PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Alleged UFO or UAP, 1990, Calvine, Scotland
Old 9th Feb 2022, 14:41
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Matthew Illsley
 
Join Date: Feb 2022
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Originally Posted by dead_pan
The former could make sense given the alleged location, the latter if said craft was indeed some experimental vehicle.

Matthew - maybe another line of enquiry worth pursuing?
Thank you again to everyone who has commented and/or messaged me privately.

Just as an update, and having collated a few suggestions, it seems that:

1. Many people are doubting Nick Pope's (and the MoD Loose Minute's) claims about the aircraft in the photocopied picture actually being a Harrier.
2. It is being suggested that it might have been a Hunter, although few of either aircraft were flown on weekends in 1990.
3. It is being suggested that Machrihanish is an unlikely site for the chase aircraft to have been based.
4. It is being suggested that I look instead at:

A&AEE = Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
ETPS = Empire Test Pilots School at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
RAE = Royal Aerospace Establishment (as it was then called in 1990), based at at RAE Farnborough in Hampshire and/or RAE Bedford in Bedfordshire.
237 OCU = Operational Conversion Unit: No 237 OCU, based at Wyton, Cambridgeshire (but which was at Lossiemouth in 1990?).
RAF West Freugh (now MoD West Freugh)

Lossiemouth to Calvine, as the crow flies, is 70 miles straight over the Cairngorms national park (i.e. almost no one there to see anything).
Machrihanish to Calvine, as the crow flies, is 114 miles straight over the Firth of Clyde and Loch Lomond national park (i.e. again, almost no one there to see anything).
West Freugh to Calvine, as the crow flies, is 139 miles straight over Paisley/Glasgow.

(Incidentally, the MoD messaged me today to say that there are no extant unredacted copies of the Condign Report, so we'll never know what was behind the redactions.)
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