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UFO Drawings From The National Archives
Originally set up after a request from Winston Churchill, the Ministry of Defence’s UFO Desk ran for over 60 years, collating mysterious sightings and records of strange objects in the sky from observant, and sometimes imaginative, members of the public. As well as letters and official reports, the UFO files contain photographs, drawings and even paintings of these curious sightings. David Clarke has selected examples from The National Archives to present a history of British UFO art and the remarkable stories behind these images, including an alien craft on the A1, flying saucers over Hampstead, and a spaceship landing at a primary school in Macclesfield.
- GenresArtNonfictionHistory
120 pages, Hardcover
Published September 18, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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May 21, 2024I accidentally read a nonfiction book lol. I blame my local little free library.
Did you know that the British government had a literal “UFO desk” from 1962 to 2009 where they would just accept any and all submissions of extraterrestrial evidence from people? (well ok specifically ufos)
Eventually after some public pressure on what all this alien investigation was about, the Ministry of Defense went and released “all its surviving files”. Gasp!
This book is a collection of several of the sus as hell sightings/ records/ drawings/ photos of UFOs. Hilariouslyyy several of them were submitted by children but like, evidence is evidence.
Do I believe in aliens? I give you one guess. -_-
Did you know that the British government had a literal “UFO desk” from 1962 to 2009 where they would just accept any and all submissions of extraterrestrial evidence from people? (well ok specifically ufos)
Eventually after some public pressure on what all this alien investigation was about, the Ministry of Defense went and released “all its surviving files”. Gasp!
This book is a collection of several of the sus as hell sightings/ records/ drawings/ photos of UFOs. Hilariouslyyy several of them were submitted by children but like, evidence is evidence.
Do I believe in aliens? I give you one guess. -_-
December 17, 2024
I like how they curated this collection of UFO sightings in the UK, listed chronologically and presented with illustrations and photos from many kinds of different people. David Clark doesn’t to impose too much rationality onto each sighting and kind of allows each sighting to be what it is without giving too much of a personal take.
May 10, 2026
"Could you, possibly, give me any idea as to what it was I saw in the sky?"
Such a fun book. Incredible on the visual side. So many different art mediums, sometimes combined in really strange but cool ways. The book itself is very visually striking, and the cover is art a citizen submitted to the MoD to illustrate what they saw!
I was vaguely aware of the British government's "UFO Desk" but was good to really learn about the history of it being set up and shut down. Churchill's quote of "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth?" was a fun piece of context. And, of course, amazing seeing what was actually submitted to this UFO Desk.
Also cool seeing the influence of pop culture (e.g. reports peaking based on US incidents or films/TV shows). And how officials saw UFOs as an American fad, being disappointed when "our own people had begun to fall for that nonsense".
Interesting insight from both witnesses and investigators. Was funny hearing that an investigator admitted "most of his investigations are carried out simply by 'googling the internet'". And a relatable quote from another investigator that "[t]hese reports interest me in that they raise physiological and psychological factors which are beyond by competence to investigate". Also quite funny seeing the blunt responses from the authorities, like something along the lines of "abduction is a crime, report it to the police".
Always enjoy reading first person accounts of paranormal incidents by regular people, esp. across such a long time span. Was nice seeing people's personalities come through in their accounts. Some of them very unimpressed and stereotypically British responses like "would you kindly forward this to a society that deals with UFOs". Alongside cases that suggest mental illness is involved, like reports of telepathy and frustration that "unfortunately the designs I am perceiving are too complex for me to draw".
One of the telepathy cases was up there with favourite entries for me. Where a civilian says he tried to draw what he was shown, but keeps reiterating that his art isn't as good. Calling his vision "similar to this but much better... This sample... is not any where near as good as that which was transmitted by UFO". This was also a great example of the mixed media nature of a lot of these documents that I loved. Mixing typed and handwritten, sometimes within the same word (possibly because of broken typewriter keys?) alongside painting/drawing.
Overall the mixture of different art mediums was delightful. Photos, forms that have been filled, radar traces, watercolour, felt tip, pen and ink, typewriter, paintings, strange extremely photocopied images that have been reduced to bunches of dots, children's drawings made with coloured pencil on coloured paper. Very cool mixture.
Also enjoyed a couple of cases where further details were implied. Like a man suggesting he had drawn a spaceship decades ago, tried to get it produced but was refused; then saw a UFO that looked like his design, concluding that the aliens saw and stole his idea?! Or the woman who called the police about a UFO, which resulted in multiple police officers standing in her garden for hours doing nothing but watching the object.
A lot of good artwork, and interesting seeing where artists coincidentally got caught up in some strange event and decided to document it.
"I suggest we do NOT DESTROY The [aliens]... As This Could Cause Ecological Disaster"
Such a fun book. Incredible on the visual side. So many different art mediums, sometimes combined in really strange but cool ways. The book itself is very visually striking, and the cover is art a citizen submitted to the MoD to illustrate what they saw!
I was vaguely aware of the British government's "UFO Desk" but was good to really learn about the history of it being set up and shut down. Churchill's quote of "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth?" was a fun piece of context. And, of course, amazing seeing what was actually submitted to this UFO Desk.
Also cool seeing the influence of pop culture (e.g. reports peaking based on US incidents or films/TV shows). And how officials saw UFOs as an American fad, being disappointed when "our own people had begun to fall for that nonsense".
Interesting insight from both witnesses and investigators. Was funny hearing that an investigator admitted "most of his investigations are carried out simply by 'googling the internet'". And a relatable quote from another investigator that "[t]hese reports interest me in that they raise physiological and psychological factors which are beyond by competence to investigate". Also quite funny seeing the blunt responses from the authorities, like something along the lines of "abduction is a crime, report it to the police".
Always enjoy reading first person accounts of paranormal incidents by regular people, esp. across such a long time span. Was nice seeing people's personalities come through in their accounts. Some of them very unimpressed and stereotypically British responses like "would you kindly forward this to a society that deals with UFOs". Alongside cases that suggest mental illness is involved, like reports of telepathy and frustration that "unfortunately the designs I am perceiving are too complex for me to draw".
One of the telepathy cases was up there with favourite entries for me. Where a civilian says he tried to draw what he was shown, but keeps reiterating that his art isn't as good. Calling his vision "similar to this but much better... This sample... is not any where near as good as that which was transmitted by UFO". This was also a great example of the mixed media nature of a lot of these documents that I loved. Mixing typed and handwritten, sometimes within the same word (possibly because of broken typewriter keys?) alongside painting/drawing.
Overall the mixture of different art mediums was delightful. Photos, forms that have been filled, radar traces, watercolour, felt tip, pen and ink, typewriter, paintings, strange extremely photocopied images that have been reduced to bunches of dots, children's drawings made with coloured pencil on coloured paper. Very cool mixture.
Also enjoyed a couple of cases where further details were implied. Like a man suggesting he had drawn a spaceship decades ago, tried to get it produced but was refused; then saw a UFO that looked like his design, concluding that the aliens saw and stole his idea?! Or the woman who called the police about a UFO, which resulted in multiple police officers standing in her garden for hours doing nothing but watching the object.
A lot of good artwork, and interesting seeing where artists coincidentally got caught up in some strange event and decided to document it.
"I suggest we do NOT DESTROY The [aliens]... As This Could Cause Ecological Disaster"
December 3, 2019
As with their American intelligence and military counterparts, the UK Ministry of Defence did their best to explain away most UFO observations as mistakes of perception and overactive imaginations responding to explainable atmospheric phenomena or human technology, with photographic evidence resulting from distortions or hoaxing or other fakery. Included among the roughly 11,000 reported sightings in the Ministry’s decades-long investigation of the UFO phenomenon (1940s-2009), when the Ministry’s UFO desk and telephone hotline, initiated in 1962, were closed, are hundreds of eyewitness-provided illustrations featuring puzzling and at times unexplainable imagery, consisting of everything from hand-drawn recreations to professionally-produced and incredibly detailed diagrams, to photographs of varying quality and detail.
Notwithstanding the Ministry’s efforts, a not insignificant percentage of reported sightings remained truly unexplainable. In UFO Drawings from the National Archives, a co-publication between Four Corners and the National Archives, Dr. David Clarke, researcher and author of the recent history of the UFO phenomenon, the excellent, precise How UFOs Conquered the World (2015) and consultant on the public release of the Ministry of Defence's considerable holdings of UFO files, presents a carefully curated sampling of drawings (some of them are photographs) that accompanied these reports. Included here are familiar images – including the now-discredited ‘Solway Spaceman’ photograph – as well as more obscure yet no less fascinating and unsettling anomalies.
Clarke presents the material in chronological order with prefatory, matter-of-fact summaries of reports, largely without editorial comment. The chronological ordering provides the reader with a general sense of the UFO phenomenon's complexity, and the bewildering variety of its manifestations, including the different shapes, sizes, colours, sounds, and movements, as well as a sense of the ways in which the phenomenon has remained consistent over time in the face of significant social and cultural transformations over a sixty year period. At the same time, Clarke's straightforward presentation serves to illustrate the phenomenon's growing complexity, with decidedly technological cigar and saucer-shaped objects making their appearance during the 1950s and 1960s, followed by more high strangeness, close encounter-oriented reports documented in the 1970s and 1980s, and finally a swath of abduction-related and crop circle accounts popping up from the late 80s to the late 90s.
Clarke's introduction provides a useful, concise history of the Ministry of Defence's involvement in collecting data on the UFO phenomenon. Though most of the drawings provided by eyewitnesses to the Ministry are mostly without pretence, comprised primarily of pragmatic attempts by earnest eyewitnesses (some crackpot but mostly sober) to document apparently unexplainable atmospheric phenomena, some of the artwork included here approaches a kind of folk art. Indeed, despite Clarke's journalistic approach, there is much here of interest to the sociologist, folklorist, or UFO historian, making UFO Drawings from the National Archives are worthy addition to any Fortean library. -- Eric Hoffman, Fortean Times
Notwithstanding the Ministry’s efforts, a not insignificant percentage of reported sightings remained truly unexplainable. In UFO Drawings from the National Archives, a co-publication between Four Corners and the National Archives, Dr. David Clarke, researcher and author of the recent history of the UFO phenomenon, the excellent, precise How UFOs Conquered the World (2015) and consultant on the public release of the Ministry of Defence's considerable holdings of UFO files, presents a carefully curated sampling of drawings (some of them are photographs) that accompanied these reports. Included here are familiar images – including the now-discredited ‘Solway Spaceman’ photograph – as well as more obscure yet no less fascinating and unsettling anomalies.
Clarke presents the material in chronological order with prefatory, matter-of-fact summaries of reports, largely without editorial comment. The chronological ordering provides the reader with a general sense of the UFO phenomenon's complexity, and the bewildering variety of its manifestations, including the different shapes, sizes, colours, sounds, and movements, as well as a sense of the ways in which the phenomenon has remained consistent over time in the face of significant social and cultural transformations over a sixty year period. At the same time, Clarke's straightforward presentation serves to illustrate the phenomenon's growing complexity, with decidedly technological cigar and saucer-shaped objects making their appearance during the 1950s and 1960s, followed by more high strangeness, close encounter-oriented reports documented in the 1970s and 1980s, and finally a swath of abduction-related and crop circle accounts popping up from the late 80s to the late 90s.
Clarke's introduction provides a useful, concise history of the Ministry of Defence's involvement in collecting data on the UFO phenomenon. Though most of the drawings provided by eyewitnesses to the Ministry are mostly without pretence, comprised primarily of pragmatic attempts by earnest eyewitnesses (some crackpot but mostly sober) to document apparently unexplainable atmospheric phenomena, some of the artwork included here approaches a kind of folk art. Indeed, despite Clarke's journalistic approach, there is much here of interest to the sociologist, folklorist, or UFO historian, making UFO Drawings from the National Archives are worthy addition to any Fortean library. -- Eric Hoffman, Fortean Times
December 29, 2023
I love UFO drawings from witness who are obviously not artists. There's something just very endearing about them.
My favourite part of the book isn't even a witness drawing though. It's the little alien doodle someone did on an official UFO form!
My favourite part of the book isn't even a witness drawing though. It's the little alien doodle someone did on an official UFO form!
May 12, 2018
Beautifully designed and produced, succinctly written to be unbiased and intriguing. A delight to page through.
December 8, 2022
This very entertaining and informative look at the seldom discussed the topic but an interesting one nonetheless. Will it make a believer no, but the artwork and reports are fun read.
September 28, 2025
Fascinating as both Forteana and outsider art. The meat of this book is a series of artworks -- mostly drawing or paintings, but including a few photos -- that were submitted to the British Ministry of Defense during the period when the MoD kept files on UFO sightings. Each artwork is accompanied by a brief summary of the sighting it purports to illustrate. A genuinely interesting book, regardless of how one feels about the underlying phenomena in question.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews