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British MoD Dump UFOs

By Gregon

Nick Pope has pointed out that after fifty years of accepting and investigating reports of UFOs, the British Ministry of Defence has quietly made their exit from the controversial topic via this short note on their website:

The MOD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life. However, in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.

The MOD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no Defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources. Furthermore, responding to reported UFO sightings diverts MOD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence.

Accordingly, and in order to make best use of Defence resources, we have decided that from the 1 December 2009 the dedicated UFO hotline answer-phone service and e-mail address will be withdrawn. MOD will no longer respond to reported UFO sightings or investigate them. The ongoing programme to release Departmental files on UFO matters to the National Archive will continue.

In its time, the British MoD received approximately 12,000 UFO reports, of which around five percent remained unexplained. For the past couple of years they have been releasing their files to the National Archives for the public to view.

Previously on TDG:

Greg
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Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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9 Comments

  1. Hi All,
    Just wondering
    Hi All,

    Just wondering whether that figure of 5% is applicable across other investigations? Is that a fair value to use as an estimate of unexplained UFO phenomena elsewhere. A test group of 12000 cases would usually be good enough to round in on the figure, or do other parts of the world that have the capacity of the UK for investigation (country wide radar, large population ratio etc) differ in some way with regards to the unexplained events ratio?

  4. MoD withdrawal from UFO investigations
    This makes me even more curious about official responses to the UFO phenomenon.

    The MoD or some government organisation was certainly interested when they sent a couple of investigators down to interview some colleagues of mine. They were on night shift and had unrestricted sight of unidentified craft moving across the city and countryside around our workplace. These guys were visited at home, asked to make statements, told not to talk about what they’d seen and were left feeling that their sightings were of serious concern.

    These chaps were former career RAF officers who could be relied upon to know what’s what in the skies and trusted not to make ‘chinese lantern’ or frivolous type reports.

    It just makes me wonder how deep underground the gvt’s UFO investigation dept has gone.

    1. Interest
      It is very likely that the main interest the MoD had on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena originally, was the possibility those flying machines were spy or military vehicles from across the Iron Curtain.

      As more and more xamples of the incredibly bizarre nature of some of the most curios cases began to manifest, it might have become clear that

      a)these were not the work of Russkies;

      b)there was nothing they could do to prevent them from invading British airspace; and finally

      c)there didn’t seem to be an obvious threat coming from them.

      So to me one thing still bothers me: the MoD acknowledges that they don’t have the capability to take the U off the UFO. So my question is: Is *there* an agency out there who might have a better chance in this endeavor?

      And if not, why don’t we see the necessity and value in creating such an agency?

  5. money
    I have it on good authority (maybe it’s even in the linked articles) that the MoD is saving a lot of money by shutting down this effort. Something like US$72,000 a year.

    1. They will still investigate UFOs though
      As Nick Redfern explains in his UFO Mystic post re. this issue:

      [quote]By the MoD’s own admission it will continue (because it has to!) investigate (via radar and the scrambling of aircraft) any penetrations of British airspace by unidentified sources. And, who knows if some of those potential threats might remain unresolved and unidentified? If they do indeed remain unresolved and unidentified, then by definition then the MoD is still investigating UFOs.

      I suspect, however, the MoD clearly realizes this, and its statement actually means that officialdom doesn’t want people sending in letters or phoning the MoD switchboard to report sightings of flying saucers, little gray (or green men), etc, etc anymore; and this is their way of getting out of handling a subject that they really don’t understand – or have any interest in understanding.[/quote]

      So what the MoD is Mr. & Mrs. Bigglesworth to stop pestering them with phone calls of little men and flying saucers.

      …Unless the little men speak Arabic, in which case they’ll go check it out in less time than you can say “fish & chips” 😛

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