Long before Fox Mulder and Dana Scully made alien-hunting famous in the hit show "The X-Files," British defense experts were quietly doing the same thing.

Newly-released files have revealed the lengths the British security services went to in order to catch a UFO - and the once-classified documents also show what they intended to do with it if they found one.

The UK feared their rivals China or the Soviet Union - as Russia was known then - had already found a UFO and “impounded it”, so they could learn the secrets of alien technology. The UK spooks were of the belief the Chinese or Soviets were using the aliens’ secrets to develop fast aircraft that were invisible on radars.

The Ministry of Defence ran a secret UFO desk the public were not aware of, between 1947 and 1997. While one desk took calls from Brits who claimed to have seen strange objects in the sky, the secret desk reportedly sent staff to delve into the claims.

A report entitled “UAPs” (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) in the UK Air Defence Region is set to be released to the public after being declassified.

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