In mid-March, mystery still surrounds the reported crash of an unidentified flying object in Northern Ireland on the night of Tuesday the 13th of February. In late February', UFO Magazine's website carried the story in their 'NEWSFLASH' section, under the subtitle of 'Major UFO Incident in Ireland'. According to the report, their Yorkshire offices were alerted a few days after the incident, when veteran Belfast ufologist, Miles Johnston phoned to say that his father - and others across the province - had heard what sounded like a sonic boom, and seen a small dark object, trailing smoke, crashing into mountainous terrain in Fermanagh. Another call came in from Bangor-based Paranormal Watch member Gerry Soli-Gorman, telling a similar tale. From that time until now we have received no further explanation as to what happened that night.

Two points of interest came to light however. On Thusrday, 15th the story of a damaged aircraft being airlifted from mudflats at the mouth of the Foyle river by an RAF Chinook appeared in the Star Newspaper, while it was also reported on RTE radio during Wednesday 14th that the British Army had cordoned off an area of land near Tempo, close to the previous nights purported crash site, after the discovery of what was termed "a suspious object". This was later put down to being a find of paramilitary explosives, but the timing and location did arouse some curiosity...

The date of the removal (and crash?) of the Provost dosen't tally with the Fermanagh incident, but it is the only incident in Northern Ireland from aroundthat time that has so far come to light that might conceivably be linked to it, though there is also quite a gap, geographically!

As we go to print, we have sent detailed queries to various agencies and any comment or suggested solutions to this mystery will be passed on to our readers. The bodies to which we have posed questions to include the Office of the Superintendent at Cavan town garda Station, the Garda Press Office at Garda HQ in Dublin, Armagh Planetarium, the UK MoD, etc. - D.B. 19.03.01