ARGUABLY THE MOST fascinating British ‘UFO’ case in the last 35 years took place on a remote Scottish hillside one evening in August 1990. For years it has perplexed those who have looked into it, and not only due to the mysterious nature of the craft which was observed. The non-reporting of the story at the time by the Scottish press has puzzled many and in recent years information has been found that suggested terrestrial “black projects” were to blame. When the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD’s) decision to withhold certain details of the case until 2076 and a former MOD civilian desk officer’s involvement are added to the mix, the case becomes even more fascinating and intriguing. 32 years to the month after it occurred, are we any further forward knowing just what was witnessed over the Highlands that summer evening back in 1990?
At around 9pm on the evening of Saturday, 4th August 1990, two men on a hillside near Calvine, a small hamlet situated just off the main A9 road, some 35 miles north-west of Perth in Scotland, managed to take six colour photographs of a large, diamond-shaped craft in the fading summer daylight. They watched as it hovered close to their position for some ten minutes, only to shoot off vertically at relatively high speed. When providing their witness statement, the men also recalled seeing what were believed to be RAF jets making multiple low-level passes in the area at the same time. It is still unclear whether the jets were accompanying the strange craft, or just happened to be flying through the area at the time. Calvine lies close to the only main road through that part of the Scottish Highlands, one which is a relatively busy thoroughfare even on summer evenings, and the valley it follows was a popular low-flying route for RAF aircraft. Indeed, Calvine sits in the middle of Low Flying Area 14 (LFA 14) and UAP Media UK member & aviation author Graeme Rendall recalls using various mountainside locations in the general vicinity of Calvine for low-level aviation photography back in the early 2000s.
According to the copy of the hand-written sighting report that was released by The National Archives (TNA) in October 2008, the witnesses gave an account of their sighting plus the colour photographs to what was the joint RAF/Royal Navy Headquarters at Pitreavie, near Dunfermline (which closed in 1996). As this was in the days before the advent of digital technology, the photo negatives were given to the Daily Record, one of the main Scottish newspapers, for potential publication. A journalist from the paper duly contacted the MOD for comment, and, when asked if the latter could have the negatives for examination, duly passed them on rather than take copies or refuse. It would appear that neither the MOD nor the Daily Record returned any of these items to the two witnesses. Surprisingly for such an obviously newsworthy case, the Daily Record did not run the story at the time, nor did they keep any of the six photographs or negatives. The MOD received everything that confirmed the existence of the strange craft over Calvine.
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