UFO files briefing guide

9
UFO report files contain a mixture of letters from members of the public and reports
from official sources such as the police, coastguard and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Many reports take the form of military signals received by MoD via a variety of RAF and
RN stations. The most frequent method of reporting a UFO sighting was via a standard
proforma, originally based on a USAF questionnaire. An early draft of this report format
can be found at DEFE 31/118. A version of this questionnaire is still used today by the
Ministry of Defence. The proforma contains 16 questions, a-q:
(a) Date, time and duration of sighting
(b) Description of object
(c) Exact position observer
(d) How observed
(e) Direction in which object was first seen
(f) Angle of sight
(g) Distance
(h) Movements
(j) Meteorological conditions during observations
(k) Nearby objects
(l) To whom reported (police, military organisations, the press etc)
(m) Name and address of informant
(n) Any background on the informant that may be volunteered
(o) Other witnesses
(p) Date and time of receipt of report
(q) Is a reply requested? (Note item q was deleted from 1973).
From 1966-67 UFO reports and correspondence between members of the public and
MoD were preserved in two separate sequences of files. Five separate file series held at
The National Archives contain papers relating to UFO sightings and UFO
correspondence from 1962 in chronological order:
AIR 2/16918 features numerous sighting reports and correspondence from members of
the public to the Air Ministry secretariat S6, between 1961 and 1963. On the
reorganization of MoD in 1964 a new Secretariat, S4 (Air), took over responsibility for
UFO matters. UFO reports and correspondence from 1967 can be found in AIR 2/18115
and AIR 2/18116, 1967-68 in AIR 2/18117, and 1968-69 in AIR 2/18183. AIR 2/18871
contains reports and newspaper cuttings from 1972, while AIR 2/18872 consists of a
collection of UFO reports and correspondence 1972-1973; AIR 2/18873, 1973-1974; and
AIR 2/18874 likewise for 1974-1975. A series of files containing UFO reports runs from
February 1974 until December 1976 and begins in AIR 2/18950. AIR 2/19126 contains a
statistical analysis of UFO reports made to MoD between 1967 and 1973.
AIR 20 files include a number of Air Ministry UFO papers that escaped destruction
before 1967. AIR 20/7390 contains reports of unidentified objects/aircraft made to Air
Ministry between 1950 and 1954. AIR 20/9320, AIR 20/9321 and AIR 20/9322 contain
Parliamentary Questions and briefings on UFOs reported in 1957, including reports of
phenomena tracked by radar. AIR 20/9994 also contains papers from RAF radar stations
concerning „reports of aerial phenomena‟ during 1957. A further series containing UFO
sighting reports made to S4 (Air), filed in monthly folders covering the period August
1967 through to December 1973, begins in AIR 20/11887 and end in AIR 20/12555.