RAF COSFORD 1993

Opening

On the night of 30 to 31 March 1993, people across the English Midlands and Wales reported bright lights and large objects crossing the sky. Two of the reports came from RAF bases in Shropshire. A security patrol at RAF Cosford saw lights moving overhead.

At RAF Shawbury, the duty meteorological officer described a huge object moving slowly over the airfield, sweeping a light beam across the ground, before accelerating away. The Ministry of Defence's UFO desk officer, Nick Pope, investigated and argued the case couldn't be explained. Many of the reports that night have since been matched to a Russian rocket body re-entering the atmosphere. The Shawbury sighting hasn't.

Timeline

30 March 1993, eveningReports begin across several counties of bright lights, some described as a triangle.

31 March 1993, around 01:00A large number of witnesses, including a patrol at RAF Cosford, see a formation of lights moving fast across the sky.

The same nightAt RAF Shawbury, the meteorological officer reports a large dark object moving slowly at low height, projecting a narrow beam onto the ground, with a low humming sound. It then moves off at great speed.

April 1993Nick Pope, working on the MoD's UFO desk, collects the reports and briefs senior officials that the event is significant and unexplained. The official conclusion is that there's no defence significance.

Later analysisResearchers, including David Clarke, link the 01:00 formation sightings to the re-entry of the rocket that launched the Russian satellite Cosmos 2238, which broke up over Britain at about that time.

Key figures

The Shawbury meteorological officer gave the most striking and specific account. It's the one the re-entry doesn't explain.

The Cosford patrol was the other military witness.

Nick Pope made the case famous, and he treats it as one of the most important British UFO cases.

David Clarke and other researchers made the re-entry connection.

Physical and documentary trail

The record: MoD files on the night, released to the National Archives, with Pope's briefing and the witness reports. No radar evidence of an object over Shawbury has been made public.

The re-entry is documented through satellite tracking records.

Things you might not know

• More than 30 reports came in six hours. The MoD logged them across the south and west of the British Isles.
• The Shawbury object was very low. The meteorological officer described a vast triangular craft flying at about 200 feet.
• Pope suspected a secret US plane. In April 1993 he briefed the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff that the sightings matched some reported features of "Aurora", a rumoured American spy plane.
• The Pentagon said nothing. The British air attaché in Washington found nothing, and Pope was told: "Thank you - I suggest you now drop this subject."
• Pope later linked it to AATIP. He has said he believes the Cosford incident was looked at by the Pentagon's Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.

Competing explanations

A rocket re-entry. The Cosmos 2238 rocket body broke up over Britain at the right time, producing a fast formation of lights. This explains many of the sightings around 01:00.

A secret aircraft or helicopter. A slow, low craft with a searchlight fits a helicopter or an experimental airship. No aircraft was identified, and the object's size and silence in some accounts don't fit a helicopter well.

An unknown craft. Pope's reading. The Shawbury officer's detailed account is the core of it.

Later life of the case

The Cosford incident is often called Britain's Rendlesham of the 1990s, partly because Pope has promoted it. It's a standard example of how one clear explanation, the re-entry, can cover most of a mass sighting and leave one strong report uncovered.

Finding

Most of what was reported that night was a rocket body breaking up in the atmosphere. The Shawbury officer's slow object with a beam doesn't fit that. With no radar data and one witness, it stays unexplained without being extraordinary.

What still will not resolve: what flew slowly over RAF Shawbury, if it wasn't part of the re-entry.