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This article was published in the daily newspaper The Sunday Mercury, U-K., on January 30, 1994.
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"It's the strangest thing I've seen in 30 years as a policeman".
Les Leek, now a chief inspector at Walshall Police, is not the sort of man to dream up little green men.
But what Les saw and photographed one August night in 1971 remains the best "unsolved" UFO case ever in the West Midlands.
Les and three disbelieving colleagues were called to an Aldridge petrol station at 2.30 am. They found a stunned crowd staring skywards.
There in the inky darkness hovered an oval craft, shining silently thousands of feet above.
Les dashed for the 35 mm camera stowed in his patrol car, and fired off a reel of pictures.
The ship stayed perfectly still for an hour, then moved off slowly towards West Bromwhich.
"It was like a very big bright egg," Les remembers.
"I don't think I believe in aliens, but I'm certain it was not man-made."
Four photos came out, and were immediately passed on to the Ministry of Defense.
"Only one was ever released," says Les. "Which is strange, because the others showed the craft much more clearly."
Les will probably never know what he saw. Was it something the Government could not explain - or something they chose to suppress? "Experts told us it must have been Venus, but since when does Venus show up on Birmingham Air Traffic Control" says Les.
"If that was Venus, I'll eat my hat."
