Churchill’s UFO cover-up as declassified ‘X-files’ show ex-PM’s fears over leaks

Winston Churchill is known for many things but his obsession with UFOs doesn’t exactly come at the top of the list.

Obsession might be a strong word, but the twice Prime Minister did spend a great deal of time with the Americans discussing the existence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

UFO fever has for decades caught the imagination of millions of people, and though its levels aren’t anywhere near what they were in the 1950s and 60s, the desire to make contact with the unknown still dominates the minds of many.

Those in the US have had their fair share of UFO revelations in the last year after the White House released scores of declassified files relating to information on sightings over the years.

The UK has also seen several previously top-secret documents enter the public sphere, with one showing how Churchill sought to carry out a major cover-up of an eerie UFO sighting on the UK coast.

In the last 20 years, the Government has made public a series of documents that are now known as the “X-files”, a reference to the popular US science-fiction series.

Perhaps the most salient release came in 2010, when Churchill’s name cropped up for the first time, revealing that he had put a 50-year embargo on reporting on a “bizarre” UFO incident that occurred just off the east coast of England.

His reason was simple: flood the press with such stories and public hysteria will follow.

The files show that he gave the order during a secret meeting with General Dwight Eisenhower who would later become US President.

It’s unclear where the meeting happened or who else was present, but we do know the source of the revelation.

A scientist whose grandfather was one of Churchill’s bodyguards confirmed the story after the files were released.

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), told the BBC: “The reason [for the ban] apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people’s religious views.”

The story goes that while pilots were flying over the eastern stretch of the English coast, they were approached by a metallic UFO which for a time shadowed their movements.

They took many images of the craft which they described as “hovering noiselessly”.

During Churchill and Eisenhower’s meeting, weapons experts are said to have rejected any notion that the UFO was a missile as that would have been “totally beyond any imagined capabilities of the time”.

A scientist, whose details in the declassified files are redacted, wrote: “There was a general inability for either side to match a plausible account to these observations, and this caused a high degree of concern.

“Mr Churchill is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following: ‘This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one’s belief in the Church’.”

Mr Pope noted how bizarre the event was, and that “the interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.”

Reports of UFO sightings in the UK hit an all-time high in 196 when, according to the files, there were more than 600 reports compared with an average of 240 in the previous five years.

The declassified documents also revealed that members of the public sent 343 letters to the MoD’s UFO desk — Sec(AS)2 — about sightings, and 22 enquiries and questions were asked by MPs.

By 2010, thousands more claims were released as part of another release of ‘X-files’ published by the National Archives.