Howden Moor Incident/Sheffield Incident
2 sonic booms were heard over the area, and recorded at this time although the RAF denied having supersonic aircraft in the area.
They later helped in the night long search for a crashed aircraft, using helicopters and sniffer dogs from the police with 150 Mountain Rescue volunteers.
No wreckage was found. A triangle shaped UFO had been seen an hour before the sonic booms in the local area.
Which took place over the Dark Peak between Manchester and Sheffield, is an alleged encounter between a UFO and Royal Air Force Tornado, scrambled from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.
Due to its controversial classified subject, little official documented evidence is freely available.
An orange light is seen moving across the sky over the Dark Peak.
A local policeman from South Yorkshire Police refers to the Comet Hale-Bopp moving across the sky. A comet would not do this.
At around 7:40 p.m., a Flying triangle UFO is seen over Sheffield railway station, then again over Dronfield in northeast Derbyshire at about 10:00 p.m.
6 Tornado aircraft leave RAF Coningsby at 8:45 p.m., 2 sonic booms are recorded by the British Geological Survey at the University of Leeds at 9:52 p.m. and 10:06 p.m.
Around the same time, RAF Tornados are seen flying low over Dronfield.
The RAF later deny that they had aircraft in that area or that any sonic booms had been created.
At 10:15 p.m, 2 farmers from Bolsterstone, West of Sheffield, contact Ecclesfield police station to ask about a possible air crash, as they witnessed a low flying aircraft towards Midhope Moor then a flash and a plume of smoke.
Gamekeepers in Strines Forest also report an explosion and an orange glow on the horizon.
At 11:00 p.m., the helicopter of West Yorkshire Police was searching the moors around Bolsterstone. It is joined at midnight by a Sea King air/sea rescue helicopter from RAF Leconfield.
Firemen from Tankersley, Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hathersage are called to the area and meet up at the Strines Inn, near Strines Reservoir on the Bradfield Moors.
In the early hours of March 25, 141 volunteers from the Peak District Mountain Rescue Organization, and Woodhead Mountain Rescue Team, with support from police officers and rescuers from the Search and Rescue Dog Association, search 50 square miles of the local area, establishing an HQ at Hepshaw Farm on Langsett Moor.
Derbyshire Constabulary refused to take part.
At 7:00 a.m., the RAF set up a Dangerous Flying Zone of 10 miles radius over the Howden Moors to allow helicopters to search the area, as airliners would be approaching Manchester Airport from this time over the Howden reservoirs in Longendale.
On March 23 1998, the subject was discussed in the House of Commons by the MP for Sheffield Hillsborough, Helen Jackson.
A number of theories were expressed regarding this incident ranging from the low flying light plane being used by drug runners to a sighting of a World War II ghost plane.