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feet." It described two white lights with a faint red glow at the rear, with no engine noise being heard. The Air Force police report also contained details of a number of civilian UFO sightings they had received in the course of making enquiries with other military bases, civil airports, and local police. Later that night, the meteorological officer at RAF Shawbury—the base that provides advanced training for helicopter aircrew, air traffic controllers, and flight operations personnel for all three of the UK's armed services—saw the UFO. He described to me how it had moved slowly across the countryside toward the base, at a speed of no more than 30 or 40 mph. He saw the craft fire a narrow beam of light (like a laser) at the ground and saw the light sweeping backward and forward across the field beyond the perimeter fence, as if it were looking for something. He heard an unpleasant low-frequency humming sound coming from the object and said he could feel as well as hear this—rather like standing in front of a bass speaker. He estimated the size of the craft to be midway between a C- 130 Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 747. Then he told me that the light beam had retracted in an unnatural way and that the craft had suddenly accelerated away to the horizon many times faster than a military aircraft. Here was an experienced Royal Air Force officer who regularly saw aircraft and helicopters, telling me about something he said w'as quite unlike anything he's ever seen in his life. The MoD party line about UFOs being of "no defense significance" was looking decidedly shaky. What was I supposed to say to him, I wondered —"Don't worry, it was probably just a weather balloon"? For a number of reasons UFOs are notoriously underreported. The two main factors here are fear of disbelief and/or ridicule, and the fact that many people do not know who to contact with details of their sightings. While there were standing instructions that UFO reports sent to military bases, civil airports, and police stations should be forwarded to the MoD for investigation, this national reporting system did not always work. The case file on the March 30-31,1993, UFO incident makes it clear that there were many more sightings than ever reached the department. One throwaway line from a police report of a sighting in Liskeard, Cornwall, stated that the object was "seen by other police officers throughout Devon and Cornwall." We can only guess at the number of sightings that went unreported that night. Because of the similarity between these reports and those repeatedly filed in Belgium in 1989 and 1990, I asked the Defence Intelligence Staff to make some discreet enquiries to the Belgian authorities through the British embassy in Brussels. As I recall, our air attache was able to speak to General De Brouwer and the two F-16 pilots. It was clear that De Brouwer had done an excellent investigation under very difficult had done excellent under difficult Brouwer an very circumstances. Like De Brouwer, I launched a detailed investigation into the