UFO Policy Cancelled By Royal Australian Air Force (Pt-2)

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By Paul Dean ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com 5-4-15

     In Part 1 of this piece I discussed the May, 2013 cancellation of the Australian Department of Defence’s (DOD) “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy”. Historically, it will be considered, one day, an important chapter in Australian UFO history. Right now, however, it is somewhat of a non-event. The policy was a buck-passing administrative instruction that merely stated that the DOD, especially the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), doesn’t handle “Unusual Aerial Sightings” (UAS) anymore, and hadn’t done for a very long time. So the 2013 cancellation of such a policy has had little to no impact on the UFO issue in Australia. But how did it all come about at the DOD?

In a FASMECC (First Assistant Secretary, Ministerial and Executive Coordination and Communication) Minute, dated 28th September 2012, a three-stage review of old DOD Defence Instructions (General) policies was highlighted as being underway. The Minute states, in part:

“3. For the second stage of the review, I request that you review the list of DI(G) at Enclosure 1 and, for those DI(G) you sponsor, undertake one of the following activities:

a) advise the Directorate of Administrative Policy (DAP) that the DI(G) is no longer required and should therefore be cancelled; or
b) enter the DI(G) into the formal SoDI process by submitting a request for in-principle agreement to DAP; or
c) advise DAP that you are no longer the correct sponsor of the DI(G) so that arrangements can be made to transfer it to another Group or Service, if appropriate.”

Imaged above, top is the Minute provided to me by Defence.

Thus, it is established that some older Defence policies are either no longer required, or, otherwise unworkable or inconsistent with current DOD activities. A list of such policies was provided to me, and, our policy of interest, “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy” happened to be in “Stage Two” of the general DOD reviews. Furthermore, all old Defence Instructions (General) polices must go through a “risk assessment” which, I believe, takes into consideration legal enforcement of any given policy, security risks, and the like. In a 12th November, 2012, email from a Joanne Terry to Wendy Marman, Assistant Director of Administrative Policy, Defence Freedom of Information and Information Management Branch (FOIIMB), it was stated that a Group Captain Watts, RAAF, had responded to the decision to review the RAAF’s UAS policy, and in Group Captain Watt’s response it stated:

“DI(G) ADMIN 55-1 - We have received the background brief and risk assessment for this because AF want to review it. The background brief states that AF were responsible for the handling of unusual aerial sightings, however the function ceased in 1996. It goes on to say that AF no longer monitors this field but that bases still regularly received calls from members of the public. The policy provides guidance for base personnel about what to do when they receive such calls. The risk assessment came out at LOW. As you would be aware DI(G) are a tier one document and tier one documents are our high risk administrative policy documents, they must contain a compliance paragraph as well. This policy does not need to be a DI(G). My strong recommendation is that you cancel it and replace it with SOPs to the bases. I am unable to accept this as a request for in principle agreement and cannot see any reason contained in the background brief that would give us sufficient reason to recommend its review to FASMECC. We will not take any further action on this DI(G) and will await your advice.”

The actual Defence email is imaged below:

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Say again? A RAAF officer recommends indeed cancelling the UAS policy and to “replace it with SOPs to the bases?” In military speak, SOP merely stands for Standard Operating Procedure. So, this is saying that the RAAF were seriously considering bringing back some sort of base-level response to public enquiries or reports. An SOP on this matter will merely be a one-page, unclassified standard procedural document which sits there on a local hard drive and any RAAF base officer who receives a UFO enquiry can merely refer to the SOP and fob off the person who is making the effort to call them. I guess it could apply to media outlets who phone bases too, but, currently, the DOD Public Relations area handle those sort of enquiries and probably always will – though not very well. Whatever the situation, I will be submitting an FOI request to Defence on the SOP matter to see if anything did come of it. Anyway, as stated in the above text, Group Captain Watts stated that the “risk assessment” for the UAS policy “came out at LOW”, and that, finally, once and for all, “This policy does not need to be a DI(G).”.

Furthermore, in a 13th of November, 2012, internal Defence email, from Wendy Marman to Squadron Leader Jodie Hatch, RAAF, it was stated, in part:

“Thank you for submitting the IPA documentation for DI(G) ADMIN 55-1. As you can see from the response from Directorate of Administrative Policy (DAP) provided below this does not meet the criteria for a DI(G) under the revised SoDI system. In the light of that advice we recommend a cancellation of DI(G) as part of Stage Two review. Our area is happy to discuss with you the most relevant form of instruction to cover this policy (Perhaps an Air Command SI?).”

So, again, not unlike the mentioning of a base level “SOP” we see at least some sort of consideration in continuing a small degree of further responsibility for the UFO, or “UAS”, matter, however watered down. In this instance, as stated above in the email, an Air Command “SI” is eluded to. For those unfamiliar, an “SI” is a “Standing Instruction” promulgated and maintained by the Defence Department’s larger Command’s and Group’s. Once again, I will be finding out what came of this proposal quick smart. Whatever the final outcome of further and ever-weakening RAAF response to the UFO/UAS (SOP’s or SI’s or something else?), a 14th of November, 2012, email further sent “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy” to the grave:

“No further action necessary on this one from AF. FASMECC will shortly send out a Minute to Group Heads and Service Chiefs advising the final list for cancellation for Stage 2.”

And that is how it 50 years of official RAAF interest, or lack thereof, in the UFO/UAP came to an end. There is of course a fair bit more in the material I was sent, but it is almost all internal DOD emails and minutes which restate the same bureaucratic issues and procedural actions over and over again. One thing that may have been of interest was the final distribution list for the cancellation of “Defence Instructions (General) ADMIN 55-1, Unusual Aerial Sightings Policy”. Below is the actual list of internal Defence agencies, offices and divisions that received news of the policy cancellation. Lucky them. When time permits, I will delve into the operations of a few of them, and see if anything useful can be gleaned.

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Continue Reading . . .

See Also:

UFO Policy Cancelled By Royal Australian Air Force

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