Incident · 14 August 1950 – 5 September 1950 · Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Hampshire
RAF officers' disc sightings at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough
Also known as Farnborough 1950, Hubbard sighting
Explained. The 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, which interviewed the officers, concluded the first sighting was an optical illusion or a normal aircraft and the second a normal aircraft at extreme range, one report “inducing another”. (“Unidentified Flying Objects”: report by the Flying Saucer Working Party (UK, June 1951))
Two sightings in 1950 by RAF officers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, the home of British test flying. On 14 August Flight Lieutenant Hubbard, an experienced pilot, saw a pearl-grey disc pass overhead making S-turns at high speed; on 5 September he and five other officers on the watch-tower watched a similar disc manoeuvre at long range over the Guildford–Farnham area.
Members of the Ministry of Defence's Flying Saucer Working Party interviewed the officers. They did not doubt their honesty but found it “impossible to believe” that an unconventional aircraft could cross so populous an area unnoticed by others, and attributed both sightings to illusion or ordinary aircraft.
Source: Flying Saucer Working Party report, DEFE 44/119 (1951)
Facts and claims
- documented Flight Lieutenant Hubbard, “an experienced pilot”, said that at 1127 on 14 August 1950 he saw almost directly overhead a flat disc, light pearl grey, about 50 feet across at about 5,000 feet, which he watched for 30 seconds as it travelled at an estimated 800–1,000 mph, executing a series of S-turns; two other officers with him heard a humming noise but saw nothing. Source: defe44-119.pdf
- documented At 1609 on 5 September 1950 Hubbard and five other officers on the watch-tower all saw, at 10–15 miles, a flat pearl-grey disc “about the size of a shirt button” fly a rectangular pattern of “falling leaf” descents and fast horizontal runs before it dived to the horizon. Source: defe44-119.pdf
- documented The working party wrote: “We have no doubt that all these officers did in fact see a flying object of some sort”, but concluded they saw “some quite normal aircraft, manœuvring at extreme visual range”, led by the earlier report to think it abnormal. Source: defe44-119.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- “Unidentified Flying Objects”: report by the Flying Saucer Working Party (UK, June 1951) (subject of)
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