Sighting record / 1984
October 13, 1984. Central London. Several people looked up over Waterloo Bridge, the road crossing that spans the River Thames between the Strand and the South Bank. What they reported was simple and startling. A flying saucer. Saucer-shaped, and hovering. The report went to the Ministry of Defence. Staff logged it, and it stayed in the files for more than two decades. Then, on 14 May 2008, the first release of MoD UFO files at The National Archives brought it back into the light. The witnesses are still unnamed. Their own words remain inside the file. What survives in public is a date, a place and a shape over the Thames.
In the 1980s, the Ministry of Defence received reports of unidentified flying objects from across Britain. Its purpose was stated plainly in a 1983 memo: "The sole interest of the Ministry of Defence in UFO reports is to establish whether they reveal anything of defence interest (eg intruding aircraft)." Staff logged the reports. The files were not made public for decades.