RAF mountain rescue teams were told to "keep quiet" after unusual wreckage from space was found in the Scottish Highlands, it has been claimed.
A former RAD Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team leader said that he thinks information about the 1962 crash - thought to have been a Russian Sputnik satellite - was deliberately hushed up.
In an interview with the BBC, David Whalley - who led the Kinloss team from the late 80s - said he tried to follow up the story but was met with dead ends.
It had been rumoured a shepherd had found the remains of the satellite on a moor in Sutherland in spring 1962.
Members of the RAF Kinloss rescue team were sent to investigate the crash, but Whalley believes records of the search are missing.
"They found various bits and pieces," he told the Beeb.
"They included a part with Russian and pictures on it explaining what to do if the satellite was found crashed, and that a reward would be given for its return.
"The team were told to keep quiet."
FULL STORY: Read Whalley's account at the BBC
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Sputnik 1, launched in 1957, was the first man-made satellite to be placed in orbit. Its launch sparked the space race which led to the US landing a man on the Moon in 1969. Many other types of Sputnik (Russian for satellite) were launched, and if one did crash in Scotland it is almost certainly a later model.
Other explanations have supposed the wreckage actually came from a crashed American weather balloon - as described in an 1993 book about mountain rescue by amateur historian Keith Bryers.