PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Alleged UFO or UAP, 1990, Calvine, Scotland
Old 9th Feb 2022, 15:27
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Matthew Illsley
 
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Originally Posted by Ninthace
August, that area, there would have been enough people about at that time of year to have seen something. The areas are popular with the hiking fraternity and tourists at that time of year. Also, why fly something like that in broad daylight? Sunset would have been around 21:20 and it would not have been properly dark until gone 22:00.

Most airfields have spotters - anything like that leaving an airfield risks being noticed. Enlarging the image provided, I'm pretty sure the ac in the picture is a Harrier, not a Hunter. I would put a pint on it anyway.
Thanks, Ninthace.

No one has really questioned the Harrier's identity before tbh (which is not to come down on either side of whether it was or wasn't one). The MoD, for example, has always claimed it's a Harrier in the picture(s), but it has also always denied having any Harriers in the air on that day/time. We've sourced formerly classified Operations Records Books (ORBs) from August 1990 for Harrier Squadrons 1, 3, 4, 233, 800, 801, and 899, but none of them give any indication that anyone flew in Scotland in that period. (Of course, that doesn't mean that someone in a Harrier wasn't vectored in from somewhere else.) Oddly enough, we're also yet to find any Harrier pilots who have even heard of the story before we ask them about it.

FWIW, the hand-written report indicates the witness to have said that the diamond-shaped craft 'ascend[ed] vertically upwards at high speed', so if that's true, it may not have flown to or from any recognised airfield, although given it's alleged size, it would logically have needed to at some point (perhaps in darkness).



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