Police Encounters with UFOs | Inspector Roy Teague on UFO Sightings, UAP & Non-Human Intelligence
Source interview: Watch on Mysterious Planet’s YouTube channel.
Interview analysis
Serving West Midlands Police inspector Roy Teague describes the approximately 250 officer interviews behind his book Close Encounters of the Police Kind and the 75 accounts selected for publication. He explains how professional trust opened conversations that officers had previously avoided, outlines a tiered interview method and accepts that police officers are not inherently more reliable witnesses than civilians. Teague nevertheless concludes that seven officers encountered non-human technology and extends the discussion to extraterrestrial, interdimensional and underwater hypotheses. Testing that conclusion requires the case records behind those seven reports, particularly the contemporary material he says survives from police-helicopter incidents.
Key themes
Professional trust and a hidden witness pool
Teague’s police status gave him access to colleagues who feared ridicule or professional consequences if they approached an outside researcher. His project therefore preserves a body of testimony that formal reporting systems may have missed. The resulting archive can show what officers reported and how stigma affected disclosure; the reliability of each observation still turns on its date, circumstances and surviving records.
Interview method and witness reliability
Teague ranks in-person, video and telephone interviews as gold, silver and bronze and says he checks 50–60 possible explanations before classifying a report as anomalous. He also rejects the assumption that a police title automatically produces a better witness, limiting the advantage to habits such as recording context and resisting tunnel vision. Publishing the interview schedule, exclusion criteria and anonymised case files would show how those principles operated in the 75 selected accounts.
The helicopter cases as a documentary test
The reported 1979 and 1997 London helicopter encounters offer the clearest opportunity to compare retrospective testimony with an operational record. Teague refers to forward-looking infrared footage and accounts from air-support personnel. Flight logs, air-traffic communications, original statements, personnel records and the recording itself could establish the sequence, the independence of the two reports and the basis for comparing them.
Seven cases and a conclusion about origin
Teague says that seven of the approximately 250 officers witnessed non-human technology, then considers extraterrestrial, interdimensional, nuclear-monitoring and underwater explanations. His rejection of the future-human hypothesis because it rests on people saying they were told something supplies a useful standard for the other proposals as well. None can be distinguished by the number or sincerity of reports alone; the decisive question is what case-level observations identify a technology or origin.
Assessment
From a witness archive to testable cases
Teague has assembled a substantial record of experiences reported by police officers and has identified professional conditions that may discourage formal reporting. The project becomes assessable at case level: original statements, interview dates, witness independence, contemporaneous logs, sensor material and documented exclusion work for the seven reports he attributes to non-human technology. Publication of those materials would allow the strength of his method and conclusion to be judged separately. His account establishes the scope of the collection and his reasoning; the physical origin of each reported object remains a case-specific question.
Navigate the source interview
- 1:31 — Teague’s military and policing background
- 3:44 — How a documentary prompted the police-witness project
- 5:48 — Professional stigma and reported repercussions
- 9:29 — Past and present routes for reporting unusual observations
- 12:34 — Whether police training produces better witnesses
- 15:07 — Teague’s interview tiers and exclusion method
- 17:35 — How many reports Teague considers genuinely anomalous
- 21:22 — A reported 1997 police-helicopter encounter over London
- 26:58 — Recent drone incursions and claims attributed to unnamed sources
- 38:46 — Speculation about surveillance, nuclear weapons and protection
- 41:44 — Extraterrestrial, interdimensional and future-human hypotheses
- 50:00 — Claims about unidentified submerged objects and the oceans
- 52:41 — Future books, witness interviews and Policing the Unexplained
Questions
3:44 What prompted Teague to collect accounts from British police officers, and how were cases selected for the book?
12:34 Which aspects of police observation training may improve a report, and which limitations remain?
15:07 How does Teague record, compare and attempt to falsify the accounts he receives?
21:22 Which contemporary records could test the reported 1997 London helicopter encounter?
26:58 Which parts of the recent drone-incursion discussion are publicly documented, and which depend on confidential sources?
41:44 Where does Teague move from unresolved testimony to a conclusion about origin?
Selected quotations
Ellipses mark omissions from the transcript; square brackets identify editorial clarification. The linked timestamp and any published full transcript preserve the surrounding wording and context.
There have been studies on do police officers make better witnesses than um, civilians and in the main, believe it or not, the answer is no. we're on a par.
Teague qualifies the premise of the book by acknowledging that occupational status does not make a witness categorically more reliable.
I always operate in the ABC principles of accept nothing believe no one and check everything Scott like a good investigator would uh would do
Teague states the maxim governing his investigation. Publication of the case files would show which checks were applied to each report and with what result.
of the 250 officers I have interviewed I would suggest if the accounts are as per what they've told me Scott they have been a witness to nonhuman intelligence but that's only seven from 250 I'm absolutely sure um that it's non-human tech.
Teague conditions the conclusion on the accuracy of the witnesses’ accounts, then identifies seven cases as non-human technology. Those cases require evidence capable of moving from reported observation to technological origin.
I'm not so sure about the future human thing. I've not seen any evidence of that apart from few people saying I was told XY Z.
Teague rejects one hypothesis because it rests on assertion; the same distinction between testimony and independently testable evidence applies to the other origin hypotheses discussed.
Sources
- Source interview on YouTube — Mysterious Planet’s full interview with Roy Teague.
- UK National Archives guide to UFO records — Explains the scope and survival of official British UFO files.
- UK Parliament answer on the 2024 RAF-site drone activity — Records that the Ministry of Defence Police was leading the investigation.
Read the full source transcript (plain text). The supplied wording and time markers are retained.