UFO Documentary Film Segment:

Wing Commander Alan Turner MBE Discusses 
a UK MoD Air Traffic Control Radar UFO Incident 

that occurred at RAF Sopley, UK, on 21 April 1971

(Channel Five, UK)

When this UFO incident occurred, Alan Turner was Duty Military Supervisor and had the responsibility for monitoring the skies on radar screens for potential Soviet incursions.

A stunned RAF Coordinator first discovered two blips on the radar screen. Then more and more unknown objects came into view on the radar screen. They counted 35 in total. All the UFOs followed a north to south east track.

When the objects first appeared on the screen they flew 3,000 feet above ground level and climbed so rapidly, that by the time the UFOs disappeared from radar they were in excess of 60,000 feet.

Alan Turner was determined to solve the mystery. He diverted an RAF Canberra jet, which was on a return flight from West Germany.

When the pilot got within one mile of one particular blip, he said, in a very agitated voice, that the unknown object was “climbing like the clappers” on the jet’s radar screen.

The Canberra pilot and his navigator never made visual contact with the object.

The objects were first sighted north east of the Salisbury Plain Danger Area (UK MoD military training area) and they left the radar screen south east of Salisbury Plain (see map in the Dustin J.D. article).

A few days after this UFO incident, Alan Turner was summoned into the Squadron Leader's office and questioned by two civilian-clothed men about the incident. The two men were not identified.

“I, along with all the others who were in the room on that day, were told in no uncertain terms not to relate what we had seen until cleared to do so,” Alan Turner said in an interview.

Turner has been assured by RAF officers that there were no training operations, classified or otherwise, going on at the time and there were no weather balloons or probes in the area at the time of the UFO incident.

Alan Turner was awarded the MBE in 1984, and he retired from the RAF in 1995.

The information in this article is taken from several credible sources.

Interview with Wing Commander Alan Turner MBE (short segment from the documentary film, Britain’s Closest Encounters - Alderney Lights):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnAZYXe6klE

Scotland on Sunday article: “RAF officer breaks 37-year silence on UFO radar mystery”, 14 September 2008:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/uk/RAF-officer-breaks-37year-silence.4489914.jp

Billy Cox (De Void) article: “Will the MoD squad come through?”:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080916/blog32/809160258?Title=Will-the-MoD-squad-come-through-

Dustin J.D. article: “(1971/04/21) Sopley, UK 35 air / ground radar UFOs”:

http://wiki.razing.net/index.php/%281971/04/21%29_Sopley%2C_UK_35_air_/_ground_radar_UFOs















Wing Commander Alan Turner, Royal Air Force (Ret.)
(gstatic.com photo)