This article was published in the daily newspaper Western Daily Press, UK, ON November 14, 2003.
Ello 'ello 'ello, what's goin' on 'ere then? There seem to be rather a lot of spaceships hovering in the West's night skies. More than 200 police officers have come forward to say they have seen UFOs flying over the British countryside, a detective revealed yesterday.
And according to the bobbies' X-files experiences, for the past 50 years the West has been a buzzing hotspot for extra-terrestrial activity.
One of the first recorded incidents out of the 84 recorded on the Prufos (Police Reporting UFO Sightings) website, comes from 1963 when PC Anthony Penny, on duty and wearing his uniform, saw an orange shape zoom over the sky and disappear into a field.
A few days later, when a large crater was found in the meadow, a bomb disposal team was sent to investigate, and the incident was even mentioned in Parliament.
Det Con Gary Heseltine, who works for the British Transport Police in Leeds and runs the database, feels the sightings are particularly credible because they all come from serving or retired officers.
"To my logical, police-trained mind, the officers provide excellent witness testimony promoting the 'nuts and bolts' evidence that supports the extra-terrestrial hypothesis," he wrote in a special report for this month's UFO Magazine.
And yesterday, the 43-year-old said he believed the sightings were only the tip of the iceberg.
"Many officers are worried about saying anything in case it affects their jobs or careers. That's why many sightings are only reported to me after officers have retired or if there are multiple sightings that several officers have seen," he said. "The police are trained observers, they are out 24 hours a day."
A firm believer in extra-terrestrial life, Det Con Heseltine has himself had two UFO experiences. But one of the most dramatic brushes with a UFO was reported by two off-duty policemen at dusk on an October day in 1967, in Lytchett Minster, Dorset.
A large cigar-shaped spaceship, that was changing colour and form, was hovering over the village. As they watched, it split in two, disappeared and reappeared, and then shot from view.
And PC Roger Willey was one of two officers in a patrol car who reported giving chase to a cross-shaped spaceship in Okehampton, Devon. Their official report filed after the flying saucer sighting said it hovered over Salisbury in Wiltshire for almost a minute.
