Some intriguing images had arrived via the Scottish Daily Record in 1990, and a poster-sized photograph had been produced from one of the negatives and pinned to my (?) office wall by one of my predecessors.

The photograph had been taken in daylight and showed a vast, diamond-shaped UFO, metallic silver in colour, apparently hovering low over the Scottish countryside.

The photograph was removed in 1994 by the then head of the division, who had convinced himself that the picture showed a secret prototype aircraft codenamed Aurora - a hypersonic replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird that the US Government denied existed.

A question was asked in Parliament in 1996 about the location of this photograph, and the matter has subsequently been raised in a Freedom of Information Act request. Unfortunately, the photograph had disappeared, and could not be located.