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This Ministry of Defence file, released through The National Archives and published by The Black Vault, holds the MOD's 2002 handling of Dr David Clarke's requests for UFO documents under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. It includes the MOD's 9 December 2002 reply, which covered reports from 1976, 1980, 1993 and 1996 and charged £260. It also contains internal emails and file requisitions, plus Foreign Office and United Nations papers from 1978 on Grenada's proposal for UFO research.
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A small difficulty haA( for purely tactical reasons
unconnected with UFOs, acceded (with other countries) to a
request by the Government of Grenada for a UN study group (at
Grenadan expense) to monitor information on UFOs. The l'Tording
of that part of the draft speech has been supplied by FCO.
6. The general line adopted is that there really are strange
phenomena in the sky, but there are perfectly rational
explanations to account for them, so there is no need to introduce
the highly questionable hypothesis of alien space craft. In other
.words, Occam's Razor.
7. The broad line was put to Lord Strabolgi, at our meeting
in December and agreed by him. Lord Strabolgi asked for further
information about cosmic distances and the difficulties of space
travel. I have not included this in the speech, because Lord
Cla.ncarty's "sky people" are evidently "paranormal" and can cross
the light years in a trice; but some facts are included at the
end of the background note.
8. Lord Strabolgi also mentioned the possibility of replying
on any detailed cases produced by Lord Clancarty if the latt€r will
give advance notice. I repeat the advice I gave in December: we
should not attempt to argue these cases, which tend to be remote
and elusive yet often cannot be refuted without very detailed
examination; indeed w·e should not fight the battle on Lord Clancarty's
ground at all.
9. DES have been consulted and are content.
10. You vTill no doubt confirm the time and place of the final
briefine;, which i'i.t p1•esent He have dm·m for am \•lednesday 17 January. Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 492 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.