HEADLINE: MoD files reveal new UFO cases

BYLINE: Tim Kelsey and David Leppard

BODY: DOZENS of incidents involving unidentified flying objects (UFOs) hav e beenrevealed by Ministry of Defence files kept secret for decades. They show the government took such reports seriously and wanted to allay public fears ab out claims of visiting alien aircraft.

One document reports that two RAF planes were sent to intercept UFOs over the Strait of Dover in April 1957. Two objects were seen, but the Ja velin jets were unable to track them on their radar. Fighter Command told ministers it believed the objects were other RAF jets on exercise.

In another case the previous year, an RAF Venom jet was sent to interc ept a UFO moving at very high speed picked up by radar. The pilot saw no thing, but two other aircraft scrambled in pursuit made ''a momentary contact''.

In 1963, an object that looked like a flying saucer was seen hovering by a hangar at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton, by two airmen. An MoD file reco rds that ''as they watched they saw a trap door in the upper part slowly open' '. Aninternal inquiry dismissed the incident as ''a piece of youthful hig h spirits''.

The alleged sightings are detailed in files spanning more than a decade which have been uncovered at the Public Records Office. They were quietly released by Lord Henley, a defence minister, at the end of last year.

In some cases, officials admit they can find no explanation. In 1962 t he RAFpolice launched an investigation after a motorist driving near Luton in the early hours saw ''an object like a hovercraft flying approximately 30ft ab ove the road surface ... An unknown force slowed him down to 20mph ... then the object suddenly flew off''. Local police said they believed the account was genuine.

Documents already published reveal that as long ago as 195 2, Winston Churchill, then prime minister, ordered an inquiry into UFOs. Churchill asked in a memo to Lord Cherwell, then secretary of state for air: ''What can it mean?What is the truth?''

Cherwell replied there was nothing to it. But later files, including confidential briefings about UFO sightings up to the early 1960s, show a willingness to investigate.

The files record another incident from Christmas 1961, when four police officers in Hessle, Humberside, saw ''a bright yellow light moving noisele ssly across the sky''. For 20 minutes they watched as it passed south of Grimsb y. TheRAF later confirmed it had no activity in the area.

The MoD denied it had tried to suppress evidence. ''We don't indulge i n a debate on whether there is life on other planets,'' said a ministry spokes man. ''But there is no conspiracy ... There is nobody here with pointed ears.''