Mysteries Portillo's State Secrets

1,000 years of history under one roof -

The National Archives, a treasure house of secrets,

the records of extraordinary times and people.

These files are this nation's story,

our shared past.

Documents housed here were highly classified,

intended for the eyes of only the privileged few,

protected from your sight for decades, but not now.

I've been granted special access to files once kept hush-hush.

I'll unearth amazing tales from our hidden history.

Forget what you've been told. These documents tell the truth.

Coming up in this programme, a letter from Jack the Ripper.

"I have laughed when they look so clever

"and talk about being on the right track.

"How can they catch me?"

This isn't a straightforward psychopath

who has no understanding of human emotion or empathy

and so it's someone we would think of as pure evil.

Wartime poster, post-war conspiracy theory.

The explosive hypothesis of why Kitchener vanished.

He proposed that Kitchener had actually been murdered

and the sinking of the Hampshire was deliberate.

And is the truth in here?

The top-secret government files on unidentified flying objects.

State documents may be classified confidential,

secret, top-secret.

No wonder conspiracy theories abound.

Are conspiracies behind our most enduring mysteries?

Well, none has endured like this one,

the shadow solitary figure

stalking the gas-lit streets of Victorian London,

selecting his victims with meticulous care,

disembowelling them

in cold blood

and taunting the police with cryptic clues.

He remains our best-known

serial killer,

but our image of him is based mainly on a letter

which may be a hoax or may be from the killer.

And here I have that very letter

delivered to London's Central News Agency

on September the 27th, 1888

shortly after two prostitutes had been murdered and mutilated.

It starts with the words Dear Boss

and ends with the signature Jack the Ripper.

"I keep on hearing the police have caught me,

"but they won't fix me just yet.

"I've laughed when they look so clever

"and talk about being on the right track.

"How can they catch me?"

'But the final paragraph is the most unnerving of all

'because it makes a prediction.'

"The next job I do, I shall clip the lady's ears off

"and send them to the police officers just for jolly.

"Wouldn't you?

"My knife's so nice and sharp,

"I want to get to work right away if I get a chance."

Three days later, two more butchered women

were found in London's East End

and an ear of one of the victims - Catherine Eddowes -

had been partially severed.

How do I feel about this extraordinary bit of paper?

Without this,

this killer would not have gone into history as Jack the Ripper,

probably the most notorious serial killer

in British legal history.

And then - horrible thought -

this may actually be the handwriting,

this may be the work

of that mass killer, that perverted mind.

On the other hand, it could be a fake.

The police weren't sure at the time

and experts have debated its authenticity for decades.

It's all added to the sense of mystery

which continues to fascinate right up to the present day.

Today, Jack the Ripper is big business.

His legend has spawned books, movies, merchandise,

even walking tours like this.

But none would exist without that letter

now lying in the Archive.

So, you are, at most, going to get

maybe six inches radius pool of light

around just the base of each lamppost

and other than this kind of flickering puddle of light,

the rest of these alleyways would be plunged into a thick, inky darkness.

So dark, in fact, to the point where you wouldn't even be able

to see your own hands in front of your face.

And I like to think that that's the perfect environment

for the world's first highly publicised

and internationally recognised serial killer

to begin his Autumn of Terror.

Does recounting the story of Jack the Ripper

teach us history or merely prolong a hoax?

Retired detective Trevor Marriott

believes that the infamous letter was written not by the murderer,

but by a journalist with an eye for a headline.

The prime suspect, I think, was a man by the name of Thomas Bulling

who worked for the Central News Agency.

Well, of course the Central News Agency

is where the Ripper letter -

the Dear Boss letter - was actually delivered to.

And so, clearly, whoever wrote the letter

and had it delivered to the Central News Agency

would have actually known that it would have got maximum exposure,

as against somebody just sending it to one of the other newspapers

that were in and around London at the time.

A reporter making things up? Surely not.

But let's say he did.

Let's say he wrote the letter to create an artificial link

between a series of random murders to create a sensational story.

It still doesn't explain this.

The letter predicts that there may be mutilation

of the ears of the next victim

and in the interval, the next victim has been mutilated.

Isn't that suggestive that the letter is genuine?

No, I don't think it is, to be totally honest.

I think when you look at the ear,

it was just probably a very lucky coincidence.

In such a small sort of area,

you had something like about 70,000 residents.

'Since the Dear Boss letter

'has been good for business over the years,

'presumably the leader of this tour thinks it's genuine.'

And what do you make of that letter?

I think it's very neat.

I think it's a very kind of...

It's a bit served up on a plate kind of thing.

I think it most likely probably was the work of a journalist.

I'd like to seek out other points of view.

Donna Youngs is a criminologist and psychological profiler.

The kinds of particular details...

For example, in the letter,

the offender talks about putting the blood

into a ginger beer bottle

rather than simply talking about putting it into a bottle.

Now, those sorts of details are often indicators of truthfulness,

of somebody who really has gone through that experience.

If the letter that I've seen signed Jack the Ripper

is genuinely from the killer, why would he write a letter?

The personalities of the sorts of people

that can do these sorts of crimes

means that, actually, they would find it excruciatingly painful

not to be at the centre of the attention that they're creating.

They'll be excited about getting away with it

and they may even be insulted

at the possibility that the police think it's somebody else.

Extraordinary.

What do you take from the letter

in terms of the personality of the writer,

the sort of background of the writer?

The handwriting is actually very elegant.

As psychologists, we like to look at what the purpose of the letter was,

what the individual was trying to achieve,

to tell us something about that individual.

This letter is gleeful and is seeking to say that

they're not actually ashamed of what they've done,

which, in turn, suggests that they do indeed,

in fact, actually recognise that what they've done

is something that other people would find horrific.

This isn't a straightforward psychopath

who has no understanding of human emotion or empathy,

but it is someone who knows that what they've done is very wrong

and so it's someone we would think of as pure evil.

-Pure evil?

-Yes.

The Ten Bells pub, famous because the Ripper's final victim -

Mary Jane Kelly - was often seen drinking in there,

also walking around the outside looking for her next client.

Is it worse than you thought, the details?

The details, yeah, yeah.

He shined it down on the ground and indeed, this woman is dead.

-That was a great tour. Great tour.

-Thank you.

I understand it so much better than I did before,

the horror and the fact that it all happened in such a small area.

Thank you for sharing the horror with me. Wow.

'The mystery surrounding Jack the Ripper's identity

'has led to many conspiracy theories.

'It was a powerful politician, a famous author,

'a member of the royal family, even a woman.

'But the question of who wrote the Dear Boss letter

'has prompted nearly as much debate.

'Certainly, my very short investigation

'shows that even seasoned experts are split.

'But as with all good detective stories,

'there's an extra twist.'

The letter I held in my hand

may have been written by history's most notorious murderer,

one of the most vicious killers of any place, any time.

That letter disappeared from the official files

at the beginning of the 20th century

and turned up again almost exactly a century

after the Ripper stalked these dark streets,

sent anonymously to Scotland Yard.

We don't know who wrote it, we don't know who stole it,

we don't know who sent it back and it gives me the creeps.

Nothing breeds conspiracy theories

more than the mysterious death of a famous person

and when the body is lost at sea and in the fog of war,

suspicions reach new depths.

'The document I'm looking at now reveals a conspiracy theory

'featuring one of our most iconic military leaders.'

"Your country needs you."

We can conjure up a picture of the moustachioed Lord Kitchener

in his military uniform

because he appeared in a highly successful recruiting poster

at the beginning of the Great War.

Like many of those recruits, he died in the conflict

when the cruiser HMS Hampshire hit a mine in the North Sea.

The government claimed that the sinking of the ship

was nothing more than a chance of war.

But the fact that Kitchener's body was never recovered

fuelled suspicion.

Some claimed foul play saying that the cruiser was sabotaged

with everyone from German spies to Irish rebels being blamed.

It was even suggested that there had been a plot

involving the former First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

Most people dismiss such rumours,

but a few became super conspiracy theorists.

None greater than one Frank Power

who, in 1926, summoned an immense mass meeting.

Frank Power made no secret at all of his suspicions.

"I'm going to suggest to you on the strongest evidence

"that there was internal treachery on the Hampshire.

"I say there was proof of that.

"There was another internal explosion on the Hampshire

"which sounded the death knell of all these men.

"Nobody ever knew exactly what happened.

"The officials did hold an inquiry, but no-one was punished."

Frank Power effectively claimed that Kitchener,

whose image had led the Empire into war,

was bumped off by his own side.

He caused a media sensation, but could he be trusted?

He was quite a showman.

I mean, initially, he proposed that Kitchener hadn't actually died

on the Hampshire - a double had gone down -

and then people asked to see the body of the real Kitchener.

He couldn't produce a real body so then he changed his tact

to saying Kitchener had actually been murdered

and the sinking of the Hampshire was deliberate.

The government struggled to dismiss Frank Power as a nobody

since he had an audience.

He started off writing a column for the Sunday Referee, a popular journal

and his column about various conspiracy theories

to do with Kitchener became wildly successful.

He started trying to make films about Kitchener's demise

and he was making money and getting fame.

But the more Power peddled his claim

that Kitchener had been murdered, the more the public wanted proof.

"Where's the body?" they demanded.

Well, in 1926, he claimed to have found it in a grave in Norway

and he vowed to bring it back for a hero's burial in Britain.

This news captivated the nation and the newspapers.

"Kitchener's grave found.

"Great soldier's remains brought to England,"

says the Referee on August the 8th, 1926

in an article by...Frank Power.

The nation held its breath.

But Power had overlooked a very important point -

you can't bury a body in Britain without a certificate.

You can't issue the certificate without examining the body

and you can't examine the body if it's locked in a coffin.

The Metropolitan Police naturally became interested

and when the coffin arrived in London,

they examined it.

"When the lid was unscrewed, there was...nothing in the shell

"but traces of a substance like tar."

But then, as the fraud is revealed,

the tone of the press changes completely.

The Sunday Express, 22nd of August.

"The Kitchener outrage -

"gambling on a hero's coffin, dicing on his shroud."

There was a clear message from the British press to Mr Frank Power -

this country does not need you.

Here's a mystery for you to solve.

What sort of person leaves the comfort of his home

to set up camp in the freezing, pitch-black darkness

with only a vacuum flask and a soggy sandwich for company

and accessorised by a pair of binoculars?

The sad life of an ex-MP?

No, the real answer is out of this world.

The wonders of the stars and planets at night...

..that some people are looking for

and discover something altogether weird.

In December 1980, there were reports

of unexplained lights over Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk.

The sightings occurred over two nights.

It is Britain's most famous unidentified flying object incident.

The Ministry of Defence said it would not investigate

as the event posed no threat to national security.

The truth, however, is in here,

in MOD files that remained secret for 30 years,

accounts from those who witnessed the phenomena at first hand.

"The individuals reported seeing

"a strange glowing object in the forest.

"The object was described as being metallic in appearance

"and triangular in shape.

"It illuminated the entire forest with a white light.

"The object itself had a pulsing red light on top

"and a bank or banks of blue lights underneath.

"It was hovering or on legs.

"Numerous individuals including the undersigned

"witnessed the activities."

And it's signed Charles I Halt...

..Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force.

This man cannot be dismissed as some hysteric.

In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Halt was the deputy commander

of nearby RAF Woodbridge

where the American air force housed nuclear weapons.

On one night, he led patrols to investigate

what was going on in the forest.

He even tape-recorded some of the events.

"Later in the night,

"a red, sun-like light was seen through the trees.

"It moved and pulsed.

"At one point, it appeared to throw off glowing particles

"and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared.

"The object to the south was visible for two or three hours

"and beamed down a stream of light from time to time."

So, extraordinary claims.

On the surface, the Rendlesham case now appears far more intriguing

than the MOD was prepared to admit at the time

and with a seemingly credible witness.

But sceptics take a different view.

There's this idea that these are trained, credible witnesses,

but it's like police officers and pilots,

they're not trained to identify UFOs.

Nobody is trained to identify an alien spacecraft.

But Lieutenant Colonel Halt,

I mean, here is a fairly senior officer

at a base which I think may even have had nuclear weapons.

It sounds as if he's had a close encounter.

If these things that were seen were aliens,

you've got to think about this and you've got to think,

"Well, these are aliens that came across vast distances

"and where did they go during the day?

"Did they become invisible

"or did they zoom back from wherever they'd come from

"and then returned again the following night

"just to spook Colonel Halt?"

But nonetheless, the colonel's evidence

is in the government's file.

He recorded three depressions

discovered in a rough triangular formation

where a patrolman said that the UFO had landed.

What about the indentations in the ground

supposedly left by the craft?

Two bobbies came from the local police station

and looked at these marks on the ground

supposedly left by the UFO

and their conclusion was that it was rabbit diggings.

Great importance has been placed

on Colonel Halt's team's observations

of the levels of radiation,

which, according to their Geiger counter,

were ten times higher than normal.

The actual makers of the Geiger counter,

who have been consulted about this, said that,

when they've looked at the readings, they're completely meaningless.

It's exactly what you would expect in a pine forest

because there's a natural background radiation

that you would expect to find. There's nothing unusual about it.

For some, Rendlesham is a classic study

in how conspiracy theories gain traction.

When the authorities are quick to dismiss rumours,

they're accused of having something to hide.

35 years on, the incident still has its believers.

How do you reply to those who say that absence of evidence

is not evidence of absence?

Well, I would reply by saying it's impossible to prove a negative.

I can't prove that aliens didn't land in Rendlesham Forest.

Obviously, something did happen

because there were lots of soldiers charging around

thinking that they were looking at UFOs.

I don't think it was aliens

and there's only a small, tiny group of American servicemen...

Three, in fact. No more than that. ..who are making those claims.

There were lots of other people who were on the base

who just thought the whole thing was a load of hokum.

Rendlesham may be the most famous reported UFO sighting in Britain,

but there have been hundreds of others.

The Ministry of Defence has a catalogue of them,

including spaceships that look like Maltesers,

orange tennis balls and inverted ice cream cones.

There was about six other people with us

and we said to them, "Look at the lights" and they looked

and they were joined by more lights and in the end, we had eight lights.

They were just round balls with legs sticking out

and it just came right up beside me and...

..I felt a tug on my trousers.

Some reported sightings are frankly hard to believe.

The MOD files include accounts

from those eager to show the details of their close encounters.

Here is a lovely representation of a spacecraft

in all its beautiful colours.

Here it is in black and white but showing how it blasts off,

leaving a circle in the crops.

And here are some difficult-to-interpret photographs

taken through a window which show a series of red dots.

Ah! Here, very helpfully, are drawings of aliens

that have been done by members of the public

and it may not come as a huge surprise for you to know

that the male has pointy ears.

We seen them come over from over there, you know.

They come over, they sort of go in different sort of shapes.

We've invented this UFO detector and it's connected to a buzzer

and then should a UFO come over

emitting any electromagnetic frequencies, it'll set off an alarm.

ALARM BEEPS

It's really getting a bit frightening up here.

There's a whole formation

of unidentified flying objects behind us.

The quest for aliens isn't confined to amateur enthusiasts.

In America since 1984, astronomers at

the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute

have looked for signs of life beyond our solar system.

But if such life exists,

we may get the first inkling of it here in Britain.

In search of scientific objectivity,

I've come to the UCL Observatory in North West London,

which is equipped with a number of telescopes,

including this beautiful instrument made by Cooke in 1862.

The people who work here are in the business of explaining phenomena

and if extraterrestrials really are in the habit

of visiting planet Earth,

you'd think that they might see them coming.

But beyond this observatory,

British scientists have now set up the UK's own network

to attempt to establish if there is extraterrestrial life.

I wonder, the more we understand the vastness of the universe -

if you CAN understand its vastness -

the more it may seem improbable that we are alone.

I mean, you know, it seems almost logical that out there somewhere,

there must be some other life in such a vast space.

That's what people usually say - there must be something out there.

Do you have an open mind on extraterrestrials?

I mean, for example, do you think it's possible

that one day we will find them?

Yes, I do, especially now when astrobiology redefined

what the other life may look like.

So, you mean we may have to content ourselves

with a little bacteria or something like that?

Well, the definition of life has been made much more simple.

We are basically looking for the basic origins of life

and the higher the chance to discover it is so.

Which makes me think that scientists aren't on the lookout

for the sort of spaceship I've seen in the Archives.

Of course not.

Instead, they record radio wave signals

coming from the sky to analyse them for patterns.

Does that imply, then, that we're looking for people

-who know about radio waves?

-Yes.

-Ah. But now...

-That is the assumption.

Just before I blast off,

and in case any conspiracy theorists are watching,

I must declare a personal interest when it comes to UFOs.

In 1996, people were still writing

to the Secretary of State for Defence

claiming that they'd seen unidentified flying objects.

Here's one addressed to the Secretary of State,

Mr Michael...Portillo in 1996

and those replying on my behalf say,

"We do not attempt to identify the precise nature

"of each reported sighting.

"From the types of descriptions we receive, however,

"aircraft or natural phenomena

"probably account for most of the observations."

Well, I know that many, many people do believe

in unidentified flying objects

and so I'm sure that if I were to challenge them,

they would say we're not alone.