The news must be very slow if we have to regurgitate tall tales that never amounted to anything originally:

Finest Hour 115, Summer 2002 Datelines: London, October 21st- "What does all this stuff abut flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience." This WSC to his advisers, who produced a six-page UFO report, hitherto denied by the Ministry of Defence but unearthed by UFO historians Andy Roberts and David Clarke. The "working party on flying saucers" was the idea of Sir Henry Tizard, WC's trusted scientific adviser during the war. The report played down the phenomenon and insisted there was no threat to Britain. But a few months later an order went out expressly banning all RAF personnel from discussing sightings with anyone not from the military. -The Observer

Finest Hour 129, Winter 2005-06, Around & About, page 10: Beginning 1950, reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) proliferated in Britain. Even Lord Louis Mountbatten stated his belief that the Earth was being visited by aliens. Churchill demanded to know the truth about flying saucers, historians Andy Roberts and David Clarke revealed while researching a book on UFOs and the Cold War. "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to?" Churchill minuted his advisers in 1952. "What can it mean? What is the truth?" Churchill was shown a report by Sir Henry Tizard, one of his most trusted scientific advisers during World War II and a key figure behind the development of radar. Tizard saw no threat from UFOs. All sightings, he reported, were explainable by natural events such as the weather or meteors, or were normal aircraft. But Britain followed the American lead in underplaying the sightings, and a few months later an order went out expressly banning all RAF personnel from discussing UFO reports with anyone not in the military. Roberts and Clarke believe that the UFO sightings were the product of "mass hysteria," an urban myth strong enough to penetrate the highest echelons.

Churchillophobes and searchers for dastardly plots seem unsatisfied with logical explanations, but in the 1950s, playing down unprovable rumors about visitors from outer space would seem a reasonably prudent approach by any leader.

The Telegraph goes on to say that the British National Archives have released thousands of pages of declassified files on UFOs "which cover from 1995 to 2003." We suspect that Churchill's fingerprints will not show up on any of those.

• UK Telegraph
• BBC News