Of course, it could be argued that this would serve as an excellent cover if the Flying Triangle that was seen near RAF Shawbury was a terrestrial aircraft.…
The Revealing Truth of Ufos, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups & Conspiracies: Area 51
“There had been persistent rumors in the aviation world and amongst the UFO lobby that the SR71 Blackbird had been replaced by a hypersonic aircraft code-named Aurora and that that was what the Flying Triangles really were. I was well aware that there had been some interesting stories about visual and radar sightings around certain air bases; however, I hadn’t put much store in these rumors—not least because there had been some very definitive denials from the Americans. “I know there’s a lot of cynicism about government and the military.
And although officialdom may refuse to answer a question and may sometimes give a misleading answer, outright lying is incredibly rare. And when it does occur, if it’s uncovered it almost certainly leads to resignation. “But with the March 1993 sightings—and in spite of the denials from the Americans that they were responsible for the Flying Triangles—we did contact them to make inquiries. This was because they have the responsibility pertaining to the U.S. presence in Britain. Those inquiries bore absolutely no fruit at all.
The Americans said: ‘No. We can shed no light at all on the UFO sightings that have led to your inquiry.’” Pope is able to disclose, however, that the liaison with the Americans was not without its moment of intrigue. “If anything,” he now relates, “there was an interesting little hint that the Americans, too, were seeing these Flying Triangles over their territory. As we were making our inquiries, they turned the question around and wanted to know if our Royal Air Force had a triangular-shaped, hypersonic prototype aircraft of some sort.
So, presumably, the Americans were having Flying Triangle sightings, too. “But this was interesting, in light of the fact that the Americans supposedly got out of UFO investigations back in 1969 when the Air Force’s Project Blue Book closed down. Of course, you may not officially be in the UFO game, but you are certainly going to be aware of—and take an interest in—reports of structured craft in your airspace. So, essentially, we drew blanks with the Americans.”
At the time, Nick Pope and the secretariat of the air staff were not the only ones who were addressing the issue of whether or not the Americans were flying an Aurora-type craft in British airspace. In early 1995, for example, this very issue was brought up in none other than the houses of Parliament. It was January 26, and the following exchange took place between Llew Smith MP and Nicholas Soames, the then-Minister for the Armed Forces:
Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defense how many Aurora Prototype aircraft of the United States Air Force are based at the Machrihanish Air Force Base in Argyll; and for what period permission has been given for Basing these aircraft in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Soames: There are no United States Air Force prototype aircraft based at RAF Machrihanish and no authorization has been given by Her Majesty’s Government to the United States Air Force, or any other U.S. body, to operate such aircraft within or from the United Kingdom.
As this exchange made abundantly clear, even during a Parliamentary debate, nothing had surfaced to suggest—officially, at least—that the American government was in any way implicated in the mystery of the Flying Triangles.
Back to Nick Pope: “Bearing in mind that the Americans had inquired—at an official level, no less—if the British Royal Air Force had in its employ something broadly fitting the description of a Flying Triangle, and we had said ‘No,’ I still felt obliged to address the issue of whether or not the rumors about secret aircraft being flown by us were true.
“First, from my own knowledge of prototype aircraft, un-manned aerial vehicles and so on, the Triangles don’t fit into the typical pattern, and I’ll explain why. Where we do have such pieces of kit, they’re not tested over the heads of ‘Joe Public’; they’re tested in a small number of clearly defined ranges and danger areas—mostly out at sea such as the Abberporth Range in Cardigan Bay.”
Pope also states on this highly controversial matter: “You simply do not fly a prototype craft over a military base or over the centre of Rugeley or wherever, and run the risk that someone will either (a) scramble a [Tornado] F-3 [aircraft] to try and intercept it; or (b) take a photograph of it that will end up on the front page of The Sun or Jane’s Defense Weekly. It’s simply not the way that things are done.
“We checked domestically anything that might have been flying. But if we’d have been poking our noses into something that didn’t concern us, the investigation would have been quietly switched off. In fact, the opposite happened. We were making big waves throughout the Royal Air Force, the Ministry of Defense and at an international level. So the domestic secret aircraft theory is interesting but it doesn’t hold water.” Three years prior to the extraordinary events at RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury, similar objects were seen on repeated occasions in Belgian airspace in 1989 and 1990. In view of this, was any form of approach made to the Belgian military to ascertain their views?