Notes on Statements by RAF Neatishead Personnel

Dave Clarke

HAROLD MAUGHAN was a Senior Aircraftman/radar operator based at RAF Neatishead during 1957 and 1958. In a telephone conversation [January 2002] he said he was present during a number of 'UFO' incidents:

"It was quite common to see these things and the officers simply referred to them as 'angels.' No special attention was paid to them as our priority was keeping out the Russian bears. If one of these angels was tracked whilst aircraft were airborne they would be asked to have a look and I remember how they would always outpace our aircraft, the Javelins and Hunters.

"One particular occasion in 1958 I remember clearly. It was a night I was on duty and we had [an X-raid] and sent two aircraft to investigate. They reported back that they could see something but as soon as we put the height-finder on them they shot off like a rocket, at an astonishing speed, and disappeared straight up out of our range at something like 140,000 feet. Neither we nor the Russians had anything that could move like that; they just whizzed away leaving the Javelins floundering."

Maughan said he did not recall any orders, formal or informal, for the reporting or recording of these 'angels', nor did he recall any instructions to the effect that he should not talk about what he had observed on radar.

SQUADRON LEADER J.P. O'BRIEN (RAF retired) was a technical officer at RAF Neatishead 1956-58. Letter dated 11 December 2001:

"I regret to say that I have no knowledge whatsoever of the incident during the evening of 13/14 August 1956 which you referred to. At the time of that incident I was working at Neatishead as a Radar Fitter and I had nothing to do with operational matters. Furthermore at that time I know for certain that I was working days so I would not have been on site at the time of the incident.

"The main search radar at Neatishead at the time was a Type 7 which worked in the 1 meter band so the return was rather 'fat' on the PPI screen but there was little by way of 'angels' which were prevalent on the Type 14 search radars which worked in the 10cm band. The 'angel' echoes were also prevalent on the much more powerful Type 80 radar which operated at Trimingham near Cromer. I know for certain that in 1957-58 bird watchers were invited in to Trimingham to study these echoes to see if they could be related to known bird migration patters - these returns never showed high speed characteristics in my experience. What the conclusion was I have no idea."

DENNIS WALMSLEY and DAVID GAZE, both radar fitters at the same period, gave similar testimony. Walmsley said:

"I have no knowledge of the incident referred to. It occurred during the night. Technical staff worked during the day, so news would probably not have got to us. It was probably put down to 'angels' or 'anaprop' as most unusual phenomena were at that time."