Watching the Skies: The Most Bizarre UK UFO Sightings Ever Reported

In a country so steeped in folklore and tales of the unexplained, the nation’s fascination with UFOs is perfectly understandable. From twelfth century tales of fire-breathing dragons emerging from the sea, to unusual reports by pilots and police officers, the UK’s skies have long been a stage for mysterious visitors, but how many UFO sightings in Britain have there been, how many can be easily explained, and how many are truly otherworldly?

The history of the UK’s UFO sightings stretches back centuries, with some of the earliest accounts recorded as far back as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Over time, these mysterious encounters evolved into more detailed reports, especially with the advancement of aviation and radar technology during the twentieth century. The UK is now recognised as one of the world’s hotspots for UFO phenomena, with iconic events such as the Rendlesham Forest incident making global headlines. From rural villages to major cities, thousands of sightings have been reported over the decades.

Between the late 1990s and early 2000s alone, official records show the list of British UFO incidents ran into the high hundreds, with reports being submitted by a wide and varied range of witnesses including civilians, police officers, military personnel, and pilots. These reports describe everything from strange lights and formations to solid objects with unusual flight patterns.

Despite this volume, accurately identifying these UFO sightings in Britain remains a major challenge. Many sightings eventually turn out to be explainable – ranging from weather balloons, aircraft, planets or meteors, to optical illusions, man-made objects and even elaborate practical jokes. Yet a small percentage don’t fall into any of these categories and they remain firmly in the ‘unidentified’ drawer.

Are you ready for a close encounter with the most bizarre UK UFO sightings?

We’re definitely not alone. In having a cultural obsession with UFOs, and an enduring curiosity about whether we are alone in the universe, that is.

Lots of countries around the world share a similar fascination with the unknown, driven by curiosity about extraterrestrial life and unexplained aerial phenomena. The USA, Russia, Mexico, France, and Argentina all have vibrant UFO cultures, with thousands of sightings reported by civilians, military personnel, and scientists alike. But here in the UK, UFO sightings and alien stories excite us because they’ve got a great mix of mystery, fear, and ‘what if’. These stories allow our collective imaginations to run riot and they challenge our understanding of what we know, or at least what we think we know. So without further ado, here are some of the most bizarre British UFO incidents of all time.

One of the most famous UFO sightings in Britain took place in the skies over Suffolk on the night of August 13/14 1956 and involved RAF and US Air Force personnel. It began about 9.30pm when radar operators at RAF Bentwaters tracked mysterious fast-moving targets, some traveling thousands of miles per hour, a speed faster than any known aircraft at the time was capable. Other targets, moving at slower speeds, were also tracked. Around 11pm another target was tracked, this time reported to be travelling as fast as 4,000mph.

The staff at RAF Bentwaters alerted their counterparts at RAF Lakenheath, about 40 miles northwest, and they also reported seeing strange bright objects in the sky. RAF interceptors were immediately scrambled. It’s been subsequently reported that the Perseid meteor shower was visible that night which may go some way to explain the number of fast-moving bright lights, but the official report said: “In conclusion, although conventional or natural explanations certainly cannot be ruled out, the probability of such seems low in this case and the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high”. The case remains unexplained and is considered to be one of the more plausible UFO sightings in the UK.

On May 23, Cumbrian fireman Jim Templeton, his wife Annie, and their daughter Elizabeth went on a day trip to Burgh Marsh, overlooking Solway Firth, an inlet on Britain’s west coast which makes up part of the English-Scottish border. What they didn’t know is that their fun day out would go on to become one of the most baffling incidents on the list of UK UFOs. A keen photographer, dad Jim took pictures of his daughter, and when they were developed, a strange, white spaceman-like figure appeared behind Elizabeth, something Templeton insisted he hadn’t seen at the time.

The photo sparked global headlines and was investigated by police, as well as analysts at Kodak, who found no evidence of tampering. One explanation was that the mysterious ‘spaceman’ was in fact Jim’s wife Annie who walked into the shot and whose blue dress appeared white due to overexposure. A bizarre footnote to this perplexing story was that later in 1964, Templeton claimed to have been visited by two men who said they were government agents, but later thought it was some sort of practical joke. One of the more bizarre British UFO sightings, the incident remains unexplained.

Also known as the Livingston Incident and the Dechmont Woods Encounter, this story is unique among UK UFO sightings in that it’s the only example of a UFO sighting to have become the subject of an official criminal investigation. On November 9, forester Robert ‘Bob’ Taylor parked up and took his dog, a red setter called Lara, for a walk along a forest path close to Dechmont Law in Livingston, around twenty miles west of Edinburgh. As he turned a corner, he claimed to have encountered a large, dome-shaped craft about six metres in diameter hovering just above the forest floor. He said it smelled ‘like burning brakes’ and was set with small propellers with smaller, spiked spheres that dragged him toward the UFO, causing him to lose consciousness. When he woke up, the craft was gone.

He walked home – for reasons unknown his truck wouldn’t start – and according to his wife, he arrived dishevelled and muddy with torn clothes and cuts and grazes to his thighs and chin. The police, who later recorded the incident as a criminal assault, went to the site with Taylor and found what appeared to be ladder marks in the ground. But was he witness to one of the most farfetched UFO sightings in Britain? Some have put the incident down to an attack of temporal lobe epilepsy which could explain away what he saw as hallucinations. Another suggested it was a mirage of Venus, yet another said he saw nothing more than a saucer-shaped water tower. However, ufologist and author Malcolm Robinson said that “it could be one of the few genuine cases of a UFO encounter…”

Dubbed ‘Britain’s Roswell’, the Rendlesham Forest Incident is the most compelling and well-documented of all the UFO sightings in the UK. It began in the early hours of December 26, 1980, near RAF Woodbridge, used by the US Air Force. Security personnel saw strange lights descending into the forest and encountered a metallic, triangular-shaped craft about the size of a car, which floated just above the mist-covered forest floor. Witnesses reported slowed movement in the forest and physical impressions on the craft’s surface.

Two days later, a larger group led by Deputy Base Commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt returned, and witnessed another of these unexplained UK UFO sightings, including strange lights, beams, and a pillar of mist forming an eye-like shape. That night, eerie lights moved through the forest and a glowing object landed close to the group before disappearing, leaving scorch marks on the ground.

Though the Ministry of Defence said the event posed no security threat, many who were there maintain their accounts of an extraordinary experience. The incident has fuelled decades of speculation about extraterrestrial visits and alleged government cover-ups, keeping Rendlesham Forest at the heart of UFO lore in Britain. Despite alternative explanations from sceptics – such as atmospheric or celestial phenomena, covert military experiments, the misidentification of the pulsating beam from the nearby Orfordness Lighthouse, or even a practical joke – the Rendlesham Forest Incident remains a captivating enigma.

One of the more unusual British UFO incidents – in that it combines elements of alien abduction with tangible photographic evidence – the Ilkley Moor incident occurred on December 1 1987, when a retired police officer calling himself Philip Spencer (although that wasn’t his real name), claimed to have had a close encounter with extraterrestrials while walking on Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire.

During his walk, Spencer reported being briefly abducted and examined aboard an alien craft before being returned to the moor. He also took a photograph that allegedly shows one of the aliens, a small figure with a large head and thin arms and legs. The image sparked significant media interest, though sceptics have dismissed it as a hoax (perhaps a cardboard cut-out or someone in costume), along with a misidentification of aircraft from the nearby RAF Menwith Hill or Leeds Bradford Airport.

The image allegedly depicting an extraterrestrial being was sent to Kodak who couldn’t detect any signs of tampering, but even to the untrained eye, it’s far too grainy to say with any degree of certainty what it shows. Later, ‘Philip Spencer’ was hypnotised where his story changed quite dramatically, casting further doubt on what actually happened. He also claimed to have been shown two films while on board the spacecraft. The first showed a series of apocalyptic events such as nuclear explosions and natural catastrophes, but he refused to divulge the contents of the second. The implausibility of the abduction story, the fact that his recollection changed so dramatically, and the poor quality of the photograph, led to many concluding this was an elaborate hoax, but whether his story is real of fake, the Ilkley Moor incident remains one of the most fascinating UFO sightings in Britain and a compelling chapter in the UK’s extraterrestrial history.

On the long list of UK UFOs, the Calvine UFO, also called the Calvine Sighting, is one of the most perplexing. On the evening of August 4 1990, near the hamlet of Calvine in Perthshire, Scotland, two men who were believed to be hotel workers, spotted a large, silent diamond-shaped craft hovering over the moors. They took several photos of the object, which was described as dark grey with a metallic sheen and no visible lights or engines. A Royal Air Force jet appeared and circled the UFO before it ascended rapidly and vanished. The original negatives were handed to the Daily Record newspaper – a national Scottish tabloid – and later passed to the Ministry of Defence but then disappeared, remaining unseen for decades.

Over the next few years, rumours spread about the sighting and the photograph, but it wasn’t until 2022 that a team led by investigative journalist David Clarke found an original copy of the image which was published in the Daily Mail in August of that year. It has subsequently been described as ‘the best UFO picture ever’, and ‘the world’s clearest UFO photo’. Nick Pope, a former civil servant who is believed to have worked for the MoD in Secretariat (Air Staff) Sec (AS) 2a – otherwise known as ‘the UFO desk’ – said of the image that it was ‘one of the most intriguing in the Ministry of Defence’s files.’

Despite extensive efforts, the identity of the two photographers remains unknown, fuelling speculation about the event. Some have suggested the craft could have been a classified secret military project, possibly the rumored ‘Aurora’ aircraft. A former American Department of Defense employee said the image was a reflection from a nearby lake. What is for certain is that the Calvine UFO is one of the most provocative of all UK UFO sightings and like the others, remains unsolved.

Named after the corn chip snack, the Dudley Dorito refers to a mysterious, large triangular UFO sighted multiple times over Dudley and the surrounding Black Country area of the West Midlands between 2007 and 2011. Witnesses described the object as resembling a giant Dorito crisp, with distinctive red – or white – lights on its underside that appeared to move as the craft flew silently and with unusual speed. Sightings were reported in several towns including Tipton, Dudley, Wolverhampton, and Halesowen, with some witnesses capturing video footage that has been widely shared on social media and video sharing websites.

A local UFO research group received dozens of calls about the sightings, sparking significant regional interest. Speculation swirled around whether the craft was an advanced secret military plane, experimental drone, or indeed of otherworldly origin. Despite the sightings and recordings, no official explanation has been offered and the Dudley Dorito remains one of the most captivating British UFO incidents of recent years.