The Little Rissington UFO incident was an encounter in October 1952 between a Gloster Meteor and three unidentified saucer-shaped objects over Gloucestershire.

Position

RAF Little Rissington is a base to the west of the A424 in eastern Gloucestershire, east of

Little Rissington Little Rissington is a village and civil parish about south of Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 280. Parish church The oldest part of the Church of Engl ...

in Cotswold District. From the 1940s, the base was the home of the Central Flying School. The eastern edge of the airfield meets the

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

boundary with Gloucestershire. The airfield is the point where the Gloucestershire boundary crosses the A424.

Encounter

On 21 October 1952 in the afternoon,

Flt Lt Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the India ...

(later Air Commodore) Michael Swiney and Lieutenant David Crofts, a Royal Navy pilot, took off from RAF Little Rissington in a Gloster Meteor VII (T.7), powered by two Rolls-Royce Derwent engines, on a training flight. At 12,000ft, they came through a layer of cloud to witness three white saucer-shaped objects, which they reported to be at 35,000ft. Initially the pilots had believed the saucer-shaped objects to be three parachutes. The pilots noted that the shape of the saucer shape was 'perfectly circular', and their Meteor aircraft climbed to 35,000ft. Flt Lt Swiney reported the sighting of the three saucer objects to his Ground Control at RAF Sopley, and abruptly cancelled the training flight. Lt Crofts asked whether to pursue the three objects, but Flt Lt Swiney declined. The three objects crossed over the Meteor's path, from left to right (starboard). The objects remained on their starboard side. In a fraction of a second, the objects disappeared.

Radar reports

ATCC Gloucester (

RAF Staverton Royal Air Force Staverton or more simply RAF Staverton is a former Royal Air Force station about west of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The station was used for training and operations from 1936 until the 1950s. The site is now Glouce ...

, now Gloucestershire Airport next to junction 11 of the M5) confirmed the three objects that the pilots had seen. Two Meteor F.8 aircraft of RAF Fighter Command were scrambled to intercept the objects. The objects were heading east at 600 knots. The fighter aircraft did not make contact with the objects. The RAF Southern Sector, based in Wiltshire, had detected three objects entering their airspace at 3,000mph.

Publicity

The incident was covered in the edition (Ep 1, Season 23) of '' Timewatch'' on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

called ''Britain's X Files'' on 9 January 2004, directed by Michael Wadding and edited by

John Farren John Michael Farren (born November 21, 1952) is a former American lawyer who served as Deputy White House Counsel in the Office of Counsel to the President under the 43rd President of the United States George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009. Farren a ...

. It was covered on Season 2 of '' UFO Files''. Additionally, the incident is covered in Season 1, Episode 4 of UFO Europe: The Untold Stories.https://www.disneyplus.com/series/ufo-europe-the-untold-stories/JDv2SPRjNSoQ

References

External links