The Flying Saucer Working Party

At the NYT, Sarah Lyall contemplates the recent release of UFO-related files by Britain's Ministry of Defense:

Much of the material consists of one-page forms carrying details like how big the supposed aircraft was and what, if anything, it seemed to be doing.

A citizen who gives her profession as “meals on wheels operator” describes her shock and awe at the sight of a smallish “Vulcan-shaped object” hovering in the sky. Another witness says she was roused from bed by a brilliant light emanating from a U.F.O. “the size of a milk-bottle base.”

“Some time on a Monday evening during the break in watching ‘Quincy’ — I checked my watch — I noticed an unusual happening in the sky,” one correspondent wrote. And from Cornwall, a report arrived from a 28-year-old motorist who observed a bright yellow light “which bobbed and weaved” over the road, an image recalling Tinkerbell’s mode of travel in “Peter Pan.”

“The light changed to a purplish color, prior to its exit into a thick hedgerow,” the report reads.