Churchill ordered UFO 'Cover Up'Previously secret documents now made public, show that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill - was so concerned about the UFO phenomena that he ordered the strictest secrecy in relation to reports of sightings. One incident in particular concerning RAF Bombers had him so worried that it was only to be discussed at the highest levels of Government and shared only with top military commanders.

According to a note included in the Red Book, the weekly intelligence survey, four incidents involving UFOs tracked by RAF radars were "unexplained".

The threat of UFOs was taken so seriously by the Government that in the 1950s UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, the newly-released files show.

Ministers even commissioned weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts. Citing fears of 'Mass Panic' amongst the general population as the reason for secrecy, Churchill ordered files detailing UFO sightings to be locked for at least 50 years.  That period has now elapsed and the MOD has released the previously secret files.

Comments have been made to the press by former Military UFO Desk collator Nick Pope, that a relative of Churchill's (who was also his bodyguard) disclosed that Eisenhower and Churchill colluded on secrecy where UFO's were concerned as they felt it would cause mass panic and undermine the religious views of the general population.

18 files were released on Thursday, the latest to come out as part of a three-year project between the MoD and the National Archives. They include reports on;

• A near-miss with an "unidentified object" reported by the captain and first officer of a 737 plane approaching Manchester Airport in 1995.

• A mountain rescue team called to investigate a "crashed UFO" in the Berwyn Mountains in Wales in 1974.

• Attempted break-ins at RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire - sometimes referred to as Britain's "Area 51" - the US's secretive desert military base.
• The Western Isles incident, when a loud explosion was reported in the sky over the Atlantic in the Outer Hebrides.
• The 14-minutes of "missing" film relating to the Blue Streak missile test launch in 1964, believed by some to show a "spaceman". (More will be written on this particular incident here on High Strangeness in the very near future).
• A gambler from Leeds who held a 100-1 bet on alien life being discovered before the end of the 20th Century, and who approached the government for evidence to support his claim after the bookmakers refused to pay out. The MoD said it was open-minded about extra-terrestrial life but had no evidence of its existence.