Nick Redfern March 11, 2022

During the early 1950s my dad, Frank Redfern, like all young men of his age at that time, had to serve three years of National Service. And, having a passion for aircraft, he chose to join the Royal Air Force. During his three years in the RAF, and before returning to his regular job as a carpenter, which he held until his retirement at the age of sixty-five, he was trained in the field of, and worked on, radar. It was towards the end of his service that my dad was involved in several radar-based UFO encounters, all of which occurred at the height of a September 1952 NATO operation, called Exercise Mainbrace. On each occasion, fast moving objects of unknown origin were tracked on the radar-screens, fighter planes were scrambled, and the ominous and official stamp of secrecy came firmly down on just about everyone and everything. Certainly, my dad didn’t tell me about this most weird affair until I was in my early teens, around 1978 or 1979. It was an event that got me deeply interested in UFOs, and set me on a path to seek out the truth concerning all things saucer-shaped and flying. And it’s a strange and conspiracy-filled path that I’m still on today. And, arguably, those September 1952 events left a deep and lasting impression on my dad, too, since – if asked – he is still willing to talk about them to this very day.

(Nick Redfern) Radar and my dad: still sharing his UFO experiences

There’s no doubt it was my dad’s experiences – and particularly those military-based radar events he was involved in -that got me involved. With that said, let’s now take a look at some other UFO-radar cases that I consider to be important. On March 26, 1957, there was an amazing encounter. The UK Air Ministry documentation (now in the public domain) states in part: “A report was received from Royal Air Force Church Lawford on 26th March, 1957 of a sighting of an unusual nature. The object moved at a speed timed at exceeding 1400mph [italics mine]. This in itself was unusual as the object had accelerated to this speed from a stationary position [italics mine]. No explanation has yet been found for this sighting but a supplementary report, including a copy of the radar plot, was requested and has been received from Church Lawford this afternoon.” Few of the files have been placed into the public domain.

(Nick Redfern) At the National Archives

A perfect example of UFOs and radar, is a collection of U.S. Air Force documents that detail an astonishing wave of UFO activity that occurred in early 1958. They are files declassified under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, but which have not generally received the positive commentary they deserve. The mystery began on the night of March 9, 1958. The location: a now-closed U.S. Army installation on the Panama Canal Zone called Fort Clayton. It was around 8:00 p.m. when a UFO was tracked, by anti-aircraft personnel, in the Canal Zone area. Further blips soon appeared on the screen. Clearly something unusual was afoot. It turns out that Fort Clayton was not the only base monitoring unusual aerial activity. Radar staff at Fort Amador, Flamenco Island were also tracking something airborne and unknown. In fact, they were tracking two UFOs – both of which maintained a circular pattern above a nearby installation, Fort Kobbe. Their heights, however, fluctuated between 2,000 and 10,000 feet. It was at this time that staff at Taboga Island’s Track Radar Unit confirmed they were keeping a careful watch on certain unknowns, too.

Shortly before midnight, personnel at Fort Amador chose to take a new and novel approach to try and identify the UFOs: they bathed them with powerful, ground-based searchlights. The response was incredible: in no more than a handful of seconds the UFOs headed skywards from 2,000 to 10,000 feet. Official records on this particularly eye-opening development state: “…this was such a rapid movement that the Track Radar, which was locked on target, broke the Track Lock and was unable to keep up with ascent of the objects. As Track Radar can only be locked on a solid object, which was done in the case of the two unidentified flying objects, it was assumed that the objects were solid.” This strange and bizarre activity continued into the early hours of March 10 – something which saw UFOs hovering and accelerating to speeds around 1,000 miles per hour, and unknown objects tracked on radar.

(Nick Redfern) The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense

One of the most fascinating of all UFO encounters – an incident that almost resulted in a mid-air collision between a UFO and a Meteor jet – occurred over Royal Air Force Gaydon, Warwickshire, England, on the night of October 21, 1957. Less than a week later, the UK media was chasing down the story. Describing RAF Gaydon as “one of the RAF’s top V-bomber stations,” the Sunday Express newspaper stated that the Air Ministry (today, the Ministry of Defense) had taken rapid steps to get to the heart of the mystery. Reportedly, the UFO was seen visually by the pilot and tracked by ground-radar personnel – and only a few minutes apart. Questions, unsurprisingly, were quickly being asked: could the UFO actually have been a Soviet spy-plane? It was certainly a scenario that the Air Ministry felt important enough to address. Although – as will become apparent – the description given by the pilot did not sound like that of the average Russian aircraft. Plus, six days after the event occurred, Air Ministry staff were still scratching their heads. As all of this demonstrates, radar and UFOs come together – and in an amazing fashion. Sometimes with your own dad!

MU*

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