While the American Government's alleged knowledge of discoveries of UFO's has long been known, THE BRITISH UFO FILES reveals for the first time the secret history of alien aircraft investigations led by the most powerful forces within the British establishment. The programme explores hitherto secret departments within the Ministry of Defence as well as controversial claims made by those working within the government and military that the British government has long known about the existence of extra-terrestrial visitors. Despite consistent public denial of the existence of 'flying saucers' by the MOD, it has always as a matter of course investigated sightings, ever since pilots during the First World War reported strange 'aerial phenomena'. Winston Churchill himself ordered investigations by the Admiralty in 1929 into such disturbances. Indeed, the British government began to formally study UFO sightings in 1950 following changes in public opinion fuelled by flying saucer fictional stories serialised in British newspapers and magazines.

The popular belief that UFO's were alien visitors was reflected in official policy, with UFO authors such as Desmond Leslie making presentations about 'flying saucers' to top ranking armed forces personnel in 1954. During the Cold War, politics became embroiled in the UFO debate with 'ghost missiles' and other UFO's tracked on British radar being blamed on a communist plot to disrupt the country's defence systems. However, with the end of the Cold War, improvements in radar technology made 'ghost' signals less common. Yet sightings continued to occur with alarming frequency. The film reveals how respected figures such as Lord Dowding and Lord Mountbatten were caught up in the 'saucer' craze, persuading heads of media to bring flying saucer 'facts' to the attention of the public. A whole range of incidents contained within the file are illustrated throughout the film; from the mysterious apparent landing of a space craft at an airbase in Shropshire accompanied by compelling eye witness accounts, to remarkable footage recorded by a naval cameraman of a UFO skimming across the North Sea.

The most notable recent 'inside' proponent of the 'Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis' is Nick Pope who served as Higher Executive officer of the MOD's 'UFO desk' from 1985-2000. He remarks that. "…. While the majority of sightings were dismissed or explained a proportion of over ten per cent left cause for confusion and concern that were [on occasion] relayed to the Prime minister and Chief of NATO." For the first time, THE BRITISH UFO FILES reveals a catalogue of unexplained, unearthly phenomenon, more bizarre than anything to be found within the pages of even the X Files.

During the 1950s, UFOs were big news. A newspaper of the times, the London Sunday Dispatch described them in terms of headlines as being “bigger than the Atom Bomb wars.” The Flying Saucer Study was the brainchild of Sir Henry Tizard, one of Churchill’s most trusted advisors. Tizard was best known for his role in the development of Britain’s pre-World War Two radar defences. Tizard felt that saucer sightings could not be dismissed as fantasies and ordered a UFO investigation following a newspaper campaign backed by Lord Louis Mountbatten. This heralded the birth of the Flying Saucer Working Party which was made up of five members representing the Technical Intelligence branches of the Air Ministry, Admiralty, War Office and Ministry of Defence.

The first meeting was held in October of 1950 and part of its brief was to gather the evidence from RAF and Royal Navy personnel who were asked to submit sightings for investigation. After eight months of sifting through hundreds of documents, three reports were considered for further scrutiny. One of them occurred in June 1950, when a pilot sighted a “bright circular metallic object” which sped past his meteor jet fighter at 20,000 feet. At the same time, four RAF controllers at an air defence radar station near Eastbourne had tracked an “unusual response” moving at great speed that subsequently vanished from the screens. The Flying Saucer Working Party concluded that the test pilot’s sighting was the result of an optical illusion. Furthermore, it was impossible to believe, they stated, that such an object flying at high speed and low altitude would not have been spotted by more people.

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