One of Suffolk’s most enduring UFO mysteries has today deepened after it emerged certain X-files – intelligence records relating to the Rendlesham Forest incident – had been inexplicably destroyed.

Information released by The National Archives today show that during 2000 a search by Ministry of Defence records staff revealed that a collection of Defence Intelligence files covering the period 1980-82 – including documents on the famous Rendlesham Forest incident – had been destroyed, even though other files from the surrounding years had survived.

Furthermore, records staff could not say when or why files were destroyed as the destruction certificates themselves were not retained for longer than five years.

In previously unseen UFO-related correspondence obtained by The Evening Star, officials from MoD warned that if what it called this “apparent anomaly in the records” were made public “it could be interpreted to mean that a deliberate attempt had been made to eradicate the records covering this incident”.

The revelations are set to re-ignite suggestions of a government cover-up following the incident known as “Britain’s Roswell”.

The files reveal how the UFO phenomenon was discussed at the highest level of government and Security Services worldwide including at the United Nations, the US Central Intelligence Agency and was even the subject of a debate in the House of Lords.

The files also detail in full the Freedom of Information requests and letters from “persistent enquirers” that led to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) opening the UFO files for the first time in history.

Dr David Clarke, author of the book ‘The UFO files’ and senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “I was one of the MoD’s most ‘persistent correspondents’ and eventually persuaded MoD and other government departments to release their information on this perplexing and controversial subject.

“You can see from the files that I wasn’t the only one interested in the subject, with the phenomenon discussed at the highest level of government right across the globe.”

One file contains a letter from a man who believed he may have been abducted by aliens after witnessing an aircraft hovering over his house one October evening and waking the following morning to find he had experienced a period of missing time.

The MoD responded to his letter stating the aircraft was likely to have been an airship and that the clocks had gone back an hour that night which would account for him gaining an hour.