More British UFO Files Released!

(Background article: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/12/british-ufo-files-declassified.html )

There’s been a lot of talk in the media this week about UFO’s. This is because the Ministry of Defence has carried out another wave of UFO file declassifications. See:

The MoD has today begun a 4-year programme of releasing its entire archive of UFO files. I used to run the MoD's UFO project and because I worked on these files, I helped the National Archives on this project, selecting documents that might be of interest to the media. I commend the government for this move. These files don't prove we've been visited by aliens. Most UFOs can be explained as misidentifications of aircraft lights, satellites, meteors, stars and planets. But a small percentage are more difficult to explain and involve UFOs seen by police officers, commercial airline pilots and military personnel, or tracked on radar. Such incidents persuade me that whatever the true nature of the UFO phenomenon, it raises important defence, national security and flight safety issues. (Source: http://www.nickpope.net/index.html)

The files can be downloaded for free as PDF’s from the MoD’s website: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/PublicationScheme/SearchPublicationScheme/UfoReports19972007InTheUk.htm

I personally dispute Nick Pope’s brave claim that the government are releasing all their files. The Freedom of Information Act can be countered on the grounds of “national security interests” and has been. In one of Timothy Good’s books, there’s a report of a court case in which a FOIA suit failed for that reason. Anyone who looks under the surface at the massive amount of highly expert testimony on UFO-related government operations will see that there has to be more to the issue. It’s naïve to think that there are no other documents, perhaps stored outside the MoD, that are not far more explosive and damning. Nick is confident that as head of the UFO desk at the MoD if the government had secrets about UFO's then he'd know about it. Personally if I had a "saucer in a hanger" as Nick says, then Nick Pope, the public face of British UFOlogy, would be the last man on Earth I'd tell!

However the released files are well worth looking at. As you can see there are hundreds of reports. Barely a week has gone by in the last decade without someone reporting a UFO. They're a bit concise; just the date, town, county and a one-sentence description, but it's still worth a browse. See how many you can find from your home town or district! This is just the tip of the iceberg I'm sure, because how many people see them and don't report them? Myself for one. As regular HPANWO-readers will know, I've had two sightings myself and I've told none of the authorities at all, only amateur UFOlogists.

Unfortunately, but predictably, the media are treating this as a novelty story. This one is par for the course: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL1364434320080514
The Rt. Hon. Paul Helyer MP, a former defence minister of Canada, said "UFO's are as real as the aeroplanes that fly over our heads." A US government UFO spokesman Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter once said: “The government is interested and concerned by the UFO presence in our skies, but through official ridicule and denial, the public are led to believe that the whole phenomenon is nonsense.” (My emphasis. Good 2006) This is what we’re looking at! Last year’s declassification wave was reported on by Richard and Judy, with the newscaster being harassed by a tin-foil model UFO on a string, accompanied by laughter from the studio! Official ridicule indeed!

(Scroll down after reading this because there are two new articles on HPANWO today)