Incident · 17 December 1992 · Heathrow Airport control tower, London, looking east
Heathrow control tower: a black inverted boomerang watched by two controllers
Also known as Heathrow boomerang 1992, Heathrow control tower UFO, Heathrow UFO December 1992, Heathrow ATC sighting 1992
At 8.20 am on 17 December 1992 two people in the operations room of Heathrow's control tower watched, with the naked eye and binoculars, a black object shaped like an inverted boomerang hanging in the east about seven miles away, over the morning fog with the sun behind it, before it moved off steadily. The report went up the military air traffic chain and RAF West Drayton signalled it to the Ministry of Defence the next day, copying the Defence Intelligence Staff.
The signal, one page in the DI55 file, is all that survives: the names are redacted and no reply or assessment follows. The National Archives' guide to the file pairs it with the Louth triangle of 9 December 1992, reported a week earlier from Lincolnshire.
Source: MoD file DEFE 31/181, p. 127 (The National Archives, opened March 2009)
Facts and claims
- documented RAF West Drayton's signal of 181445Z December 1992 to the MoD, headed “AERIAL PHENOMENA”, logs a sighting at 170820Z December 1992 of “ONE, INVERTED BOOMERANG SHAPE, BLACK IN COLOUR”, seen “INDOORS/HEATHROW CONTROL TOWER” by “NAKED EYE AND BINOCULARS” to the east, bearing 130, at seven miles, “STATIONARY THEN MOVED STEADILY”, in “FOGGY SURFACE, MORNING SUN”; the informant, name redacted, is given as the ATC operations room in the control tower building at Heathrow, reporting through the military air traffic organisation, with “ONE OTHER WITH THE INFORMANT” (DEFE 31/181, p. 127). Source: defe-31-181.pdf
- documented The signal was distributed to Sec(AS) for action, to the Air Force Operations duty officer, to DD GE/AEW and to DI55; the file holds no assessment of it, and no report of the Louth sighting of a week earlier is linked to it in the papers. Source: defe-31-181.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- MoD file DEFE 31/181: Defence Intelligence (DI55) UFO papers, February 1992 – April 1993 (subject of) — Page 127: RAF West Drayton's signal of the control-tower sighting of 17 December 1992
Incidents
- Louth, Lincolnshire: three lights in a triangle hover over the coast road, then shoot off at 500 mph (similar to) — The National Archives' guide pairs the two reports, a week apart, of a dark angular shape
Organizations
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (reported to) — Signalled by RAF West Drayton to the MoD on 18 December 1992, copied to Sec(AS) and DI55
Mentioned in this file
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
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