Britain always has been and remains one of the most secretive of societies, particularly among its upper echelons of government. This is useful for a variety of reasons beyond that of a 'need-to-know' basis. It can disguise both corruption and incompetence among other things. So, just how aware is the MoD for example of any unauthorized incursions within its air space -- either in the form of aircraft, or indeed Unidentifieds?

Well, an incident that took place nearly 30 years ago, on June 10 1970, can tell us a great deal about the circumstances that existed back then. On that day two Italian pilots flew Belgian Starfighter jet aircraft low up the Thames Estuary, crossing the very heart of London at a height of no more than 700ft, without the Royal Air Force being aware of it.

In fact no report of the event was recorded by either RAF or civil radar and only after the pilots were returning to their base at Beauvechain did startled inhabitants of the metropolis lodge their complaints about the buzzing. In those days, UFOs appearing on radar networks were dubbed 'Angels' and the Defence Ministry made periodic announcements to the effect that no such 'Angels' had ever remained unidentified.

Let us now examine the structure of the current UK Air Defence Region (ADR), which is split into the North and South Air Defence Sectors. These stretch from the approaches to Iceland and Norway down to our own Northern Isles and then to the South-Western Approaches, as far out as the Scilly Isles in the south. Each sector is controlled by a pair of Sector Operating Centres (SOC) / Command and Reporting Centres (CRP), located at RAF Buchan in Scotland and RAF Neatishead, Norfolk, respectively. A CRP is also based on the Faroe Islands manned by the Royal Danish Air Force who also also report into the system.

Ground radar stations in turn cover the entire ADR in a ring around Britain. These include sites at Saxa Vord in the Shetland Islands and Portreath in Cornwall. All information gathered from these locations is sent direct to the UK Air Defence Operations Centre (ADOC) at Strike Command Headquarters based in a huge multi-level underground nuclear strike-proof facility near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

On the North Yorkshire Moors exists the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) site once known as Fylingdales, and now RAF Menwith Hill. The old 'golfball' radomes from the Cold War era are now defunt and have been replaced by very sophisticated three-dimensional phased array radar produced by Raytheon, a huge American company. The Raytheon FPS-115 system is capable of tracking up to 1000 objects simultaneously and became fully operational in October 1992. This was after one full year of intense trials and extensive monitoring of adjacent emission levels. Powerful radar arrays such as this can be potentially devastating to human and animal life. The EM effect could conceivably account for some of the UFO/alien encounters observed in this area of the Moor.

This relatively new construction was a joint funded venture between the UK and US governments and Menwith Hill also has an interesting secondary role involving space surveillance that is growing in significance each year. The site feeds information direct to the UK Government and British Military Command Centres, as well as to Command Centers in the United States. In fact Menwith is linked to the US Space Command HQ at Colorado Springs, from where two other BMEWS sites are controlled: Thule, 600 miles inside the Arctic Circle of Greenland, and at Clear, Alaska.

The UK BMEWS facility now has the ability to accept radar data from air traffic controls scattered throughout the National Air Traffic System ( its new super computers now onlstream). As a result it is the primary source in the UK for tracking aircraft and obviously evaluating any UFO presence within its air space. This also provides the US military with a simultaneous view of what transpires in the skies of Britain at any time it so chooses.

Since August 1992, the RAF has been operating its own Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) as part of the NATO AEW force. The Boeing E-3D aircraft replaced Nimrod and its onboard Westinghouse radar is no longer restricted by the curvature of the Earth. At 30,000ft the radar horizon is some 285 miles (460km) distant. However, the installed Beyond-The-Horizon (BTH) mode radar provides a much greater extension of range.