Document · 1950 – 1975
Air Ministry and MoD files on unidentified aircraft and UFOs: AIR 20/7390 (1950–54) and AIR 2/19086 (1970–75)
Also known as AIR 20/7390, AIR 2/19086, Air Ministry UFO files
Two older UFO files that survived the Air Ministry's five-yearly destruction of such papers. AIR 20/7390 collects reports of unidentified aircraft and objects made to the Air Ministry in 1950–54, among them radar tracks the RAF could not identify at the start of the Cold War; AIR 2/19086 holds Air Staff policy papers of 1970–75, including the decision to stop destroying UFO files.
Sources: The National Archives, AIR 20/7390 and AIR 2/19086 (our copies are The Black Vault's mirror); descriptions from The National Archives' UFO research guide (2013)
Facts and claims
- documented The National Archives' research guide says AIR 20 files include Air Ministry UFO papers that escaped destruction before 1967, and that “AIR 20/7390 contains reports of unidentified objects/aircraft made to Air Ministry between 1950 and 1954”. Source: tna-ufo-research-guide-2013.pdf
- documented The guide records that until 1967 MoD policy was to destroy UFO files every five years as of “transitory interest”, a policy rescinded after pressure from the MP Sir John Langford-Holt in 1970, as documented in AIR 2/19086 and DEFE 13/1183. Source: tna-ufo-research-guide-2013.pdf
- documented AIR 20/7390 includes a Fighter Command report of 5 November 1953 that on 9 October an unidentified aircraft track approached the UK over the Harwich area at over 30,000 feet and returned to the Continent; fighters were scrambled but failed to make contact, and the Air Ministry later wrote that “a careful investigation has failed to identify the aircraft concerned”. Source: air20-7390.pdf
Connected files
Organizations
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (prepared by)
- The National Archives (UK) (released in)
Documents
Mentioned in this file
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
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