Document · June 1951

“Unidentified Flying Objects”: report by the Flying Saucer Working Party (UK, June 1951)

Also known as Flying Saucer Working Party, DSI/JTIC Report No. 7, DEFE 44/119, FSWP report

The first official British study of UFOs: a six-page report, classified “Secret/Discreet”, by a working party set up in August 1950 under the Ministry of Defence's Directorate of Scientific Intelligence and Joint Technical Intelligence Committee and chaired by G. L. Turney of Admiralty scientific intelligence. Relying heavily on the U.S. Air Force's Project Grudge report, it reviewed the American and Swedish findings and three sightings reported by RAF officers in 1950, explained each, and recommended that no further investigation be made unless material evidence turned up.

Winston Churchill asked the Air Ministry in July 1952 what “all this stuff about flying saucers” amounted to and was told the reports had been the subject of a full intelligence study in 1951. Later attempts to trace the study failed until a surviving copy was found in MoD archives in 2001; it was released the following year. Its sceptical conclusions set the template for British policy until the UFO desk closed in 2009.

Source: The National Archives, DEFE 44/119 (our copy is The Black Vault's mirror); provenance from The National Archives' UFO research guide (2013)

Facts and claims

documented The report says the reported observations were “almost exclusively visual” and that “In no case has any tangible, material, or objective evidence, been submitted.” Source: defe44-119.pdf
documented It concludes that all the observations were due to astronomical or meteorological phenomena of known types, mistaken identification of conventional aircraft, balloons, birds or other objects, “Optical illusions and psychological delusions”, or “Deliberate hoaxes”. Source: defe44-119.pdf
documented It recommends “very strongly that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken, unless and until some material evidence becomes available.” Source: defe44-119.pdf
documented It examines three 1950 incidents “reported officially by experienced officers from R.A.F. Stations”: a Meteor pilot's sighting over Portsmouth on 1 June 1950 with an unusual radar response at Wartling, and two sightings by Flight Lieutenant Hubbard and fellow officers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, in August and September 1950. Source: defe44-119.pdf
documented On the Mantell case it repeats the Grudge conclusion that “without any doubt whatever Lieutenant Mantell met his death while pursuing the planet Venus”, and says a member of the U.S. investigating team told the working party that the story of a crashed saucer “full of the remains of very small beings, was ultimately admitted by its author to have been a complete fabrication.” Source: defe44-119.pdf

Connected files

Organizations

Ministry of Defence (UK) (prepared by) — Working party of the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence and Joint Technical Intelligence Committee (DSI/JTIC)
The National Archives (UK) (released in) — Found in MoD archives in 2001 and released in 2002 as DEFE 44/119

Programs

Project Grudge (sourced from) — Its review of the evidence relies on the Grudge report and its consultants

Incidents

Documents

Churchill's minute on flying saucers and the Air Ministry's reply (PREM 11/855, 1952–55) (subject of) — The Air Ministry's reply rests on the working party's 1951 study

Mentioned in this file

National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)

Files

defe44-119.pdf