London UFO crash

The London UFO crash was the name BBC News gave to an incident in 2006 which saw the destruction of Big Ben by a UFO which appeared to crash into the River Thames in central London. They later called it the London UFO Disaster after the government failed to respond to the situation. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three) UNIT and the British government were heavily involved with the examination of the craft and its pilot. (PROSE: Operation London)

Build up
Just after Christmas 2004, the Ninth Doctor was near Big Ben, violently laughing; he told Lee that he should "make the most of it while you can", and Lee hurried off, believing the Doctor to be drunk. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)

In early 2006, the webmaster of Who is Doctor Who? believed a government conspiracy was afoot with MP Joseph Green's recent weight gain; he asked his readers for their theories about Green. (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed)

The crash
Most accounts dated the crash to 6 March, (TV: Aliens of London, PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters, etc.) but according to one account, the crash took place on 28 June 2006, (PROSE: Operation London) though another dated the destruction of 10 Downing Street to sometime prior to 26 May 2006. (PROSE: Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT)

The spaceship entered London's airspace from the south east at 09.57.55, flew over North Peckham at 09.57.57, narrowly missed Tower Bridge at 09.58.17, flew between St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London at 09.58.23, approached the Houses of Parliament at 09.58.32, struck the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster at 09.58.39 before crash-landing into the River Thames at 09.58.50. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) The Doctor and Rose saw the spaceship fly over the Powell Estate (TV: Aliens of London) which was located in Kennington, (PROSE: Rose Tyler) however other accounts instead placed the estate in Peckham. (COMIC: Silver Scream, PROSE: Downtime: Child of the New World, etc.) Elton Pope, while shopping for a suit, was among the bystanders that witnessed the crash in London. He initially mistook the ship for a plane. (TV: Love & Monsters)

The country was plunged into a state of national emergency. Roads were gridlocked and the whole of Central London was closed down by the army, causing widespread civilian panic, looting and civil disturbance as reports emerged of assaults on suspected "aliens". Police reinforcements were drafted in from across the country, and a telephone helpline was opened for any rumored extraterrestrial sightings.

With the sudden disappearance of the UK Prime Minister and all the other Cabinet ministers stranded outside London, emergency measures led to the swift appointment of Joseph Green (MP for Hartley Dale and Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for Monitoring of Sugar Levels in Exported Confectionery) as Acting Prime Minister. The Emergency Protocols were released into Green's possession, and he summoned the world's experts in extraterrestrial life to 10 Downing Street; two flights were allowed in from Geneva and Washington to bring the alien specialists to London.

The international response to the crisis resulted in a special session of the United Nations, with the UN Secretary General asking people to "watch the skies". The United States military was placed on the lookout for more spaceships and all flights in North American airspace were grounded, as the US President addressed the nation live from the White House.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, army divers were sent into the Thames to investigate the wreckage of the spaceship. A body was recovered from the river, and transported by boat to the nearby Albion Hospital, with press and camera crews, including Andrew Marr, kept outside the hospital grounds. The alien body found in the crashed spaceship was autopsied by Toshiko Sato under the supervision of British Army General Asquith. Toshiko (actually an undercover Torchwood agent) discovered that the alien resembled an ordinary pig dressed in a spacesuit, and that it was not in fact dead. Attempting to escape the hospital morgue, the revived animal attacked her and fled, but was shot by the army. By now, the Ninth Doctor had arrived at the hospital and established that the farmyard pig had alien technology wired into its brain which allowed it to walk upright and pilot the crashed spaceship. (TV: Aliens of London)

The Slitheen family's scheme
After the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler were taken to 10 Downing Street, Mickey Smith (TV: Aliens of London) wrote on his website about that day's events, ecstatic that the alien crash would finally prove him and Clive's suspicions about the Doctor correct, the fact that the government would have to respond to the existence of aliens, that he was now provably innocent regarding Rose's disappearance, and about the alien creature who piloted the ship. He also welcomed Rose back and asked his readers for their stories about the crash. (PROSE: Alien landing confirmed)

Aftermath and legacy
Although UNIT's alien experts who gathered at Downing Street were all killed by electrocution by the Slitheen family, (TV: World War Three) UNIT officers dealing with the situation were ignorant to the Slitheen (PROSE: Operation London, Number Ten) though the organisation would later be aware of the Slitheen's role in this incident, which was recalled by Sam Bishop when he confronted another group of Slitheen with Christina de Souza. (AUDIO: Death on the Mile)

After the attack, newspapers such as the Evening Standard were quick to call the attack a hoax. Mickey Smith was incredulous about this, and the Doctor simply told him that "[humanity was] happy to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's staring you in the face, nope, [you] can't see it. (TV: World War Three)

The sole Slitheen survivor, Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, made her way to Cardiff, hoping to exploit the Space-Time Rift there to use her Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to escape Earth. To this end, she became Mayor of Cardiff under her Margaret Blaine persona and instigated the Blaidd Drwg project to build a nuclear power plant, intending for it to meltdown and thus open the Rift. (TV: Boom Town) During her mayoralty Blon attempted to exploit a crashed Illyrian ship, coming into conflict with Suzie Costello who had shot it down. They reluctantly worked together to dispose of missiles sent by the ship's defences and decided to keep each other's secrets. (AUDIO: Sync) Six months after the failure of her family's scheme, Blon's plan was discovered by the Ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack Harkness who had come to Cardiff to refuel the Doctor's TARDIS. Intending to take Blon back to Rexacoricofallapatorious, they connected her extrapolator to accelerate the refuelling, enabling it to carry out Blon's back-up plan to hijacking any captor's vessel to rip open the Rift and triggering the Cardiff Earthquake. The effort ripped open the TARDIS console, exposing the heart of the TARDIS in front of Blon. Reading her desire for a fresh start, the energies reverted Blon to an unhatched egg, enabling the Doctor and Jack to shut down the extrapolator and close the Rift. Afterwards he took Blon home to be reborn. (TV: Boom Town)

In late 2006, Mickey mentioned that the spaceship crash had been covered up as a hoax and that the deaths of the previous PM and his Cabinet were accidents on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, in disbelief that people didn't understand that these were cover-ups. He added that he knew that PM Harriet Jones and Rose had fought the Slitheen, betting that Harriet wouldn't bring it up on Question Time. He also told his readers to remember both the shop dummies and this invasion. (PROSE: Mars)

Repair work on Big Ben lasted as late as Christmas 2006. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

Whilst listing beings they had encountered in their travels with the Doctor, Rose cited "Slitheen in Downing Street" to Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: School Reunion) This would later be recalled by Sarah Jane whilst she was facing Slitheen who used Coldfire Construction in a bid to drain the Sun's energy. These Slitheen admitted that they enacted this scheme on Earth in retaliation for the loss of their family, in what they described as "just a routine job". Upon hearing this, Sarah Jane suspected that she knew what or "Who happened." Sarah Jane ultimately thwarted the Slitheen plot, and saw that UNIT tended to the Coldfire facilities. (TV: Revenge of the Slitheen) In the years that would follow, Sarah Jane would confront the Slitheen on several occasions from her home in the Ealing area. (TV: The Lost Boy, From Raxacoricofallapatorious with Love, The Gift, The Nightmare Man)

Following his election in 2008, British Prime Minister Harold Saxon cited the destruction of Big Ben as an example of an alien event which the British government failed to disclose to the public. (TV: The Sounds of Drums)

Dram and Ecktosca Fel Fotch Heppen-Bar Slitheen, who identified as historians of their family, cited the failed scheme as the point where their ancestor's fortunes went downhill, though the historians celebrated the failures as well as the achievements. Following the incident, the Slitheen abandoned that line of work and spent some time chizzle-waxing to make ends meet. By 2501, Dram and Ecktosca had studied the "industrious" Jocrassa and his compatriots, hearing word that their compression fields were recovered from the wreckage of the "Earthly explosion", stored in a government stockpile and filed away, waiting for the day that humans could actually comprehend the technology involved and make something of it. Their trail led them to Justicia. (PROSE: The Monsters Inside)

As late as 3764, the Ninth Doctor was recognised for his part in ridding the galaxy of "the Slitheen scourge" by the Raxacoricofallapatorians. (COMIC: Doctormania)

Parallel universes
In a parallel universe, Rose Tyler found that no spaceship crashed into Big Ben. (AUDIO: The Endless Night) She later determined that the ship did not appear in at least one other universe. (AUDIO: The Last Party on Earth)

Behind the scenes

 * In the video game NOTVALID: K9: Deja Who, it is K9 who thwarts the Slitheen plot instead of the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler. To that end, he eludes the Slitheen in Downing Street whilst collecting vinegar which he uses to defeat the Slitheen Leader, after which the Slitheen's advertisement is cancelled.
 * The product description for Character Options' Micro Universe "Slitheen Cruiser" makes the "fair assumption" that the Torchwood Institute ultimately took possession of the craft.