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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.
/ f .. ·"'r( LOOSE MINUTE D/DA0/1/13 /3 Nov 96 Sec(AS)2a1 Copy to: AOAD1 LETTER TO SOFS FROM MR MARTIN REDMOND MP CONCERNING ALLEGED 'UNIDENTIFIED FLYING CRAFT SIGHTINGS' ON 5 OCT Reference: Mr Redmond's letter to SofS dated 24 Oct 96. 1. At Reference, Mr Martin Redmond MP raises several points concerning visual and radar observations which occurred during the early hours of Saturday 5 Oct 96 and which are referred to, incorrectly, as 'a visual unidentified flying craft sighting which was correlated by various different military radar systems'. The substance of Mr Redmond's letter is based on various reports which appeared in the local press, some incorrect, ill-informe~dor tive, which I understand were provided to him by the staffordshire UFO Group. In addition, the le er serious criticism of the Service, and of the UK Air Defence system in particular; for this reason, exceptionally, the facts surrounding the incident have been established in considerable detail and set out below, together with resumes of observations, actions and explanations. A map showing the location of key agencies, equipment and observations is at Annex A. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 2. Initial Observations. At approximately 0205Z on 5 Oct 96 a Skegness police officer on mobile patrol at nearby Addlethorpe observed stationary multicoloured lights to the east and low in the sky which he reported to the control room in Skegness. As a precaution, the control room relayed the sighting to Great Yarmouth Coastguard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), suspecting it could be related to an incident at sea. The MRCC, unaware of any maritime activity, asked the Air Rescue Coordination centre (ARCC) at RAF Kinless whether they were aware of any air activity or incident in the wash area. The ARCC had no knowledge of any such air activity and, in turn, asked the Control and Reporting Centre (CRC) at RAF Neatishead if any aircraft activity was present on the radar in that area; Neatishead had no unidentified radar contact on the air defence radars being used to provide air surveillance in the area and ARCC subsequently asked the Distress and Diversion (D&D}, located at the London Air Traffic Control Centre (LATCC) West Drayton (not at RAF Northwood as the Coastguard erroneously assumed and the press subsequently reported). The D&D Cell reported a radar plot on the National Air Traffic Services Claxby radar over Boston to ARCC, thence to MRCC. At the same time, CRC Neatishead, which had conducted a search on
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.