Documents / Document
This highlights guide from The National Archives describes the tenth and final release of Ministry of Defence UFO files: 25 files with 4,400 pages covering the MoD UFO desk from late 2007 to its closure in November 2009. It explains how to use the PDF bookmarks and summarises key stories. These include the briefing that recommended closing the desk, a public disclosure campaign, a sharp rise in sightings linked to Chinese lanterns, and reports sorted by location.
RAF‟s Air Command. This recommends that MoD „should seek to reduce very significantly the UFO task which is consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defence output.‟ Ainsworth was told that in more than 50 years „no UFO sighting reported to [MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK‟ and „there is no defence benefit in [MoD] recording, collating, analysing or investigating UFO sightings.‟ MoD had decided that „investigations into UFO sightings, even from more reliable sources, serve no useful purpose and merely divert air defence specialists from their primary tasks. Accordingly, no further investigations should be carried out into UFO reports received from any source.‟ The document reveals MoD refrained from making any „formal approaches to other Governments‟ in reaching its decision to close the UFO desk because these „would become public when the relevant UFO files are released and could be viewed by “ufologists” as evidence of international collaboration and conspiracy.‟ Handling of the proposed closure of the UFO Desk: In December 2009, after Ainsworth approved the policy recommendation, MoD closed the UFO hotline answer phone service and the dedicated email address for sighting reports. These had initially been created to improve communication with the public following an earlier surge of public interest in the subject at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident in 1997 (DEFE 24/2458/1, p8). MoD predicted the closure „will attract negative comment from “ufologists” [who] may, individually or as a group, mount a vociferous, but short-lived campaign to reinstate the UFO Hotline suggesting that, by not investigating UFOs, MoD is failing its Defence commitment.‟ But the briefing predicted the media coverage of their decision would probably treat the closure in a „frivolous‟ rather than critical fashion. Last UFO desk officer The last UFO desk officer was re-deployed to another post in MoD in 2010 and the remaining UFO files were marked for transfer to The National Archives. One of the final tasks was to issue letters to other government departments notifying them of the MoD‟s decision. In January 2010 he wrote to the Home Office to cancel standing instructions to police forces who had, in the past, routinely forwarded UFO sightings made by officers and the general public to the MoD. Another was sent to the Head of Aviation Directorate, requesting that „any reports received by the Department of Transport or air control centres are not forwarded to MoD and that members of the public who make such reports are not encouraged to believe an investigation will take place.‟ Copies of these letters form the final enclosures of the file at DEFE 24/2458, pages 5-8. The files contain a number of letters from members of the public inquiring about the duties of the UFO desk officer, some of whom wished to apply for the post „running Britain‟s X-files‟.
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 12 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.