The United States government has published drawings and schematics of a flying saucer it attempted to build in the 1950s.
The documents show that the US Air Force worked with a Canadian company, Avro Aircraft Limited, to build a craft which resembles the 'alien spacecraft' popular in movies and science fiction for more than a century.
Known as Project 1794, the aim was to create a supersonic craft shaped like a disc.
Declassified documents show that the prototype entered development in the mid-1950s, and was intended to have a top speed "between Mach 3 and Mach 4".
The craft would have flown at 100,000 feet, and had a range of about 1,000 miles.
The saucer would have also been able to take off and land vertically, use propulsion jets to stabilise itself and revolutionised air travel.
One document - a memo from 1956 - concludes "that the stablisation and control of the aircraft in the manner proposed... is feasible".
"Supersonic tests show that the calculated thrust potential with the present design will provide a much superior performance to that estimated," it adds.
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