seen, my primary concern stems from the absolute shambles that such events seem to cause. The RAF are supposed, or so believed to be responsible for keeping a watchful eye on the UKAR, but seem to have no idea as to what is going on. Do they have no standard procedure for such incidents? They had enough time to think about it, because the object was on radar for upwards of several hours! These concerns remain, even if there is a(illegible) explanation for this specific incident.

I could think of countless other questions that concern me based on these points I have raised in this letter and in the various press reports, but I will continue, in addition to the above, if you will answer the following questions in respect of the unidentified flying craft sighting that occurred on the 4th-6th October in the vicinity of the wash, and Subsequently reported to your department.

1. If you will detail the role played by these military establishments who picked up on their radar systems or who were otherwise involved in events, and if you will comment on the video of the sighting sent to your department by the Boston police.
2. Why no aircraft were scrambled to investigate the unidentified flying craft seen by the police, the crew of the civil aircraft; the crew of a oil tanker on the 4th/6th given at least three military establishments reported detecting the unidentified flying craft on radar
3. Whether it is the RAF’s standard practice to ignore sightings of unidentified flying craft which are correlated by radar, or whether there is a requirement to investigate such phenomena by scrambling aircraft.

I will look forward to your response

(Blacked out - potentially a MP given the headed house of commons paper).

Page 1
www.imageupload.co.uk...

Page 2
www.imageupload.co.uk...



The following is a video covering the incident. The youtube uploader has the date wrong.

Further to the above: If admin would be kind enough to display the following documents from the file for me.
(many thanks).

It's curious, but the video makes it look a LOT like a common star / planet with atmospheric twinkling.

A story seems to have been put around that the radar system was picking up Sulton’s (?) church tower, air [volume] [surface] clutter can give spurious returns around certain radar [targets]. My understanding is that the locations of such areas are [known] and that such [activity] is unlikely to be repeated on different military radar systems. 500 of the Air Traffic Control Radars might have difficulty with ground clutter but Air Defence radar systems and their skilled operator's should know the difference. This ‘explanation’ also … [explains the source] of the visual sightings.

www.radartutorial.eu...

originally posted by: Blue Shift
It's curious, but the video makes it look a LOT like a common star / planet with atmospheric twinkling.

From the archived news linked in the op

 But the police themselves provided a far more likely explanation. One of the Skegness patrolmen said he watched the twinkling light periodically for a period of two hours until “the star was fairly high in the sky looking very similar to the rest”. Just before daybreak, PC Dave Leyland used his camcorder to film the UFO from the roof of the force control room. His five minutes of footage depicts a single, stationary white light above a block of flats. 

By daybreak, the panic was over. PC Leyland and his colleagues decided their UFO was a star or a planet, an identification that was confirmed by astronomers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In their report to the RAF, the observatory said that Venus, ‘the queen of UFOs’, which had been shining with exceptional brilliance in the early morning sky to the east, probably explained the light shown on the video. Astronomer Ian Ridpath identified the colourful flashing object seen from Skegness earlier as the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, low on the horizon to the southeast. Another bright star, Vega, explained the lights seen in the opposite direct­ion by the tanker crew. He explained that impression of rotating colours as a well-known optical phenomenon – autokinesis – in which light from stars is distorted by the atmosphere and appears to move when being stared at intensely. 

a reply to: Loopdaloop

Thanks for the interesting topic.

I'm still reading some of the source material, but I'm with BlueShift that the vid looks a lot like a star out of focus.

Oh, and the 1st "RAF (illegible)" in your draft of the letter is "RAF Leuchars". It's in Fife, Scotland. I only recognised it as I live nearby, and knew that that's where 1 of the Quick Response Tornado groups were located. 1 of the biggest military runways in Scotland IIRC, and the government saw fit to turn it into an Army base... Go figure!

ETA: Still reading the letter. It is "Bostons Church tower" Not "Sultans". And it's "Ground Clutter" not "sound clutter" (I think!). Will fill in more "(Illegible's)" if I can.

"This explanation also (illegible)..." I think says "This explanation also (fails to take account of) the visual sightings".

The other two RAF bases with Tornado fighter jets were probably RAF Marham in Norfolk, and RAF Leuchars in Scotland.

I live on the Humber estuary and saw a UFO ( orb ) 2 days ago , strange things happen over the North Sea mate .

Seen 3 of the UFO ( orbs ) over the last few years .

All in daylight too .

originally posted by: AbdulAlhazred
a reply to: Loopdaloop

Thanks for the interesting topic.

I'm still reading some of the source material, but I'm with BlueShift that the vid looks a lot like a star out of focus.

Oh, and the 1st "RAF (illegible)" in your draft of the letter is "RAF Leuchars". It's in Fife, Scotland. I only recognised it as I live nearby, and knew that that's where 1 of the Quick Response Tornado groups were located. 1 of the biggest military runways in Scotland IIRC, and the government saw fit to turn it into an Army base... Go figure!

ETA: Still reading the letter. It is "Bostons Church tower" Not "Sultans". And it's "Ground Clutter" not "sound clutter" (I think!). Will fill in more "(Illegible's)" if I can.

"This explanation also (illegible)..." I think says "This explanation also (fails to take account of) the visual sightings".

Thanks Abdul, Stormcell & Mogget for helping identify what I couldn't read!

I find the idea that there were two simultaneous events that were confusing people (i.e. a planet & the church tower with the radar) very difficult to believe! That the unknown MP refers to the planes being told to stand down at the 'highest level' is very suspect. It'd be interesting to find out whethe this MP ever had a response to their questions. Does former MP Michael Portillo have a social media presence to ask?