Friday 8 September 2017

Close Encounters of the Hampshire Kind



In the late 50’s and early 60’s, for most school boys like myself, flying saucers were small spherical capsules of rice paper filled with sherbet.


However by the late 60's, with all the tensions from the Cold War and the Space Race, paranoia about new technologies and innovations was at its height.

Further fueled by TV programs such as Quatermass and Dr. Who, the UK was in the grip of UFO fever and not a week went by without multiple reported sightings of saucers, flying cigar-shaped objects and strange lights across the country.



In 1967 alone there were 360 reported British ‘sightings’ nearly one a day, and extraterrestrials were regularly making headline news in the papers and on TV.

Fifty years ago this week, on September 4, 1967, a flying saucer shaped object was discovered on a golf course near Bromley. Within a couple of hours five similar objects had been discovered.


They had big metal domes, emitted a piercing wail and were discovered in the early morning in a straight line, the same distance apart, across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Kent coast.


Believing that alien spaceships had landed the army's southern command, four police forces, bomb disposal units, RAF helicopters and the MoD's intelligence branch were all mobilised in the early hours to meet the threat.

One of the "saucers" was sent to be examined by Home Office scientists at Aldermaston and another was inspected by the chief designer of the guided weapons division of the British Aircraft Corporation.


It was not until a Scotland Yard bomb disposal squad arrived at Bromley police station with orders to check one of the objects with portable X-ray equipment, that “the saucer” was found to contain Ever Ready batteries and the whole episode was exposed as Britain’s most successful UFO hoax after putting Britain on alert for a full-scale interstellar invasion.

The ringleaders, aged just 21 at the time, were a handful of clever, mischievous trainee engineers from the MoD’s Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough in Hampshire. They came up with the idea to raise money for charity as part of the college’s Rag Week. They also wanted to see how the authorities would react if there was an alien invasion, and to find out just how prepared Britain was.

The students built six oval objects, moulded from fibreglass and laced with artist’s graphite to give them an eerie sheen. 

The extra-terrestrial crafts were filled with “alien goo” made from boiled bread dough. Each saucer was fitted with electronic sound equipment which was activated when the saucers were turned over allowing them to be quietly transported during the night to their resting place.

The authorities tried to keep the discoveries a secret, but the hoaxers’ cover was blown by a newspaper reporter who knew the RAE students were renowned for pranks.

At a time before mobile phones or email where the only form of communication was the postal system, telegrams and telephones it was surprising how rapid the official response was, but in true Brian Rix fashion, it quickly descended into farce.

Once the MoD was involved, intelligence staff and a senior unnamed flight lieutenant, later to become a missile security adviser to the Thatcher government, took charge.

The first thoughts in Whitehall were not of an alien invasion but of a Soviet attack thinking the Russians had sent a fleet of robots, possibly loaded with nuclear warheads or chemical weapons, as the first wave of an invasion of the West.

The MoD asked Britain’s radar stations if they had spotted anything unusual the night before, but drew a blank.

Britain’s top intelligence officers and policemen were mobilised and decided to keep the saucers secret, but news had already broken.

A senior London detective arrived at Bromley only to find the police station mobbed with reporters and two TV crews filming the policemen, all happily posing with what might be a Soviet weapon of mass-destruction or an alien spacecraft. The detective exploded with rage.

Intelligence agents with Geiger counters followed from Whitehall and found the saucer was not radioactive. 

By this time the police had already drilled into the saucer discovering the rotting, smelly goo inside and for a while it looked as if Bromley would have to be put into quarantine. 

A Ministry of Defence helicopter was expedited to the Isle of Sheppey “saucer”.

Meanwhile the “saucer in Winkfield which was no longer making any noise was stored in the lost property office of the police station.

To top it all bomb-disposal experts blew up the “saucer” in Chippenham in a controlled explosion.

Had they contained anthrax, smallpox or some deadly Soviet material, never mind alien technology, it could have been a catastrophe.

At the end of a day that just couldn’t be scripted, the RAE apprentices held a press conference admitting their guilt saying they believed that flying saucers would land one day, so they landed their own to give the authorities some practice.

The police and government bodies were made to look stupid and inept and they were furious threatening prosecution. 

However, in the end, they backed down, probably realising that dragging the whole episode through the courts would bring more adverse publicity and subject the Establishment to more ridicule.


The hoax, costing the students £30, exposed the fact that at the height of the Cold War, the British authorities had no idea how to respond to an alien invasion or to an attack by a hostile nation using unconventional weapons.

As a result of all the publicity, the students raised around £2,000 for charity.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they
come!"


Hey Ho!