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Posted: 19-08-2012 09:53 Post subject:

Britain visited by one UFO a month but MoD rules they pose no threat
The Ministry of Defence will no longer investigate UFO sightings after ruling there is “no evidence” they pose a threat to the UK despite a senior aviation official admitting the country is visited by one unidentified flying object a month.
By Richard Gray
9:00AM BST 19 Aug 2012

It is official at last: Britain is not at risk from unidentified flying objects.
Those who have long feared an invasion from Mars or further afield can relax – at least, that is, if they believe the Ministry of Defence.
An end has been ordered to all official investigations of Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, after the ministry ruled they do not pose a threat to the nation’s security.

It comes as the head of UK Air Traffic Control admitted the country is visited by around one unidentified flying object a month.
Asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the existence of UFOs, Mr Deakin confirmed they were still being seen by his staff.
He said: "Occasionally there are objects identified that do not conform to normal traffic patterns. It does not occupy a huge amount of my time. There are approximately one a month."

Yet despite this, the MoD insists it will no longer investigate UFO sightings.
The ruling came after the careful collation over the years of reports of strange lights in the skies, odd noises and apparent close encounters.
The move to end all investigation was disclosed after a dedicated hotline for UFO sightings was discontinued for cost grounds, and the “UFO desk”, which cost £44,000 a year was also removed.

Now officials say that any UFO investigation would divert valuable resources and instead a sophisticated network of radar infrastructure and anti-ballistic missile systems to monitor British airspace will spot any genuine threat.

An MoD spokesman said: “In over fifty years no UFO report revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.
“The MoD had no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings and there would be no benefit in such an investigation. Furthermore, responding to reported UFO sightings diverted MOD resources from tasks that were more relevant to defence.”

The abandonment of the UFO hotline and dedicated desk officer in 2009 had already caused concern among those who believe in the phenomena.
Now the decision to abandon investigations entirely has frustrated some members of the public convinced they have glimpsed the extraterrestrial – and those who are simply unsure of what they have seen.

Jane Randall, a housewife from Woking, Surrey, captured a strange looking object in the skies above Silbury Hill in Wiltshire when she took a photograph [see page] using her mobile phone while taking part in a field trip to learn about the archaeology in the area.

She said: “I didn’t see anything at the time, nor did the ten people I was with, but when I looked back over the photos there were two pictures a second apart with this strange conical shape hovering behind the hill.
“The pictures I took either side of this didn’t have any mark on them so I don’t think it could have been dust on the lens.

“I’m just an ordinary person, but thought I should report it to someone so they could take a look. When I phoned the police, they said it was not a police matter and I spoke to someone at the RAF who said they did not investigate UFOs any more.”

Nick Pope, who ran the MoD’s UFO desk from 1991 to 1994 and now researches UFO sightings privately, said: “One of the problems was that an increasing number of the reports the MoD was getting were low quality.

“When someone has a photograph though, that should be considered to be a different situation. The MoD has the personnel and equipment to very quickly analyse an image to tell whether it has been altered and identify what an object might be.
“A lot of ordinary members of the public feel it is there [sic Rolling Eyes

] duty to report anything out of the ordinary.
"I get a lot of people contacting me now about sightings and it is frustrating that there is no where official that they can report them – it has become a black hole.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/9468022/Britain-visited-by-one-UFO-a-month-but-MoD-rules-they-pose-no-threat.html

The one comment so far also has a pop at the Telegraph's editing quality, but rather spoils its case by spelling 'back' as 'bake'!

Posted: 19-08-2012 12:25 Post subject:

Posted: 19-08-2012 20:31 Post subject:

Posted: 21-06-2013 07:15 Post subject:

UFO sightings: Files explain why MoD closed down special desk

The Ministry of Defence closed down its UFO desk because it served "no defence purpose" and was taking staff away from "more valuable defence-related activities", newly released files show.
The desk was shut down in December 2009 despite a surge in reported sightings.

The disclosure came in National Archives files relating to reports of UFOs - Unidentified Flying Objects - between 2007 and November 2009.
They show UFOs were reported at several UK landmarks, including Stonehenge.
The latest tranche of declassified files covers the final two years of work carried out by the MoD's UFO desk.

The 25 files include reports alleging contact with aliens and UFO sightings near UK landmarks and detail the decision to close the MoD's dedicated desk and "hotline".

In a briefing for the then defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, in November 2009 a civil servant, Carl Mantell of the RAF's Air Command, suggested the MoD should try to significantly reduce the UFO work. He said it was "consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defence output".
He told Mr Ainsworth that in more than 50 years, "no UFO sighting reported to [the MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK".
His memo said there was "no defence benefit" in the recording, collating, analysis or investigation of the sightings, adding: "The level of resources diverted to this task is increasing in response to a recent upsurge in reported sightings, diverting staff from more valuable defence-related activities."

An official MoD statement from the time said the department had "no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life".
It went on: "In order to make best use of defence resources, we have decided that from December 1 2009 the dedicated UFO hotline answer-phone service and email address will be withdrawn. [The] MoD will no longer respond to reported UFO sightings or investigate them."

Among the 4,400 pages of documents released are:

A letter from a school child in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, to the MoD, dated January 2009, asking if aliens exist after she had seen some strange lights, and including a drawing of an alien in a UFO waving

A report received via the UFO hotline by someone who had been "living with an alien" in Carlisle for some time

A report from a man from Cardiff who claimed a UFO abducted his dog, and took his car and tent, while he was camping with friends in 2007

"Green, red and white lights" reportedly seen over the Houses of Parliament in London in February 2008

"Discoid" shapes in photographs of Stonehenge, in an email dated in January 2009

Photographs taken at Blackpool Pier which show an aircraft that had not been seen at the time the picture was taken in October 2008

The files show the number of UFO sightings reported to the MoD trebled in the year the desk was closed.
According to a briefing in the files, during the years 2000-07 the ministry received an average of 150 reports per year.
But by November 2009, it had already received 520 reports that year, as well as 97 Freedom of Information requests on UFOs.

Possible reasons for the increase included the rising popularity for releasing Chinese lanterns during celebrations.

Dr David Clarke, author of the book The UFO Files, said the "last pieces of the puzzle" had been revealed with the insight into the final days of the UFO desk.
"The last files from the UFO desk are now all in the public domain. People at home can read them and draw their own conclusions about whether 'the truth' is in these files or still out there," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22991014