In one of my recent articles here at Mysterious Universe – titled UFO Encounters, Saucers and Secrets – I highlighted the UFO connection to the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which is the U.K.’s equivalent of the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA). I stated: “Robin Cole, of Cheltenham, England, spent a great deal of time addressing the matter of GCHQ and UFOs. To the extent that, in 1997, he published a report that detailed his extensive research in this seldom-addressed area. Cole cultivated sources from GCHQ, secured data on UFO cases secretly investigated by staff at the agency, and learned that GCHQ had a large library of books on the UFO subject. But, there was more, too. As a result of his investigations, Cole was visited by personnel from the U.K. Police Force’s Special Branch, who wanted to know all about his work, which had him worried or a while. You can find out more on Cole and his GCHQ-UFO discoveries in his self-published report, GCHQ and the UFO Cover-up.”

The fact is, though, that such was the extent of the interview I did with Cole back in the 1990s, I thought I would make this a three-part article, which is exactly what I have done. In my first book, A Covert Agenda, I made mention of a small (but nonetheless intriguing) body of evidence pertaining to the collation and investigation of UFO data on the part of the sprawling Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham (GCHQ), England. Although GCHQ actively and forthrightly denies that any such claims have a basis in reality, time and again snippets of information surface, suggesting that behind the official stance there exists an incredible story just waiting to be uncovered.

To illustrate this, on 29 March 1996, two security guards assigned to the facility viewed during the early hours of the morning a silent, brightly lit object that over-flew their heads while they patrolled the base. “We just looked at it,” said one, adding, “We weren’t frightened. We were just amazed.” The other concurred: “I have never seen anything like it before in my life. It was traveling very fast. It definitely was not a plane.” The response from Government Communications Headquarters when the media latched on to what had occurred was tight lipped. “No doubt they did see something but I couldn’t say what it was,” was the carefully worded response from a GCHQ spokesman.

Robin Cole was able to shed further light on the 29 March 1996 UFO encounter reported by two GCHQ security guards. He told me: “Both of the guards were so convinced by what they’d seen that they went to The Citizen – this is the local newspaper that covers the Gloucester area – and reported it. Well, the papers went on to publish their names and the fact that they were security guards at GCHQ. Normally, people who work at the base just say that they’re civil servants, because they don’t want to be associated with GCHQ publicly. Well, we didn’t make too big a deal out of it, but we did try and look into it all a bit deeper. As I previously said, there area number of people within Circular Forum who work at GCHQ. Of course, I tried to press them to find out what they could.”

Cole continued: “It just so happens that one of our members knew one of the security guards and another member used to work at GCHQ as a security guard and knew the other one. They then subsequently invited the two of them around for tea and got on to talking about UFOs – as you do. Basically, both of them stated that when the article in The Citizen appeared, ‘We were both hauled in before our superiors the following morning and we were told that what we had seen was the Mir Space Station, and that we were to drop it unless we wanted to face severe action. You know how it is [at GCHQ]; they’re all paranoid. But we know deep in our hearts that this was not a space station. It was far too low in orbit and it just came over and stopped. It was there for several minutes and was then joined by a second light. The one then seemed to drop down quite low, and as soon as it started dropping, the pair of them just shot off. And we know it wasn’t Mir.’”

End of story. Part-3 will soon follow…