‘This is a valuable record of occurrences connected with visits to this planet by unknown entities in flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects. It must not be destroyed or taken apart…it is hoped that in the event of some major catastrophe, this record and others like it will help to prevent the truth of these visits from becoming legends or myths to future survivors’
These prescient words were typewritten by Henry Bennett Lord in July 1960 when members of the Tyneside UFO Society (TUFOS) donated their precious materials to the people of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, via the city’s Central Library.
The TUFOS archive includes audio tapes, scrapbooks, glass lecture slides, a card index of sightings covering 1947-69, files covering investigations and copies of the society’s bi-monthly magazine Orbit.
Thanks to an ongoing collaboration between AFU, Newcastle Central Library and the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University the archive is currently en route to Norrkoping in Sweden.
To continue reading the full story follow the link to my SubStack blog.
David Clarke is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He teaches media law and his research specialism is contemporary legend. Previously he worked as a journalist for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government. His PhD in Folklore and was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, in 1999. From 2008-13 he acted as consultant and curator of the MoD UFO files project with The National Archives. His books include The Angel of Mons (2004) and How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth (2015). In 2018 he co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University. This blog covers his twin research interests in journalism and folklore. The views expressed in the contents are entirely his own.
drdavidclarke.co.uk 
A very interesting UFO resource.
A friend of mine directed me to your page.
My school had a similar UFO incident in a village called Smarden, near Ashford, Kent that I believe has never been documented.
I can pinpoint that date, as I remember my school’s event coincided with a report on John Craven’s News round regarding the Broad Haven incident.
Hi Ashley was the Kent incident covered by the local media at the time?
To my knowledge, it was never covered by local media, which was a real shame-I certainly don’t recall anyone visiting the school to conduct any interviews.
The school and it’s teachers had an assembly after the event and the entire class were told not worry as the UFO was believed to have been a weather balloon.
Even at my very young, impressionable age, this made no sense to me, as the object moved at an incredible speed
I believe this was said, just to calm the distress that many of the children of that day had experienced.
The Broad Haven incident was certainly more dramatic with reports of an actual alien sighting so, in comparison, I can see why our event may have seemed less news worthy and the fact that the school had hushed up our incident and effectively put a lid on it.
No less eventful for those who experienced it first hand though, like myself.
The whole event is ever present for me, even all these years later.
I would love to be able to unearth that John Craven’s News Round report, as I’ve never seen it archived anywhere else, I wonder if it’s something the BBC still retain, or whether it was wiped like many other of their shows.
Kind regards,
Ashley