A PASSENGER jet coming in to land at Heathrow had a near miss with a UFO, the MoD files revealed. The Alitalia flight’s captain, Achille Zaghetti, was at 22,000ft when he saw the brown, 10ft-long, missile-shaped object 1,000ft above him. He said: “At once I said, ‘Look out’ to my co-pilot, who looked and saw what I’d seen.” Air traffic controllers also reported an unidentified object on their screens.

The incident in 1991 over Lydd, Kent, was investigated — but after ruling out a missile, weather balloon or space rocket, the MoD left the matter unsolved. The unexplained close encounter with the Alitalia jet is one of many recounted in military UFO documents made available online today by the National Archives. Pilot Mr Zaghetti added: “As soon as the object crossed us I asked to the ACC (area control centre) operator if he saw something on his screen and he answered ‘I see an unknown target 10nm (nautical miles) behind you’.”

A CAA document notes that Southern TV broadcast a story about a 14-year-old boy who reported seeing a missile flying at low level before climbing through the cloud and disappearing on the same evening. Radar images showing the UFO were initial labelled “cruise missile??” but it was quickly established that it was not a military weapon. By July 2 the MoD had concluded that the object had not come from the Army firing ranges in the Lydd area and that there was no known “space-related activity” that night.

There were, however, a number of other similar incidents recorded the same year.