The Met helicopter's dart over the MI6 building (London, 1997)
On Saturday 5 July 1997, PC Paul Hammond and Army Warrant Officer David Frampton, aboard a Metropolitan Police helicopter over a parade in central London, saw a dart-shaped object about 30 to 40 m long hanging in restricted airspace over the MI6 building and the South Bank. Heathrow and Gatwick had nothing on radar. The crew circled it and watched it on infrared, which showed heat at its rear before it shot forward and, they say, vanished into an opening in the sky that closed behind it. Fearing ridicule, the police crew let the recording be taped over and said nothing; both men told the story for the first time to Inspector Roy Teague for his book Close Encounters of the Police Kind. Teague adds that PC William Humphrey Bishop chased two barrel-shaped objects in the same airspace about 18 years earlier.
How plausible · Moderate
Two named professional witnesses to the same event agree, but their account reached the public 29 years later through one teller, and the only record was erased by the crew.
- ●●Access Both were aboard the helicopter and watched it on FLIR.
- ●●No gain sought No gain evident.
- ●○Cost of speaking They agreed to be named in a book after decades of fearing ridicule.
- ●○Consistent over time Teague says their accounts were identical over several interviews; only one telling is public.
- ●○Restraint Plain description; the 'hole in the sky' is their description, not a theory.
- ●○Character record A police air-support officer and a regimental sergeant major; no further detail.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-11-04.
Claims
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People and organizations
- Roy Teague personDocumented by