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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 Neatishead”18 pages
COVERING CONFIDENTIAL From Djrectorate of Air Staff (Lower Airspace) Operations & Policy 1 MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Room 6/73, Metropole Building, Northumberland Avenue, London, WC2N 5BP Telephone CHOts E-Mail (Direct dial) (Switchboard) (Fax) (GTN) DAS-LA-Ops+Pol1 das-laopspol1 @defence.mod.uk and Commonwealth Office Records and Historical Department Hanslope Park Your Reference Our Reference D/DAS/64/3/11 Date 7 November 2002Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire MK19 7BH Dear I would be grateful if you could provide some assistance with a request we have received for access to papers held on a Ministry of Defence file, some of which originated in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This office is the focal point within the MOD for correspondence concerning 'unidentified flying objects'. One of our regular correspondents has made a request under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (the Code) for any documents the MOD may hold which were used as briefing material for a House ofLords Debate on UFOs, on 18 January 1979. On examining our files we have discovered a number of documents which were sent to the MOD from the FCO towards the end of 1978 concerning a proposal by Premier Gairy of Grenada to the United Nations to establish an agency or working group for research into UFOs. This was mentioned in the House of Lords Debate so we have every reason to believe that they were sent to the MOD as background for the Defence Minister's reply and are therefore relevant to this request for information. I enclosed a copy of these documents and as you will see some are classified Restricted and some Confidential, and they contain remarks about why the UK and other UN nations would not support this proposal. In this suite of papers there is also one from the United Nations General Assembly and one from the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations, the later of which came to us via the UN Department of the FCO. I would appreciate your advice as to how we may consider the release of these documents or alternatively whether they should be withheld under one of the exemptions of the Code. If it is considered that they should be withheld, there are two exemptions which seem to be appropriate. Exemption 1b - Information whose disclosure would harm the conduct of international relations COVERING CONFIDENTIAL
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.