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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.
reports‟ during 2008-9 had begun to make the workload of the one official responsible unmanageable and had begun impacting on other defence tasks. UFO sightings and Chinese lantern craze Details of the sighting reports logged by MoD in 2008-9 can be followed in the UFO sighting files, DEFE 24/2623-2627 (2008) and DEFE 24/2459-65 (2009). A large number of these reports were generated by sightings of „Chinese lanterns‟ and the files suggest that many people who saw these floating lights in the sky for the first time believed they were UFOs. Formations of orange lights were filmed on mobile phones and video cameras by members of the public some of whom said they were „amazed‟, „stunned‟ and even „frightened‟. Sightings tended to cluster during the summer months with reports of UFOs seen while outdoors walking dogs, smoking cigarettes, enjoying family barbeques – or even relaxing in hot-tubs (DEFE 24/2623/1, p 146). A stream of stories and stills from phone footage were published in local and national newspapers. A typical sighting, dated 8 December 2007, describes two clusters of amber, orange and white lights in triangular formation moving over the Vale of Neath in South Wales. The lights were silent and „moved in an unusual manner like a feather or a cork bobbing on water.‟ The family of five who spotted these lights were so amazed they pulled their car over to the side of the road to watch (DEFE 24/2623/1 p 229). Others were convinced the lanterns were „moving under control, against the wind‟. A woman from Liverpool rang the UFO hotline in October 2009, to say „…can you tell us what these things are as my children are terrified that they are aliens; my son has seen these on two other occasions and is very worried.‟ (DEFE 24/2465/1 p 239) During the summer of 2009, maritime authorities dealt with a spate of false alarms triggered by people releasing „Chinese lanterns‟. In September coastguards in Cumbria and the North West received dozens of 999 calls from people who thought they had seen distress flares (DEFE 24/2464/1). UFO sighting by soldiers in Shropshire A UFO sighting was made by a group of soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment in June 2008. The objects were spotted flying over Tern Hill barracks, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, on 6 June 2008 by soldiers on fire picket duty (see DEFE 24/2625/1 p107-121; DEFE 24/2624/1 p211-228). One soldier filmed 13 flying objects on his mobile phone. The images were described as „show[ing] lots of multi-coloured dots and zoom in on a cube-shaped object which then flattens.‟ The soldier emailed the footage to a national newspaper who subsequently published the story as a front page exclusive on 25 June 2009 under the headline “ALIEN ARMY”.
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.