Incident · 24 March 1997 · Howden Moors, Peak District, near Bolsterstone, South Yorkshire
Howden Moor incident: the Peak District 'air crash' search and the two sonic booms
Also known as Howden Moor incident, Howden Moors UFO, Bolsterstone incident 1997, Peak District aircrash scare 1997, Sheffield sonic booms 1997
Partly explained. An RAF Provost and Security Services report of 27 May 1998, obtained by David Clarke, found that a pre-booked low-flying exercise accounted for most of the sightings but could not identify what caused the two sonic booms, and closed the case with “no military link”; the MoD's own note for Parliament in March 1998 said the occurrence “remains unexplained”. (source)
Shortly after 10 pm on 24 March 1997, dozens of callers around Bolsterstone, on the moors north-west of Sheffield, reported a low-flying aircraft, an orange glow and an explosion. South Yorkshire Police treated it as an air crash: a police helicopter, an RAF Sea King from Leconfield and the Peak District mountain rescue teams searched the Howden Moors through the night and the next morning, with a temporary danger area declared over the reservoir, and found nothing. No aircraft was missing. The British Geological Survey's sensors had recorded a sonic boom from the south at 2206Z.
A year later the Sheffield Star's David Clarke wrote to the MoD, and Helen Jackson MP tabled questions. The MoD's answer admitted that military low flying had been booked over northern England that evening and that it could not say whether aircraft were in the area, but called the occurrence unexplained and said it had no record of RAF or NATO aircraft causing sonic events. The RAF Police inquiry that followed, which Clarke later obtained, concluded that the exercise explained most of the sightings, that the booms could not be tied to any aircraft, and closed the case.
Sources: MoD file DEFE 24/2018, pp. 232–254 (The National Archives, opened March 2011); DEFE 24/2071, pp. 7–9 (opened August 2011); Hansard, 30 March 1998; David Clarke's account of his investigation, which quotes the 1998 P&SS report (not in the files on hand).
Facts and claims
- documented The log of the Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre at RAF Kinloss opens at 2250Z on 24 March 1997 with a report of an explosion and possible aircraft crash north-west of Sheffield, South Yorkshire Police incident 1091; by 2305Z the police had further sighting reports from Strines and a red glow still visible, and the RAF Sea King Rescue 128 was scrambled from Leconfield (DEFE 24/2018, pp. 250–251). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented Rescue 128 and the police helicopter, which carried infra-red equipment, searched the moors between Bolsterstone, Pike Low, Margery Hill and the Ladybower reservoir through the night and again on the morning of 25 March, with the Peak District mountain rescue teams on foot; the Sea King's own report records various areas searched with night-vision goggles and the police FLIR, “NOTHING FOUND” (pp. 251–254). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented On the morning of 25 March the rescue centre asked the British Geological Survey to check its sensors: the log records the reply that “THE SIGNAL LOOKS LIKE A TYPICAL SONIC BOOM” from the south at 2206Z, and ends with the note that all assets were stood down and the sonic boom reading “WAS FROM A SOUTHERLY DIRECTION” (p. 253). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented The RAF's public relations officer in Scotland, drafting a reply to Clarke on 23 March 1998, summarised the log: the BGS had recorded “what might have been a sonic boom … around the time witnesses saw and heard the activity which started the search”, while military air traffic controllers had “no complaints or reports of sonic booms” from the search area that night, and “there was no RAF exercise activity on the night of March 24” (p. 249). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- claimed Clarke's letter to the MoD of 2 March 1998 says that between 10.10 and 10.15 pm “up to 40 separate groups of witnesses contacted police and emergency services to report seeing a low-flying object which they believed was a low-flying aircraft in distress near the South Yorkshire village of Bolsterstone”, that gamekeepers at Strines heard an “explosion”, and that police called off the search of more than 40 square miles after 17 hours; some witnesses in Dronfield and Chesterfield said they had seen RAF Tornado jets flying north shortly before, while the police said the RAF had told them there was no military activity in the area (p. 235). — David Clarke Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented Answering Helen Jackson MP's written questions on 26 March 1998, the MoD said “A number of military aircraft were booked to carry out low flying training in northern England on the evening of 24 March 1997”, that 13 low-flying complaints were received for that date, none from the area, and that “No reported sightings of “UFOs” on 24 or 25 March 1997 were received by my Department” (p. 233). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented The background note to the answer states: “The occurrence, contemporaneously thought to have been a light aircraft crash, remains unexplained. No aircraft were reported missing on the evening in question and a comprehensive search of the area, in which a RAF Sea King Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter from Leconfield also participated, found no trace of aircraft wreckage.” It adds that radar tapes “would have been re-used”, so no meaningful investigation was practicable, and that “Without an investigation we cannot say with confidence whether military aircraft were or were not in the area”: no low flying was booked for the Peak District sector at the time, “but it is possible that military aircraft were operating at medium level” (pp. 233–234). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- documented Asked by Mrs Jackson whether an RAF or NATO aircraft was responsible for the two sonic booms above Sheffield detected by Edinburgh University's seismology unit at 21.52 and 22.06 on 24 March 1997, Armed Forces minister John Spellar answered on 30 March 1998: “We have no record of sonic events being generated by RAF or NATO aircraft for the evening of 24 March 1997.” Source: api.parliament.uk (archived)
- documented A Temporary Danger Area centred on Howden Reservoir was established between 0730 and 1215 on 25 March 1997 so that the Leconfield Sea King could search “without disturbance from other military air traffic”; Manchester Airport asked for, and was given, control of it to co-ordinate its own traffic (pp. 234, 252). Source: defe-24-2018-1-1.pdf
- claimed Clarke reports that RAF Marham's press officer established that six Tornado GR1A reconnaissance aircraft of 2 Squadron flew the exercise that evening, leaving between 6.45 and 7.55 pm and all landing by 9.35 pm: “They were on routine low-flying through the Peak District and all returned safely.” — David Clarke Source: drdavidclarke.co.uk (archived)
- claimed The RAF Provost and Security Services report of 27 May 1998, which Clarke obtained in 2006–7, found that the pre-booked exercise accounted for most of the sightings; on the booms it noted that “sonic events cannot be identified as being specifically caused by aircraft”, that satellite re-entry “may explain the happenings of 24 March 1997”, and that the radar tape showed only an airliner descending into Manchester, “too slow moving to have caused a sonic boom”; it concluded “no military link can be established to this reported event and the case is now considered closed.” — David Clarke Source: drdavidclarke.co.uk (archived)
- claimed Clarke's own conclusion is that “There clearly was a military exercise taking place centred upon the Peak District that night”, that the sonic booms are the strongest link to the military, and that at least one light civilian aircraft was also flying low over north Sheffield around the time of the reports. — David Clarke Source: drdavidclarke.co.uk (archived)
- documented In July 2006 a researcher asked the MoD under the Freedom of Information Act for the briefing papers supplied to John Spellar for the March 1998 questions about “two unexplained ‘sonic booms’ reported in the Peak District on 24 March 1997”; the MoD's clearing-house form records that it considered withholding them as advice to ministers (DEFE 24/2071, pp. 7–9). Source: defe-24-2071-1.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- MoD file DEFE 24/2018: UFO Parliamentary questions and correspondence, December 1997 – October 1998 (subject of) — Pages 232–254: Helen Jackson MP's questions, the MoD's answer and background note of 26 March 1998, David Clarke's letter and Star article, the RAF Kinloss rescue-centre log with the British Geological Survey's sonic-boom reading, the night low-flying booking sheets
People
- David Clarke (investigated by) — Wrote to the MoD on 2 March 1998 as a reporter on the Sheffield Star; his letter prompted the Parliamentary questions, and he later obtained the RAF Police report
Organizations
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (assessed by) — Sec(AS)'s answer and background note for the March 1998 Parliamentary questions: the occurrence “remains unexplained”
Mentioned in this file
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
- The National Archives: guides to the Ministry of Defence UFO files (2008–2013) (Document)
More incidents
- Six “flying saucers” across southern England: the Farnborough students' hoax
- Cosford incident: police and RAF sightings across western England and Wales
- Soldiers' video of lights over Tern Hill barracks, Shropshire
- Police helicopter near-collision with unidentified lights over Birmingham (Airprox 055/08)
- Flashing lights over Bromley confirmed by police and a police helicopter crew
- Lights over the Wash and radar plot over Boston, Lincolnshire