Britain’s Ministry of Defence is set on destroying all future UFO reports it receives so that it will not have to make them public, revealed a previously secret memo.

According to the newly released policy document, the official UFO investigation unit and hotline were closed down at the start of December, and since then reports of strange sights in the skies sent to the MoD have been kept for 30 days before being thrown out.

This stance was adopted so defence officials would not have to publish the information in response to freedom of information (FoI) requests or pass it to the National Archives.

The memo, dated November 11, 2009, sets out the MoD’s reasons for shutting its UFO unit and ceasing to invite the public to send in details of sightings.

It notes that the number of reports the department received soared last year, taking up extra resources and diverting staff from “more valuable” defence-related activities.

The MoD recorded 634 UFO sightings in 2009, the second highest annual total after 1978, when there were 750, according to UFO expert Dr David Clarke.

This compares with an average of about 150 reports a year over the past decade.

The memo reveals that MoD chiefs made a point of not discussing their plans to close the UFO unit with other countries because of fears this could be perceived as part of a global cover-up.

“We have deliberately avoided formal approaches to other Governments on this issue,” the memo read.

“Such approaches would become public when the relevant UFO files are released, and would be viewed by ‘ufologists’ as evidence of international collaboration and conspiracy,” it declared.

The MoD is releasing its historic UFO files gradually through the National Archives. (ANI) http://www.britainnews.net/story/607116

The Ministry of Defence department that investigated UFOs sightings has been closed after almost 60 years, it has been disclosed.

The MoD department, which has dealt with more than 12,000 reports – including 135 last year – was used to assess threats posed by any Unidentified Flying Objects sightings throughout Britain.

Any reports made would now not be investigated or followed up as the hotline had been closed, a spokesman said.

UFO experts expressed anger at the decision.

MoD chiefs made the decision to close the £50,000 a year department, established in 1950, after deciding there was no benefit investigating sightings which were “an inappropriate use of defence resources”.

It comes after the team was moved from the MoD’s team, similar to the FBI team featured in the TV programme the X Files, was moved a year ago from the Whitehall Headquarters to the RAF Command in High Wycombe, Bucks.

After an application under the Freedom of Information Act, the MoD admitted that responding to every UFO sightings “diverts MoD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence”.

No decision was announced and the disclosure was instead buried on its website earlier this month.

It said that in more than 50 years “no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom”.

After investigation, around 5 per cent of reports remain unexplained.

“The MOD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life,” the spokesman said.

“The MOD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings.

“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.”

He added: “MOD will no longer respond to reported UFO sightings or investigate them.”

Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence UFO project from 1991 to 1994, said it was “outrageous”.

“We’re leaving ourselves wide open to terrorist attacks,” he told The Sun.

Dear Colleagues:

This is to inform that Brazilian Government has just declassified a new set of significant previously secret UFO documents, now covering the 80s. We already had disclosures covering the 50s, 60s and 70s, all with very important documents and information. So far over 4,000 pages have been disclosed.

The recent disclosure is particularly powerful because it contains dozens of reports of UFOs on May 19, 1986, considered the “Official UFO Night in Brazil”, when 21 spherical objects, estimated 100 meters in diameter – according to military sources – were detected by radars and spotted by civilian pilots, and literally jammed air traffic over the major Brazilian Airports, such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Then, several Mirage and F5 jets were scrambled to pursue them.

As a result of that “invasion”, the Air Force minister brigadier Octavio Moreira Lima went public about it the other morning on the national TV network, declaring all facts openly. The pilots who took part in the pursue and their commanders also spoke freely about the pursuits, which occurred over several hours.

We’ve had several other disclosures since 2007, all as a direct result of the campaign UFOs: Freedom Of Information Now, promoted since 2004 by the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers. The latest disclosure comprises over 2,200 new pages of formerly secret UFO documents that were given to the Committee and also sent to the Brazilian National Archives.

In late July, hundreds of papers from the Brazilian Air Force’s official System for the Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (SIOANI) have demonstrated how the nation’s military authorities dealt with the UFO Phenomena in the 60s and 70s.

Considering that SIOANI wasn’t a top secret agency and that even civilian researchers took part in its procedures, the structure and functionality of which proves that Brazil is the first country in the world to officially and publicly admit the reality of the UFO Phenomena, and the first to investigate it openly.

For instance, where have you ever seen color drawings of flying saucers reported by witnesses and investigated by military personnel, such as these ones?

www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos/Caso_SIOANI_007_Croqui_Colorido.jpg
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos/Caso_SIOANI_034_Croqui_Colorido.jpg
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos/Caso_SIOANI_035_Croqui_Colorido.jpg
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos/Caso_SIOANI_063_Croqui_Colorido.jpg
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos/Caso_SIOANI_064_Croqui_Colorido.jpg

These are only a few links to recently discovered colored drawings of UFOs seen in Brazil and investigated in the 60s and 70s by the Brazilian Air Force’s official System for the Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (SIOANI). Much more is about to be disclosed.

The Brazilian UFO Magazine website – www.ufo.com.br – already has thousands of pages for download, such as over 1,200 pages of documents, 200 photos of SIOANI’s activities and Operation Saucer, carried out in the Amazonian region in 1977. Along with documents received by the Committee from other military sources.

Included in the recently revealed documents are the detailed research proceedings carried out in dozens of UFO-related incidents which had not been made public previously. Some of the colored sketches of UFO incidents investigated by SIOANI are here:

www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/Novos_documentos

Other documents can be found here:

www.ufo.com.br/documentos/sioani/
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/prato/
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/extra/
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/geral/

Please note: Download, print, publicize and otherwise share these documents, but please do not fail to mention the source, Brazilian UFO Magazine, and emphasize that this material is public thanks to the efforts of the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU), as a direct result of the campaign UFOs: Freedom of Information Now.

A. J. Gevaerd,
Editor, Brazilian UFO Magazine
Coordinator, Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU)
National Director, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)
www.ufo.com.br
gevaerd@ufo.com.br
aj@gevaerd.com

The Library and Archives Canada collection of government records on UFOs was acquired from the following four federal departments and agencies:
* Department of National Defence
* Department of Transport
* National Research Council
* Royal Canadian Mounted Police

These documents were accumulated between 1947 and the early 1980s and represent all records filed with the federal government on UFOs. There are approximately 9,500 digitized documents in a variety of formats, including correspondence, reports, memos and procedures. Some are specifically concerned with particular UFO sightings, while others are more generic in nature; these may consist of reporting forms and procedures for recording events.

Although most documents contain a date (pertaining either to a sighting date or the date the document was actually created), some are undated. Similarly, approximately half of the documents refer to a specific UFO sighting location, while the others fail to mention a particular location.

Click here to go to Library and Archives Canada

A former chief of defence staff warned Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1985 that its “perfunctory” dismissal of UFO sightings near an RAF base shared with the US Air Force in Suffolk could turn into a political “banana-skin” because it was unexplained.

In a letter to Michael Heseltine, Mrs Thatcher’s defence secretary at the time, the late Lord Hill-Norton said the sightings of unidentified flying objects in Rendelsham Forest by USAF personnel in December 1980 had “puzzling and disquieting” features that have never been satisfactorily explained.

The letter, written on 1 May 1985 is among official government documents on UFOs released today by the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives. Fourteen files containing more than 4,000 pages spanning 15 years between 1981 and 1996 have been placed online.

Lord Hill-Norton’s letter covers perhaps the best-known British UFO incident of the period when the USAF twice reported mysterious lights and a metallic flying object in the woods at the perimeter of the base. They said a triangular-shaped object had left radiation traces and three visible markings in the ground.

Colonel Charles Halt, the USAF deputy base commander, who saw the lights himself, wrote a short report on 13 January 1981, but the Ministry of Defence denied all knowledge of the events until the colonel’s memorandum was released in June 1983 under the US Freedom of Information Act. The MoD’s public response was that the incident had no defence interest.

“My personal view, having considered the fragmentary but compelling evidence brought to public knowledge by the media, is that the case cannot be disposed of in these rather perfunctory terms,” Lord Hill-Norton wrote. “If the report made by the USAF authorities in January 1981 is accurate, there is evidence that British airspace and territory are vulnerable to unwarranted intrusion to a disturbing degree.

“If, on the other hand, the report of the deputy base commander must be dismissed … then we have evidence – no less disturbing, I suggest – that a sizeable number of USAF personnel at an important base in British territory are capable of serious misperception, the consequences of which might be grave in military terms.”

The MoD reply repeateded that if there were sightings of unidentified flying objects they did not have any defence significance. A “final position statement” was prepared in 1985 by officials for the defence minister, Lord David Trefgarne. “It is highly unlikely that any violation of UK airspace would be heralded by such a display of lights,” the file continues. “I think it equally unlikely that any reconnaissance or spying activity would be announced in this way.”.

Other MoD documents released relate a UFO incident in Belgium in 1989 and 1990 when Belgian Air Force F-16 fighters were scrambled to intercept strange, brightly-lit, triangular-shaped flying objects reported by police and others. A statement sent to the MoD in November 1993 by General Wilfried de Brouwer, chief of operations in the Belgian Air Staff, confirmed that the fighters had locked-on to something with their radar but were unable to explain what it was.

The MoD said there had been no threat to the UK and that it has never detected a “structured craft flying in UK airspace that has remained unidentified”.

The files contain UFO reports of 800 sightings between January 1993 and August 1996, but in 1996 alone 609 incidents were logged, three times more than all the previous three years together.

The former chief commander of the Soviet Navy has revealed information on UFOs that until recently had been secret. The Soviet Navy had so many encounters with mysterious objects raising from or diving into the ocean that a special analytic group was set to make weekly reports to the naval commander-in-chief. The Russian website Free Press (svpressa.ru) interviewed that officer on July 16.

Vladimir N. Chernavin, 81, was the chief commander of the Soviet Navy and deputy minister of defense of the USSR from 1985 to 1992. He is the recipient of several high Soviet and Russian state honors. The material he presented is peppered with the names of other distinguished Soviet naval officers. Some of those officers have spoken before about their knowledge of UFOs, but others are being publicly associated with the phenomenon for the first time.

Among the information Chernavin revealed are these statistics provided by former naval captain of the first rank Vladimir Azhazha: “Fifty percent of meetings with UFOs are connected with the ocean, and 15 percent with lakes.” Forty-four percent of cases have been recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, 16 percent in the Pacific, 10 percent in the Mediterranean Sea.

Azhazha also recounted an incident in the Pacific Ocean, when a Russian submarine was pursued by six unidentified objects, which emerged from the water and took flight after the submarine surfaced to evade them.

Azhazha is the author of dozens of books and articles on UFOs. He was the captain of the experimental submarine Severyanka in the 1960s and has recounted his experiences with unidentified objects under water before.

Former rear admiral and nuclear submarine commander Yury Beketov is quoted describing events that occurred in the Bermuda Triangle. “We repeatedly observed that the instruments detected the movements of material objects at unimaginable speed, around 230 knots (400 km. per hour [250 m.p.h.]). It’s hard to reach that speed on the surface – only in the air [is it readily possible]… The beings that created those material objects significantly exceed us in development.”

Naval intelligence expert and captain for the first rank Igor Barklay noted that the unidentified objects were most often spotted in deep water near where military forces are concentrated – off the Bahamas, Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the east coast of the United States.

Unexplained activity in Lake Baikal is also recorded. In 1982, divers on a training exercise encountered swimmers in silver outfits with no visible breathing apparatus. They were at a depth of 50 meters (164 feet). Three people died trying to pursue the mysterious swimmers.

The link between UFOs and the ocean has been noted before, Capt. Vladimir Prikhodko commented on the information. He noted that American naval forces have also had experiences with rapidly-moving objects underwater and above it in the Caribbean Sea and elsewhere.

A record number of UFOs are expected to be spotted this year in Britain after hundreds of sightings were reported in the first six months of 2009.

Strange floating orbs and unexplained hovering objects have all been recorded and reported to the Ministry of Defence in the last six months.

A total of 231 sightings of unidentified flying objects have been passed on to the MoD so far this year, according to The Sun.

This compares to 285 in 2008, 135 in 2007 and 97 in 2006.

The number of sightings is thought to have increased because many more people now carry digital cameras and are able to photograph strange objects.

Nick Pope, who used to run the Government’s UFO project and is considered a leading authority on UFOs, told The Sun: “We are now on track for a record year.

“I thought the number of UFOs reported last year was high, but we now know they are being reported in increasing numbers.”

Last year, the MoD released files detailing strange and unexplained sightings reported to them between 1986 and 1992.

In one instance, an Alitalia flight coming into land at Heathrow Airport reported a near miss with a UFO, which the pilot described as “similar to a missile – light brown or fawn, about three metres in length but without any exhaust flame”.

Two further near misses were reported in the summer of 1991, when one aircraft flying in to Gatwick Airport reported a “wingless projectile” passing the left side of the plane, and another flight leaving Gatwick spotted a “small lozenge-shaped object” speeding past the cockpit.

The files also went into detail about a US Air Force pilot who claims he was ordered to shoot down a UFO flying over southern England in 1957, and was later ordered never to speak about the incident.

One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.

An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine.

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as “a cigar-shaped brilliant white light”.

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, described what he thought to be a UFO as ‘a cigar-shaped brilliant white light’, similar to the image supplied by Dennis Plunket of the British Flying Saucer bureau

As the plane got closer the captain viewed it through binoculars and said: “It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area.

“It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737.

“But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide.”

Continuing his approach to Guernsey, Bowyer then spied a “second identical object further to the west”.

He said: “It was exactly the same but looked smaller because it was further away. It was closer to Guernsey. I can’t explain it. This was clearly visual for about nine minutes.

“I’m certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I’m saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying.”

The sightings were confirmed by passengers Kate and John Russell. John, 74, said: “I saw an orange light. It was like an elongated oval.”

The sightings were also confirmed by an unnamed pilot with the Blue Islands airline.

The Civil Aviation Authority safety notice states that a Tri-Lander aircraft flying close to Alderney spotted the object.

“Certain parts of the report have not been published. I cannot say why,” said a senior CAA source.

Denna Smith and her family video saw what they believe was a UFO in the sky over a Virginia theme park.

Photographs taken of a UFO hovering next to an RAF jet over Perthshire were treated seriously by military investigators, just-released Ministry of Defence files show.

Witnesses saw the mysterious, large diamond-shaped object hanging over the A9 at Calvine, north of Pitlochry, in August 1990. The object remained in position for about 10 minutes next to an RAF Harrier before the UFO ascended vertically at high speed.

UFOs are no stranger to Scotland. Bonnybridge and West Kilbride have a history of unusual sightings dating back decades. At the start of this year a man from Banknock recorded an apparent UFO sighting (pictured) that remains unexplained.

In the 1990 incident, two members of the public took colour photos and provided them to the Daily Record, which in turn passed six negatives to the MoD for comment. The military responded by drawing up guidelines for responding to media questions about the incident.

Military experts could not identify the UFO despite apparently commissioning detailed line drawings of the object.

Fearing there could be significant media interest, the MoD took the unusual step of briefing ministers about the sighting.

An official wrote in a memo: “Such stories are not normally drawn to the attention of ministers, and the MoD press office invariably responds to questions along well-established lines emphasising our limited interest in the UFO phenomenon and explaining that we therefore do not have the resources to undertake any in-depth investigations into particular sightings.

“On this occasion, however, the MoD has been provided with six photographic negatives of an alleged UFO by the Scottish Daily Record and has been asked for comments almost certainly for inclusion in a forthcoming story.”

And in late 1991 the MoD apparently commissioned line drawings of the UFO, noting that the “sensitivity of (the) material suggests very special handling”.

The incident also discloses that British military intelligence officers tasked with investigating UFO reports took a close interest in claims the US was developing a top secret spy-plane.

The sighting is included in military UFO documents made available online from Sunday by the National Archives.