". . . UFOs Had Been Classified 'Secret: U.K. Eyes Only' . . ."

Cosmic party-pooper: British defense ministry says UFOs aren't real

BY Edward M. Gomez
SFGate.com
6-1-06

     he fact that some countries' governments make the monitoring and investigation of outer-space phenomena, in part, a military affair says a lot about how they might end up greeting other life forms from out in the cosmos if they ever turned up here on Earth. However, a just-uncovered report produced for the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense suggests that Britain, at least, won't be hanging up the welcome sign for the Alien anytime soon or paying serious attention to how he (or she or it) may try to make his/her/its way here.

That's because, as the U.K.'s defense ministry sees it, talk of UFOs and the numerous sightings of unidentified aircraft that have been spotted in British skies over the years are, literally, as the Daily Mail put it, "Just a load of hot air!"

The "proof" that there is nothing to the notion that UFOs might have come from outer space to buzz around Mother Earth and play peek-a-boo with its inhabitants appears in a highly classified study that was four years in the making and was completed in December 2000. The 400-page report, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the U.K. Air Defense Region, "found no evidence that 'flying saucers' or unidentified flying objects were anything other than natural phenomena." It concluded that "meteors and unusual atmospheric conditions could explain UFO sightings such as bright lights in the sky."

The Ministry of Defense document stated: "No evidence exists to suggest that the phenomena seen are hostile or under any type of control, other than that of natural physical forces....[UFO sightings] are almost certainly attributable to physical, electrical and magnetic phenomena in the atmosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere." Example: so-called plasma-related fields, which "can adversely affect a vehicle or person," the study says, if experienced in "close proximity." It notes: "Local fields of this type have been medically proven to cause responses in the temporal lobes of the human brain." (BBC)

The report about UFOs had been classified "Secret: U.K. Eyes Only" by defense officials who knew about it. It was so hush-hush that "[o]nly a small number of copies were produced, and the identity of the man who wrote it has been protected." Its existence and some of its conclusions have been made known by David Clarke, an "academic," as news reports have described him, associated with Sheffield Hallam University in northern England. Clarke had filed a British Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the defense ministry's report.

Speaking of his success in obtaining the document, Clarke said: "This is another example of the establishment's obsession with secrecy....[T]here is no reason [the report] couldn't have been made public earlier." Clarke noted that the study "reveals that there has been no collaboration between the U.K. and other countries on UFOs, which rules out the conspiracy theories of worldwide UFO cover-ups." He mentioned that the report states that no "artifacts from a UFO" had ever been found in the U.K.

"The fact remains that people are fascinated by the subject of UFOs...," Clarke said, adding that "some of the most impressive sightings have been made by [Royal Air Force] and civil-aviation pilots."

A reader of the Daily Mail's news article about the UFOs report, writing from the U.S., said in comment on the tabloid's Web site: "I believe this to be disinformation. The U.S. and U.K. are very good at this. They have created so much confusion over the UFO theories, it's impossible to know fact from fiction. We are ready for the truth." A Daily Mail reader in England opined: "Whatever any 'expert' says, this cannot be explained using the old clichés - there is definitely something out there."

More . . .

See Also: "Dozens of UFOs That The Ministry of Defence Cannot Explain Have Been Sighted in Wales . . ."