UFOs: When the U.K. Government Admitted The Mystery Was Real

Seventy years ago was when the U.K. government acknowledged the
(https://bit.ly/39RZ9ip) reality of the UFO phenomenon. Yes, there
had been earlier cases (most of them were radar-based events), but
it wasn't until 1952 that matters really took off. And it all revolved
around a military operation titled Mainbrace. Let's see the data that
caused the U.K. military to finally believe there was a genuine
puzzle to be solved. From September 14-25, 1952, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) coordinated a huge military exercise in
the North Sea and North Atlantic. Titled Mainbrace, the exercise
utilized the armed forces of the UK, the United States, Norway,
Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. No less
than 85,000 military personnel took part in the operation, the
purpose of which was to demonstrate to the former Soviet Union that
NATO was fully prepared to withstand, and counter, any possible
Soviet attack on western Europe. Barely one day into the exercise,
at least two reports of UFO encounters were filed with authorities
by naval personnel on board ships in the Atlantic, between Ireland
and Iceland. The first such encounter involved a "blue/green
triangle," which was observed flying over the sea at a speed
estimated to be around 1,500 mph. Later that same day, three
unidentified objects, travelling at around the same speed, were seen
flying in a triangular formation. All three craft reportedly emitted
a "white light exhaust."
As part of the British Royal Air Force's involvement in Mainbrace,
269 Squadron - which was based at RAF Ballykelly, Ireland - was
posted to RAF Topcliffe, Yorkshire, England. It was at Topcliffe, on
September 19, 1952, that one of the most historically important UFO
sightings was reported by serving members of the RAF. A September
20, 1952 document written and signed by Flight Lieutenant Dolphin
of RAF Topcliffe - and sent to Headquarters, No. 18 Group - states:
"In accordance with your instructions, herewith  a report on the
unidentified object which was seen over the station earlier today."
The report referred to by Dolphin was prepared by one of the main
witnesses, Flight Lieutenant John Kilburn, who revealed the
following: "Sir, I have the honour to report the following incident
which I witnessed on Friday, 19th September, 1952. I was standing
with four other aircrew personnel of No. 269 Squadron watching
a Meteor fighter gradually descending. The Meteor was at
approximately 5000 feet and approaching from the east. [Flight
Officer R.N.] Paris suddenly noticed a white object in the sky at
a height between ten and twenty thousand feet some five miles
astern of the Meteor." Then, Kilburn noted, something amazing
happened: "Suddenly it accelerated at an incredible speed towards
the west turning onto a south-easterly heading before disappearing.
All this occurred in a matter of fifteen to twenty seconds. The
movements of the object were not identifiable with anything I
have seen in the air and the rate of acceleration was unbelievable."
Then there is the testimony of William Maguire, formerly of the RAF.
During Mainbrace he was  posted to RAF Sandwich, Kent, England
where something seriously strange was going down. In Maguire's
own words: “My memory was that everything was in a complete flap.
Normally, in a military situation everything is ordered, regular and
set out. But here was a situation that was plainly out of control.
Mechanics were flying about all over the place.” As Maguire got his
bearings, and the situation was revealed to him in its starkest form,
the reasons behind the blind panic became staggeringly clear:
a huge, unidentified aerial object was being tracked on the
radar-scopes high over the English Channel: “The mechanics were
being blamed for not calibrating the instruments properly; we were
being blamed for not interpreting the readings correctly. Every
single instrument on the base was showing this enormous object
sitting up at an unbelievable height. It was the size of a warship
and it just stood there.”
Another one of the men who was involved in Mainbrace was Ken
Dayman, who worked on radar during the NATO exercise. He told
me: "“We would do shifts, and I would read out the plots and the
girls would then plot them on a big map. Well, over the course of
two days in 1952, something strange happened. On the first day,
somebody said: ‘Look, there’s something happening on the screen!’
There were about three or four of us watching as something was
speeding across the screen; and this was fast, very fast. It looked
like there were actually two objects and they were approaching
from the North Sea and flew across Lincolnshire, Peterborough
and then up the country at about 2,000 miles per hour. Well, an
officer was called and he made some comment. But then our
commanding officer arrived and reminded us not to talk about this
as we’d signed the Official Secrets Act. But this happened over
a couple of days and the UFOs were tracked by several shifts
not just ours."
Now we move on to the world of the CIA: as part of their monitoring
of foreign press agencies, the CIA obtained a copy of a Norwegian
newspaper clipping concerning an incident that had occurred on
September 18. Published in a Harstad, Norway newspaper, a CIA
translation of the article reads as follows: "On 18 September, at
1400 hours, three forestry workers who were working right outside
Kirknes, noticed a flat, round object hovering motionless at about
500 meters altitude. The object appeared to have a diameter of
15-20 meters. After the workers had observed the object for a while,
it suddenly flew away at great speed in a northwesterly direction.
It appears that only these workers saw the object; they swear,
however, that their report is true." It must be said that the
characteristics displayed by the UFO were very similar to those
described at RAF Topcliffe just one day later.
The major American presence in Mainbrace was the huge aircraft
carrier, the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. On September 20 (just one
day after the incident at RAF Topcliffe), an American press
photographer, named Wallace Litwin, was on board the Roosevelt
to photograph U.S. planes taking to the skies from the aircraft
carrier. It was while securing the pictures that Litwin sighted
a circular, silver object maneuvering above the American fleet.
Litwin, who was shooting with color film, managed to obtain three
photos of the UFO. Significantly, all the photos had the Roosevelt
in shot - something that gave the pictures depth of field and
assisted in determining the size of the UFO, which, according to
Litwin's report, was considerable. And we're still not done with
Mainbrace. In his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,
Edward J. Ruppelt - former head of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue
Book - revealed that a British Royal Air Force intelligence officer,
on an exchange visit to the Pentagon, admitted it was the Mainbrace
sightings that led the British Government to officially recognize the
UFO. Curiously, Ruppelt also stated in his book that prior to the
commencement of the NATO exercise, it had been suggested by
someone in the Pentagon that Naval Intelligence should "keep an
eye open for UFOs" during Mainbrace. Why someone might have
had advance notice that UFOs were likely to turn up during Mainbrace
remains a mystery to this day. Unless, of course, NATO knows better.