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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.
“Nevers”28 pages
. . I have identified 21 reports fitting Dr Clarke's request. There are difficulties with supplying the assessment because despite the fact that there is a paragraph in one of Mr Pope's loose minutes to the Head ofSec(AS) saying that D Air Def(now DAO) said that RAF Neatishead confirmed nothing was detected on air defence radar, Mr Pope continued to make enquiries with a number of other departments and the case was eventually put through the Head of Sec( AS) to ACAS. This makes the case look unusual because once established with D Air Def that they were not concerned from an air defence point of view, no other enquiries would normally be made. The file contains no real conclusion to these events and Mr Pope was eventually told by the Head ofSec(AS) to "drop the subject". Request 5 Reports of unusual phenomena on radar in the early hours of 5 October 1996 reported by the SOC Neatishead and UFO reports made by Lincolnshire Police and the Skegness coastguard. Copies of investigation notes and assessment made. File D/Sec(AS)64/2 Part D searched and the following papers were identified. Signal message from UKCAOC High W;ycombe to MOD UK AIR (Copied to HQ 11118 Gp Bentley Priory and CRC Neatishead) dated 5 Oct 1996 concerning a UFO report made by MV Conocoast to Great Yarmouth Coastguard A fax message from RAF Neatishead to GESM dated 5 Oct 1996 attached to a transcipt of conversations between Neatishead, the Coastguard, MV Conocoast and Skegness Police. (The file copy is difficult to read and despite our best efforts it has not copied well. DAO ADGE 1 contacted Neatishead to see if they had retained a clearer copy, but unfortunately their files have been destroyed). Loose minute from DAO ADGE I to Sec(AS)2al dated 7 October 1996 given his thoughts on what may have been seen on 5 Oct 1996. File D/Sec(AS)64/4 also contained a very detailed loose minute from ADGE 1 to Sec(AS)2a1 dated 13 Nov 1996 about the events of 5 Oct 1996. This was prepared as background material to a letter from Mr Martin Redmond MP to the Secretary of State in which Mr Redmond seriously criticised UK Air Defence systems. The current ADGE 1 has looked at this and with some removal of names, posts etc, he is happy for it to be supplied to Dr Clarke.
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 492 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.