This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/ufos by /u/RedQueen2 on 2024-10-29 09:14:42+00:00.

This has just been published on the website of Swiss public broadcaster SRF, one of the rare serious articles on the subject in the German speaking countries, which are somewhat of a black hole, especially when it comes to the involvement of the military. Decent article in my opinion.

The following is a translation using Deepl. Link to the original article:

Swiss Air Force

When the “flying plates” found their way into military files

Since the 1950s, many countries have been tracking unidentified flying objects. They have set up secret UFO research programs. In Switzerland, too, the army collected information. An exclusive insight into the files of the Air Force secret service files on the “flying plates”.

The Federal Archives in Bern store green-colored folders from the Swiss Air Force. Some are labeled “Flying plates”. In the military file “E5465B” from 1954, the Air Force Intelligence Service informs pilots and officials what to do if a UFO is sighted in Switzerland.

It states: “Guidelines for the preparation of questionnaires on unidentified objects (...) It is not our task to investigate the composition, origin or purpose of these phenomena. Our task is rather to record these phenomena in an orderly system.”

French-speaking Swiss radio and television (RTS) contacted a dozen former Swiss Army pilots. Several confirmed the existence of these report forms. They claim that these forms were used until the 1990s.

“Movements like a snake”

RTS found a handful of these completed forms in the Federal Archives. They concern observations made by members of the military or officials of the Ministry of Defense. The most fascinating report dates back to the winter of 1971. Three different military documents reported on one and the same flying object.

In the first document, two officers aboard a Mirage III observed a fast-moving “bright point of light” during a night flight over Interlaken on February 23. The movements are described as impossible for a military aircraft of the time. “The light object moved with an undulating motion, like a snake, and then disappeared.”

In a second military report, it is another pilot who claims to have seen the same UFO a few hours later. This time it was sighted over Winterthur. The report is accompanied by a sketch drawn by the pilot explaining the movements and size of the glowing object.

Officially no interest in UFOs

Three days later, the UFO was observed again by a Mirage III pilot. The soldier also filled out a report. It says: “At first I thought it was a plane with its landing lights on flying towards me, but I suddenly realized that the glowing object was stationary. (...) Then I noticed a kind of contrail, but with an opening angle of about 90 degrees, which looked like a power cone. (...) The luminous object moved and disappeared.”

These military reports provided no scientific explanation for the nature of this object. What makes the whole thing even more mysterious is that the original documents have disappeared. The library at Guisanplatz, the former federal military library, explains: “We only have a copy of the file; the original cannot be found.”

Officially, the Swiss army claims never to have been interested in UFOs. Defense Department spokeswoman Delphine Schwab-Allemand explains that the army has no special program. “The Swiss Armed Forces do not have and have never had a mandate to collect information or documents about UFOs.”