Flying Saucer Working Party - Secret Operations

Secret Operations

It operated under such secrecy that its existence was known to very few. Nevertheless, there were two clues that such a study had been carried out. One of these clues was obvious, but the other was more obscure.

The first clue was in the Secretary of State for Air’s response to Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous 28 July 1952 memo in which he enquired “What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience”. The response, dated 9 August 1952, began “The various reports about unidentified flying objects, described by the Press as “flying saucers”, were the subject of a full Intelligence study in 1951”.

There was some considerable discussion and debate about the terms of reference of the Flying Saucer Working Party. The final version read as follows:

1. To review the available evidence in reports of “Flying Saucers”.
2. To examine from now on the evidence on which reports of British origin of phenomena attributed to “Flying Saucers” are based.
3. To report to DSI/JTIC as necessary.
4. To keep in touch with American occurrences and evaluation of such.

The five man working party was chaired by a naval intelligence officer, Mr G. L. Turney, from one of the MOD’s scientific intelligence branches. All the members were specialists in the field of scientific and technical intelligence. One member, Wing Commander Myles Formby, Assistant Director of Intelligence (Technical) at the Air Ministry, also chaired the Guided Missiles Working Party.