Berwyn Incident : Secret Files Box

The Secret Files – The Berwyn Mountain case

text by David Clarke

Ever since the mysterious events of January 1974 in the Berwyn Mountains claims have made of a “cover up” by the UK authorities of a UFO crash-landing. But the full facts surrounding official involvement did not emerge until the Ministry of Defence released their files on the incident, coincidentally on 1 January 2005, the day Britain’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) came into force.

The records show the MoD received just five reports on the evening of 23 January 2005 and none of these were from Wales. The sightings, from the Home Counties, Lincolnshire and Sussex, all described a bright light in the northwest which appeared to fall towards the horizon. One observer said the object appeared to break up, followed by a brilliant flash of green light. Another recorded the time as just before 10 pm – which coincides with one of the bolide meteors recorded by astronomers that night.

In May 1974 Welsh MP Dafyd Ellis Thomas asked Defence Minister Brynmoor John if any investigation had been made into the events. The MoD took advice from the Met Office and its Defence Intelligence branch, DI 55, who said the bolide meteor seen from many parts of the British Isles was the most likely explanation for the sightings of “bright lights” in North Wales. The MP was told that “no official enquiry” was made by the MoD other than a search by the RAF Valley Mountain Rescue team of the area where the object was believed to have fallen, which found nothing.

Mr John added: “It has also been suggested that about an hour and a half earlier, at 8.32 pm, there was an earth tremor in the Berwyn Mountains which produced a landslide with noises like detonations. This latter aspect of the affair, however, is outside the field of the Air Force department.”

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