Organization
Ministry of Defence (UK)
Also known as MoD, MOD, UK Ministry of Defence, British Ministry of Defence, Air Ministry, Sec(AS), DI55, UFO desk
The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, and before 1964 the Air Ministry, was the government department that received and assessed reports of unidentified flying objects for some sixty years. A Flying Saucer Working Party reported in 1951 that all sightings could be explained; afterwards reports were filed by the Air Ministry and MoD secretariats and copied to the Defence Intelligence Staff, whose branch DI55 produced the Project Condign study of “unidentified aerial phenomena” in 2000.
The MoD closed its UFO desk in 2009 and transferred its UFO files to The National Archives, which opened them in ten releases between 2008 and 2013.
Sources: The National Archives' highlights guides (2011, 2013)
Facts and claims
- documented From the 1950s the Air Ministry and then the Ministry of Defence collected UFO reports; its desk officers (Sec(AS), later DAS) answered the public and Parliament, and the Defence Intelligence branch DI55 assessed reports for intelligence interest until 2000. Source: highlights-guide-09-08-11.pdf
- documented In December 2009 the MoD closed its UFO desk, hotline and reporting email, after Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth was advised that in more than 50 years “no UFO sighting reported to [MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK”. Source: ufo-highlights-guide-2013.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- Air Ministry and MoD files on unidentified aircraft and UFOs: AIR 20/7390 (1950–54) and AIR 2/19086 (1970–75) (prepared)
- MoD file DEFE 24/1972: alleged UFO involvement in the crash of Lightning F6 XS894 (1970) (prepared) — Papers of the MoD's UFO desk, Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a
- MoD file DEFE 24/2086: UFO sightings of 30–31 March 1993 (Cosford incident) (prepared) — File of the MoD's UFO desk, Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a
- “Unidentified Flying Objects”: report by the Flying Saucer Working Party (UK, June 1951) (prepared) — Working party of the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence and Joint Technical Intelligence Committee (DSI/JTIC)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 14 May 2008 (8 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 20 October 2008 (19 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 17 August 2009 (14 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 3 March 2011 (35 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 11 August 2011 (34 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 12 July 2012 (25 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence UFO files: release of 21 June 2013 (25 files) (prepared)
- Ministry of Defence lists of UFO reports received, 1997–2009 (prepared)
- Churchill's minute on flying saucers and the Air Ministry's reply (PREM 11/855, 1952–55) (subject of)
- The National Archives: guides to the Ministry of Defence UFO files (2008–2013) (subject of) — The files of the MoD's UFO desk and of Defence Intelligence branch DI55
Mentioned in this file
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
Mentioned in videos
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Rendlesham Forest Encounter, Part 1
- Lakenheath/ Bentwaters UFO Incident 1956 - Dr. David Clarke
Mentioned in documents and records
- Encounter in Rendlesham Forest: The Inside Story of the World's Best-Documented UFO Incident
- Open Skies, Closed Minds: For the First Time a Government UFO Expert Speaks Out
- The Uninvited: An Exposé of the Alien Abduction Phenomenon
- UFO Drawings from the National Archives
- The UFO Files: The Inside Story of Real-Life Sightings
- French Air Ministry file on the Orange-Caritat sighting, 15 June 1951 (GEIPAN case 1951-06-00002)
- Halt memo: Unexplained Lights
- Hansard: written answer on the Calvine photograph (24 July 1996)
- Ministry of Defence UFO correspondence files DEFE 24/1931 and DEFE 24/1942
- Photographic Analysis of the Calvine UFO Photograph (Sheffield Hallam University, 2024)
- The National Archives (UK): UFO files release, highlights guide (August 2009)
- Alderney UFO sighting
- Alitalia MD-80 encounter with an unidentified “missile” near Lydd, Kent
- Police helicopter near-collision with unidentified lights over Birmingham (Airprox 055/08)
- Lights over the Wash and radar plot over Boston, Lincolnshire
- Flashing lights over Bromley confirmed by police and a police helicopter crew
- Calvine photograph
- Cosford incident: police and RAF sightings across western England and Wales
- Six “flying saucers” across southern England: the Farnborough students' hoax
- Loss of RAF Lightning XS894 and its USAF exchange pilot off Flamborough Head
- Radar “blob” and guards' sighting at RAF Lyneham
- Exercise Mainbrace sightings (incl. RAF Topcliffe)
- RAF Manston F-86D ordered to fire on a radar UFO over East Anglia
- Orange-Caritat Vampire pilots' sighting (France, 1951)
- Rendlesham Forest incident
- Soldiers' video of lights over Tern Hill barracks, Shropshire
- RAF Tornado crews overtaken by a large unknown aircraft over the North Sea
- Wave of police and public sightings across southern Britain traced to space debris
- The National Archives (UK)