Document · December 2000
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region: Executive Summary (Project Condign, 2000)
Also known as Condign report, Condign Report, UAP in the UK Air Defence Region, Scientific & Technical Memorandum 55/2/00, DI55 UAP report
The Executive Summary of the Defence Intelligence Staff's study of unidentified aerial phenomena, Project Condign, prepared for branch DI55 and dated December 2000 (its preface is dated February 2000). It sums up four volumes: the main report on the MoD's database of some 30 years of reports and its statistics, 25 technical papers on natural and man-made phenomena, and a secret volume on radar, hazards to aircraft and military applications. Opening with Churchill's 1952 minute, "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to?", it calls the existence of UAP "indisputable" but concludes that the reports are of no significant Defence Intelligence value.
It found no evidence that any UAP were craft of extraterrestrial or foreign origin, or hostile, and no artefacts. It attributes the reports to misidentified man-made vehicles, ordinary natural phenomena and rare natural ones, above all buoyant, electrically charged plasmas, which it suggests may be formed by meteors and which it uses to explain black triangles, radar returns, close-encounter effects on witnesses and vehicle failures. It recommended that DI55 stop monitoring UAP reports, which it did from December 2000, and that pilots be told not to manoeuvre against a UAP.
The plasma explanations are the study's own hypotheses, stated as such, not tested findings. The MoD released the report with redactions in May 2006 after a Freedom of Information request; the copy on file is the Executive Summary from the MoD website. Volumes 1 to 3 were published there too and are still to be added.
Sources: Executive Summary, S&T Memorandum 55/2/00 (MoD release, 2006; local copy) · MoD FOI publication-scheme page (web archive)
Facts and claims
- documented The Executive Summary of Scientific & Technical Memorandum 55/2/00, dated December 2000 and issued by DI55 of the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff, was classified SECRET UK EYES ONLY; the main report (Volume 1) and its technical papers (Volume 2) were RESTRICTED and Volume 3, on classified radar performance, potential military applications and hazards to aircraft, SECRET. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented Its summary of findings: the information in UAP reports, “either separately or corporately”, “does not have any significant Defence Intelligence value”, and “No evidence exists to suggest that the phenomena seen are hostile or under any type of control, other than that of natural physical forces.” Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented Among its key findings of defence interest: “There is no evidence that any UAP, seen in the UKADR, are incursions by air-objects of any intelligent (extra-terrestrial or foreign) origin, or that they represent any hostile intent.” Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented It puts the reports down to mis-reported man-made vehicles, “often observed by perfectly credible witnesses”, natural phenomena misunderstood by the observer, and rare natural ones, and proposes that “at least some of the events may be triggered by meteor re-entry, the meteors neither burning up completely nor impacting as meteorites, but forming buoyant plasmas.” It adds that how such plasmas form and persist “is incomplete or not fully understood”. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented It explains reports of black triangles as charged objects in loose formation with a field between them from which light is not reflected: “This is a key finding in the attribution of what have frequently been reported as black ‘craft’, often triangular and even up to hundreds of feet in length.” Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented It proposes that fields from such plasmas, met at very close range, can affect the temporal lobes of the brain, so that observers sustain a vivid “but mainly incorrect” description of what they experienced, and can cause temporary engine and radio failures. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented “No artefacts of unknown or unexplained origin have been reported or handed to the UK authorities, despite thousands of UAP reports.” It also found “no evidence of the penetration of the UKADR by unauthorised air platforms”, though some reports came from unfamiliar friendly aircraft authorised for covert entry into UK airspace. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented It notes that “Attempts by other nations to intercept the unexplained objects, which can clearly change position faster than an aircraft, have reportedly already caused fatalities”, but that there was no indication of this in UK airspace, and judges the risk of a head-on encounter very low but not totally ruled out. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented Key recommendation: “It should no longer be a requirement for DISS to monitor UAP reports as they do not demonstrably provide information useful to Defence Intelligence.” It also recommends ending the database, telling aircrew that “No attempt should be made to out-manoeuvre a UAP during interception”, and further study of plasmas “in novel military applications”, noting Soviet interest in the same technologies. Source: doc-project-condign-2000.pdf
- documented The MoD released the report “in response to a Freedom of Information request”, withholding passages under Sections 26 (Defence), 27 (International Relations) and 40 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information Act; its publication-scheme page gives the release date as 15 May 2006. Source: web.archive.org
Connected files
Organizations
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (published by)
Programs
- Project Condign (documents) — The study's Executive Summary, Scientific & Technical Memorandum 55/2/00
Mentioned in this file
More documents
- The National Archives: guides to the Ministry of Defence UFO files (2008–2013)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 12 July 2012 (25 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 3 March 2011 (35 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 21 June 2013 (25 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 11 August 2011 (34 files)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 5 August 2010 (18 files)
Links
- MoD FOI release page (web archive)
- Executive Summary (MoD PDF, web archive)
- UK Government Web Archive copy