Re: Boscombe Down incident


Message posted by Jon (Member since 04/10/2015) on April 08, 2021 at 1:38:25 PST:

Something definitely happened at Boscombe that day.

I used to live just down the road from Boscombe which sits close to the Salisbury Plain training area and, with Porton Down also just a few miles away, it's probably the closest thing the UK has to anything even remotely resembling Area 51 on an island this small and crowded.

Myself and some friends would regularly go out spotting from various points just outside the perimeter fence as you'd often see some interesting stuff buzzing around being tested as well as the Empire Test Pilots School aircraft going in and out.

I was on a night camp (I've been into 'bushcraft' since before bushcraft was a word and would regularly camp out on the Plains) a few nights before the incident and do remember hearing something go over in the direction of Boscombe. We were all pretty used to the sort of stuff that would regularly be up flying and this was hard to describe, but definitely something different and out of the ordinary.

At around the time of the incident, security was clamped down massively to the point of there being a few incidents of Police moving people on from some of the more distant viewing spots and people who tried to get to the closer spots were left in no doubt by some gentlemen who were definitely NOT Police that persisting to try would be hazardous to their health. (I haven't been back there for a few years now but I had heard that some of those old spots are actually now within the perimeter fencing)

As the article mentions, they even closed down the A303 which is a major trunk route and caused no end of problems for anyone trying to travel around the area. I remember the sudden increase in air traffic in and out of Boscombe as well as an increase in ground traffic and it was well known amongst locals that 'something' was going on on the base. I heard stories from several people who worked on the base that they were denied access to areas that they worked in to the point of being told to take a few days off on holiday but anyone who really knew anything about what was really going on was keeping their mouths closed.

Unfortunately after my camping trip I was working a lot of overtime throughout that period as well as studying so wasn't able to get out much to have a personal look. There were a lot of rumours about it being something to do with the F117 or maybe a replacement for the F117 and I always figured it was some sort of stealth demonstrator/prototype but have never really gotten to the bottom of it.

2024/25 will see Government papers for that period declassified under the 30 Year Rule, I'm not holding my breath, but I do wonder what may show up.


In Reply to: Boscombe Down incident posted by Jester25 on April 07, 2021 at 15:20:31 PST:

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