UFOs Reported During NATO Maneuvers September 1952

A particularly interesting series of UFO reports came from the vicinity of the Operation Mainbrace NATO maneuvers held in September 1952. The maneuvers commenced September 13 and lasted 12 days. According to the United States Navy, units of eight NATO governments and New Zealand participated, including 80,000 men, 1,000 planes and 200 ships in the vicinity of Denmark and Norway. Directed by British Admiral Sir Patrick Brind, "it was the largest NATO maneuver held up until that time."

The Danish destroyer Willemoes, participating in the maneuvers, was north of Bornholm Island. During the night, Lieutenant Commander Schmidt Jensen and several members of the crew saw an unidentified object, triangular in shape, which moved at high speed toward the southeast. The object emitted a bluish glow. Commander Jensen estimated the speed at over 900 mph.

Within the next week, there were four important sightings by well-qualified observers. Various sources differ by a day or two on the exact dates, but agree on details. There is no question about the authenticity of the sightings; the British cases were officially reported by the Air Ministry, the others are confirmed by reliable witnesses. All occurred on or about September 20.

September 19: A British Meteor jet aircraft was returning to the airfield at Topcliffe, Yorkshire, England, just before 11 A. M. As it approached for landing, a silvery object was observed following it, swaying back and forth like a pendulum. Lieutenant John W. Kilburn and other observers on the ground said that when the Meteor began circling, the UFO stopped. It was disk-shaped, and rotated on its axis while hovering. The disk suddenly took off westward at high speed, changed course, and disappeared to the southeast.

In an memorandum prepared by the CIA's Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence, Dr H. Marshall Chadwell mentions "the Yorkshire incident".

The memo - 'British Activity in the Field of UFOs':

"In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press. This is distressing to [Dr] Jones because he realises that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities."

"Here we had a number of object seen coming in across the North Sea on coastal radar. It looked like a Russian mistake. Jet aircraft were scrambled. The objects were travelling at quite impossible speeds like 4-5000 mph and then came to an abrupt halt near to one of these stations not very high up. Jet aircraft picked them up on aircraft radar. The objects then simply made rings round them."

"Inevitably this led to the sort of enquiry which you would put in hand if you had any military responsibilities. Had something gone wrong with ground radar or with aircraft radar? We experienced pilots going out of their minds? Were people having fantasies? We *had* to investigate cases of that kind. Over the years - although there were not an enormous number of such cases - there were a sufficient number to persuade me, and a number of air staff friends with whom I had to work, that something was going on, sporadically, in British airspace which we could not explain."

"But we did not particularly want to make public statements about that. Not for something that we had no explanation."

Ralph Noyes,Senior Official with British Air Ministry - retired as Under Secretary of State in 1977

www.drdavidclarke.co.uk...

One other such sighting --- now quite famous --- had been on September 20, 1952, when the F.D. Roosevelt was taking part in "Operation Mainbrace" with the NATO fleets, in the English Channel and North Sea. Three photographs of the UFO, a fast-flying disc, were taken at the time, by a journalist named Wallace Litwin who was aboard our carrier. The disc was following the NATO ships. Those who saw the disc were numerous. And there were also many other UFO sightings in Western Europe on that same day during the NATO exercise. One of these sightings was of a flying disc, seemingly metallic, at 7.30 pm over the most important military airfield in Denmark.

In the course of my enquiries, I discovered evidence of at least three and probably more, other UFO sightings from my carrier. One, in 1953, had been observed by the bridge watch and picked up on the Commander-in-Chief’s radar.

In 1956 there came another sighting, when the ship was anchored in the harbour at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and UFOs were seen by many of the crew, including officers. I learned that one of the witnesses drew sketches of the UFOs. The sketches were sent to the U.S. Department of Defence, and the witness was warned that he "should tell nobody about it for twenty years."

In that same year, 1956, came yet another sighting - by a Chief Warrant Officer, and it was also registered on the radar of the Commander-in-Chief. The radar operators said the UFO vanished off their ‘scope’ after only two or three sweeps. And I also know that there were more cases yet.

But we can be sure that the Regulation JANAP 146 (E) will have prevented details of any of these cases getting onto the warship’s log-books. However I possess letters of testimony from a number of crew members.

..The same day, September 20, 1952, at Pitreavie, Scotland (according to an INS Press report) the RAF staff officers engaged on "Operation Mainbrace" held an enquiry into this UFO sighting, and at the same time they investigated another report that ten men in an RAF bombing plane had been followed, on the same day, by a circular silver object while they were flying over Yorkshire.

In Britain it is claimed today that all the official RAF Intelligence reports on "Operation Mainbrace" are now "missing".
The British Public Records Office is said to hold only a very little material on "Mainbrace", and even that is classified for 50 years.

Larry Bryant of CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) also wrote, on July 27, 1980, to the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Dept, Washington, D.C., and he too received no satisfaction.

Books references:

1. Aimé Michel: The Truth About Flying Saucers. (Translation, American edition, Criterion, New York, 1956).

2. Dr. Jacques Vallée: Anatomy of a Phenomenon (1965).

3. Timothy Good: UFO Report, 1992 (published by Sidgwick and Jackson, London).

'British Activity in the Field of UFOs':

"In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press. This is distressing to [Dr] Jones because he realises that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities."

www.uk-ufo.org...

Interviews found at 14:55.


Video Link

Fascinating interview with Flight Lieutennant Michael Swiney and Royal Navy Lieutennant David Crofts who both witnessed three disc shaped objects pass over the cockpit of their plane whilst flying over England in October 1952 (the three objects were also confirmed by ground radar).

"It was something supernatural. I immediately thought of course, of saucers, because that's actually what they looked like. They were not leaving a condensation trail as I knew we were. They were circular and appeared to be stationary. We continued to climb to twice that height [to 30,000 feet] and as we did so they did in fact change position. They took on a slightly different perspective. For example the higher we got they lost their circular shape and took on more of a 'flat plate' appearance - like when you hold a tea-saucer above your head and look at it, and then bring it down to your eye-level, it loses the circular shape and becomes a flat plate."

"At one time the objects, which were still very much in view, appeared to go from one side of us to the other, and to make quite sure it was not an illusion caused by us in our aeroplane moving to one side, I checked that we were absolutely still on a very steady heading, and sure enough they had moved across to the starboard side of the aircraft."

"We got to the top of the climb and I decided that really there was nothing much we could do. I was too shaken by what I had seen and decided to call the exercise off and go back to base. I called up Air Traffic Control at Rissington and said I had three unidentified objects fairly close and gave them my course. I understand later that there was a certain amount of pandemonium on the ground because they weren't used to having their own staff instructors calling up saying 'we have got three unidentified flying objects in front, what do we do?' They didn't know what to do either."

Flight Lieutenant Michael Swiney

"I remember doing the 35,000 foot check and Mick, who was in the front seat, said: 'David, did you have anything to drink at lunchtime?' and I said: 'No, why?' and he said: 'Is your oxygen on?' and I replied: 'Mick, we've just done the 30,000 foot check and you checked with me that your oxygen was alright and I checked with you that my oxygen was alright,' then he said: 'Well, look at that - straight ahead!'

"Mick [who was in the front seat] put his head to one side and I looked straight through the D-window and there were three dots ahead, [initially] they wouldn't have been bigger than my thumb-nail at arm's length and there were certainly three of them. I looked up from time to time and saw they were approaching and getting further and further apart. What I saw looked like the bottom of a stemmed glass. They were lens shaped, like an ellipse and the sun was behind them, and there was no cloud at that height. It was impossible to tell the size of them or how far away they were.

"I was thinking all the time that I've got to make this a good exercise and didn't want to muff it by looking around at extraneous things, but Mick kept talking about them and saying that he thought they were UFOs so I thought: 'Oh yes, well let's go after them!' thinking well now we can stop doing the exercise and we can officially say we are off the hook. But he didn't, he said: 'Oh Lord no, don't you remember something that happened on the West Coast of America where a couple of pilots went after one of these things and they all got vapourised and they have never been seen since.' I then asked him what he intended to do, and with that he called Air Traffic Control at Little Rissington and said what he could see and within a very short time he said: 'I have control', he turned the aircraft and we headed back to base."

Royal Navy Lieutennant David Crofts