They glow, move across the sky at incredible speed and are invisible to radar. The mysterious shapes have for decades been cited by UFO enthusiasts as proof that we have attracted visitors from another world.
After four years of study they concluded that they are not flying saucers, but ‘plasmas’ of gas caused by charges of electricity in the atmosphere. The study by the Defence Intelligence Staff examined 30 years of apparent flying saucer sightings, which average about 100 a year. Their 400-page report found that most of those who reported seeing UFOs — usually as glowing round or cigar-shaped objects — were not fantasists or hoaxers playing tricks.
The bright plasmas are created by charges of electricity. When air flows into them they are transformed into aerodynamic shapes which appear to fly at incredible speeds. The electromagnetic fields can also cause responses in the brain, tricking observers into thinking they are seeing even more vivid impressions, the study found. Because they are electrically charged, plasmas can change shape or colour when struck by another energy source — such as radio signals sent out by UFO spotters.
The scientists concluded they now have ‘a reasonably justified explanation’ for the sightings that had previously been difficult to describe. The aim of the study, codenamed Project Condign, was to assess any military threat from sightings of unexplained flying objects, many of which appeared to ‘hover, land, take off, accelerate to exceptional velocities and vanish’. The study was released under the Freedom of Information Act. Files previously released under this law showed that the Ministry of Defence maintained a special unit to log sightings of UFOs by the public and the military.
They described seeing ‘bright objects hanging over the sea’ around three miles from the coast at a height of around 5,000ft. In July 1976, the captain of a British Airways Tri-Star on a return flight from Portugal told air traffic controllers of ‘four objects — two round brilliant white, two cigar-shaped’ 18 miles north of Faro.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: We have to check any report of an unidentified flying object to ensure it’s not a threat. That’s what this report was about. Once we are satisfied there is no threat, as this report concluded, we take no further action. We are not a UFO club.’
‘Even physicists studying plasma clouds do not fully understand them’ she said, ‘so it is ridiculous for the Government to use a little-known and poorly understood phenomenon as the main explanation for most UFO sightings.’ She added: ‘It may account for some but by no means all. It does not explain incidents where ground trace evidence of UFOs has been left behind or where there is film footage of flying objects. The MoD will never release any documents that suggest there may be some mystery surrounding UFO sightings, but the simple fact is that some are mysterious’.