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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.
“RAF”60+ pages
:__ urpc-~e ?' 'There '·~s1cnAin the I the.J:eged 1f the :·"iiY, the ~s woe \.rely 'ie actuen t planets ave been 1ospl1eric d, Lord 'light on :·uctures; w's Fire erred to •', which lephone e 5,000 :tes and . by tJ1e . About "C-enter ~ noble ·· The space 1309 Unkhwtified [ 18 JANUARY 1979] Flying Objects 1310 debris, hut, my Lords, the phenomena can be astonishing. illusions to 'vhich the noble Earl Lord Halsbury referred. One scientist, whose task inciudes watchinsr satellites, describes how, when observing stars near moving douds, he fincis it difdcult to escape the Last April the Ministry of Deti.:nce received reports of a large piece of debris re-entering aciOss :he South of England. Most reports were factual, but one spoke of an 1 illusion that the stars an: flying past I stationary clouds. The nobk Earl, Lord ! Halsbury, referred to the green flash. ! I used to see it myself in Alexandria when i on leave. It was one of our evcnin~ •• ... oval thing with a white cockpit which bvercd for a while then shot off at great speed ·•. My Lords. we .:annot pro\e that this was not a UFO. but it occurred ~d the same time 1 and place as known re-entry of debris. pastimes to sit on the prom:;nadc and \Vatch it go down over tlw sea. Many reports relate to aircraft seen in My Lord~, in 1968, the United States unusual conditions at unusual agglcs. Air Force commissioned the Univer~ity One recent UFO was confidently reported of Coloradl) to C3.rry out an independent on local radio. Again, my Lords, we study into UFO phenomena. Their cannot prove that it was not a UFO, but report, which was published in 1969, was we do know that an RAF Vulcan bomber very substantial and detailed and it on a low-flying mission passed the same covcr~d some 50 examples of such spot at the same time and on the same phenomena, but added that it was impos- course as the reported UFO. Aircraft siblc and potentially misleading to try to lights have led to UFO reports; as ha\e tabulate all of the possible causes of distant aircraft with landing lights on-- UFO perception: there are simply too I have seen them mvself-flarcs from many. The report's main come from the study of UFOs aircraft. Other phenomena include in the p:m 21 ycllrs that ha; added to ~cicntifk meteorological balloons. The Meteoro- knowledge.,_ logical Oftlce alone releases 50 such The findings of this report were cndors.:d balloons every day, which expand to 40ft. by a panel of tb;;: National Academy of in diameter and rise to 100,000 ft. and can Sciences. be lit by the sun after dark. lViany other There really are tens of thousands of organisations. such as universities, use strange things- to he seen. It is the custom balloons, some much larger. Meteoro- to call such :-hcnomena '' UFOs ", and logical searchJiglJts shine on clouds: the to transpose t'nis easily into H alien space beam itself cannN be se;;:n; only a point 1 craft". Often the apptarancc is too of light in the sky. There arc hot air, : fleeting and th~ description too imprecise balloons ar~d kitt.'s: even birds have bten for a particuiar cause to be attributed. reported as UFOs; lights on distant towers; What we can say is that there is a great car headlights on distant hills; dust devils; variety of plain explanations. There is and airborne debris carried by the wind. no need, I suggest, for the far-fetched hypothesis of alien space craft.All these phenomena can be mis- interpreted by the most sensible observers, particularly when seen unexpectedly and briefly and in unusual atmospheric con- ditions. This is what opponents of the natural explanations forget. With dis- . tortions of light, and mirages, the most commonplace things can be so changed as to be barely recognisable. For instance. I am told that the US Air Force attributed the 1947 sighting by Arnold described by - the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, to a mirage effect. Phenomena seen through glass are suspect. There arc phenomena generated within the eyeball and there are optical To genuine' sightings we must, however, add hallucinations: the excited tales of the gullible: and the embellishments of the born rom~ntic, There ·arc also in- dications tlwt ufologists accept reports of UFOs somewhat uncritically. The noble Enrl, Lord Clancarty, referred to a papyrus found among the papers of a Professor Tulli recording Hying saucers during the reign of Thutmose III. The Colarado Report, which I mentioned ear- lier, inquired in!o this story. The alleged papyrus could not be traced, but internal eYidence in the trans.l<!tion suggested a fake; inquiries with the Vatican Museum ' ·-. •· ,·'-- •-·~~ ....., ... ~._..,.~ •. ,. •·• "•~---~ . .., ...~, , . .,.,.,•...,__..__ •· 'r-· , . -······~.-- ,. -··· •· ... , ·• .,.•.. ,... .,.~ ·r, ;•
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.