Document · 1990
MoD file DEFE 31/179: Defence Intelligence (DI55) UFO papers, January 1990 – June 1991
Also known as DEFE 31/179, DI55 UFO file 1990-91, DEFE 31/179/1
A file of DI55, the Defence Intelligence Staff branch that looked at UFO reports for anything of defence interest, covering January 1990 to June 1991 and opened at The National Archives in March 2009. Its best-known pages are the UFO desk's brief for ministers on the Calvine photographs, the first official account of the case, written four days after the negatives arrived and the day they went back to the newspaper.
The file also holds the checks run after a report from Belfast Airport in December 1989 of a missile-shaped object with a green flame, seen for two seconds by one observer near the airport: no fixed-wing aircraft, two Army helicopters nearby. That report rests on a single civilian witness and is not filed as a case here.
Source: The National Archives, DEFE 31/179/1; page numbers are those of the Archives' PDF (the March 2009 highlights guide's numbers run one higher).
Facts and claims
- documented The UFO desk's minute of 14 September 1990 to the Under-Secretary of State's office says the six negatives received from the Scottish Daily Record on 10 September “show a large stationary, diamond-shaped object past which, it appears, a small jet aircraft is flying. The negatives have been considered by the relevant staffs who have established that the jet aircraft is a Harrier (and also identified a barely visible second aircraft, again probably a Harrier) but have reached no definite conclusion regarding the large object.” There was “no record of Harriers operating in the area”, and the negatives “have now been returned to the Scottish Daily Record” (p. 156). Source: defe-31-179.pdf
- documented The attached “defensive lines to take” for the press were: photographs looked at, “no definite conclusions reached regarding large diamond-shaped object”; “Confident that jet aircraft is a Harrier”; no record of Harriers at the place and time; no other reports of unusual air activity; and, if pressed on who studied the pictures, that all reports go to “the staff in the departments which are responsible for air defence of UK” (p. 157). Source: defe-31-179.pdf
- documented Pages 208–213 hold the signals on the Belfast Airport report of 21 December 1989: RAF Aldergrove confirmed “NO FIXED WING AC IN AREA AT TIME/DATE STATED”, and Headquarters Northern Ireland reported two helicopters under its control around the time, a Gazelle leaving Aldergrove to the south-east at about 1640Z and a Wessex from Lisburn landing at Aldergrove at 1655Z, whose pilot reported low cloud in the area. Source: defe-31-179.pdf
Connected files
Organizations
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (prepared by) — Papers of DI55, the Defence Intelligence Staff branch that assessed UFO reports of possible defence interest
- The National Archives (UK) (released in) — Opened in March 2009; our copy is the Archives' digital copy, in three parts merged into one file
Incidents
- Calvine photograph (about) — Pages 156–157: the UFO desk's minute to the minister of 14 September 1990 on the Daily Record's photographs, and the defensive lines to take
Documents
Mentioned in this file
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
More documents
- MoD file DEFE 31/180: Defence Intelligence (DI55) UFO papers, June 1991 – March 1992
- MoD file DEFE 31/181: Defence Intelligence (DI55) UFO papers, February 1992 – April 1993
- The National Archives: guides to the Ministry of Defence UFO files (2008–2013)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 20 October 2008 (19 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 21 June 2013 (25 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 12 July 2012 (25 files)