FOUR children who spotted an unidentified object in the sky near Plymouth feature in a new document released by the Ministry of Defence.

The latest release of the UFO files is part of a three-year project between the Ministry of Defence and The National Archives, aimed at opening up the records to a worldwide audience.

The fourth instalment, available to the public now, consists of 14 files of sightings, letters and Parliamentary questions ranging from 1981 to 1996.

In the document, a report by the Plymouth UFO Research Group (PUFORG) dated July 24 1993, refers to a report that appeared in the Evening Herald, now The Herald, on August 3 1993.

The incident is one of countless mysterious sightings from all over the UK featured in the official UFO files, released by The National Archives.

PUFORG interviewed four children, aged between 11 and 14, who saw a 'cigar-shaped object' that formed a triangle with the sun and moon at Ivybridge, eight miles from Plymouth.

The names of the children are edited out of the report with black marks.

The report says that at 8.50pm on July 24, 1993, the four were playing in an alley that runs between their houses.

The first child to spot the object said: "I was playing in an alley, when I looked up into the sky and saw something that was too 'visible', if you know what I mean, to be a plane or anything, at the height it was at.

"It was a cigar shaped object and it was sort of metallic silvery colour."

According to the report he then grabbed his friend and said: "Look up there and he did and said it was a UFO.

"I wasn't exactly sure what it was and when he said it was a UFO I thought he was joking around."

After debate about what the object was, the children decided it was a UFO, the document says.

The object was approximately half-an-inch long at arms length, a bluey-silvery white colour and had a broad black band around the centre.

There were also small yellow lights all around the edge of it.

The report says that although it was impossible to ascertain a location for definite, all the children thought the UFO was "hovering between Bittaford and Ivybridge", possibly over the Western Beacon, a tor one mile north east of Ivybridge.

"These lights were steady but opposite each other were a pair of lights, one red and one green, which travelled around the object 'like lights at the fairground', always staying the same distance apart," the report says, adding that the lights weren't visible all the time.

The object disappeared behind clouds, leading the children to run to Torr Close where they didn't see it, but then it reappeared, moving away and becoming very small. It went behind a cloud again, the children went indoors and it started to rain, the report says. The sighting lasted 40 minutes.

To show how seriously the matter is taken, the boys received a letter form the MoD which has also been made public.

It said: "Details of the report you made concerning the strange light that you saw in the sky have been passed to this office.

"Our only concern is to establish whether or not there is a threat to the security of the United Kingdom."

"Unless we find evidence of such a threat – and this has not been the case so far – we do not attempt to investigate further, or to identify what was seen."

The letter then goes on to recommend civilian organisations, who "may be able to offer some further thoughts on what you saw."

A National Archives spokesman said many of the UFO reports in the release were filed in 1996, the year Will Smith starred in the Hollywood alien-themed blockbuster Independence Day, and when the popularity of supernatural TV series the X-Files was growing.

"This would appear to have somewhat coincidentally brought about a spike in UFO sightings – from 117 UFO reports in 1995 the number leapt to 609 in 1996 (Ministry of Defence statistics)," the spokesman said.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, said: "It's evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programmes and films about alien visitors and the numbers of UFO sightings reported to the MoD.

"Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD over the past half century was 1978 – the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released.

"Obviously, films and TV programmes raise public awareness of UFOs and it's fascinating to see how that appears to lead more people to report what they see to the authorities."

This latest instalment of files is available to download for free for a month now from The National Archives website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos.

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