MoD department that investigated UFO sightings ‘closed’

ufo mod dept closes

Anyone seen this?

The MoD department, which has dealt with more than 12,000 reports – including 135 last year - was used to assess threats posed by any Unidentified Flying Objects sightings throughout Britain.

Any reports made would now not be investigated or followed up as the hotline had been closed, a spokesman said.

So,who do we get in touch with now?Apparantly this disclosure was buried on their website a month ago.

[edit on 4-12-2009 by tracey ace]

Originally posted by tracey ace
ufo mod dept closes

Anyone seen this?

The MoD department, which has dealt with more than 12,000 reports – including 135 last year - was used to assess threats posed by any Unidentified Flying Objects sightings throughout Britain.

Any reports made would now not be investigated or followed up as the hotline had been closed, a spokesman said.

So,who do we get in touch with now?Apparantly this disclosure was buried on their website a month ago.

[edit on 4-12-2009 by tracey ace]

Think of the US army as your boss at work. Does your boss at work want you calling him every day and telling him he isn't doing his job right? No. so of course the Army doesn't care to hear about it from an annoying speck of dust like yourself when you've identified an aircraft that has violated US airspace. Tell it to the hand. LOL.

5 per cent of reports remain unexplained Interesting, I wonder if that’s really an accurate percentage, maybe all the other 95% of sightings they’ve put down to swamp gas....

Is this not a great opportunity for ATS UFO investigators to jump on the band wagon, So to speak,
I mean just because the MOD department is closing down does not mean the funding from central govt goes to.
A great chance for "skywatchers" to get in there and think off all the equipment you get your mitts on !!

That's simply crazy, closing it down.

So do we all send our sightings and reports via post and fax / email to No.10 for the attention of Mr Brown?

I will from now on and I hope he gets fed up with it all and decides to come clean about disclosure like his mate Obama is supposed to be doing soon!

Hi All.
I joined ATS after lurking for a few months, just to reply to this thread.
I also saw the article this morning in the UK press and wanted to comment, but Tracey Ace beat me to it.

I would think that either the MOD has closed the ufo section as they really are strapped for cash, or perhaps the high-ups have decided not to bother with their attemps at explaining why they cannot stop incursions into UK airspace any more.

I live in in Cardiff, Wales, and one of those 135 reported sightings involved a local police helicopter chasing a bright light across the Bristol channel.
It was in the national press for a few days, with center-page full colour maps and diagrams of what happened.

I do hope they are still investigating these incidents, instead of burying their heads in the sand.

Of course, they may have closed it because the objects are now identified and they're soon going to tell us what they are... Here's wishing

I suspect the number was a legacy of a perceived threat from Russian UAVs/balloons/planes/misc. signals intelligence worries. In many ways a relic of the Cold War. It's notoriously difficult to get performance metrics from any government department that involves secrecy, but I hope the decision to close was based on evidence rather than assumptions, because if there were ever (god forbid) serious resumption of tensions between east and west, in regards of overflights and UAVs, the MOD would be reliant on forward intelligence and electronically gathered intelligence only. So I hope the UFO hotline proved useless. If it wasn't it's a capability they've lost.

[edit on 4-12-2009 by jackphotohobby]

reply to post by Greenman1


Hi Greenman1,
welcome by the way, new here myself, the incident you talk of, when did this happen? Was it recently??

Hm, either they are dumb and really think it had no value at all or they shut it down now on purpose, because it won't be needed anymore when aliens arrive and reveal themselfs soon, which will be bigger proof then all of the reports they recieved over the last 50 years... Disclosure perhaps??

Good riddance to it. It was only a waste of tax dollars. You really expect to get any important info about UFOs from a gov agency? Ha, what a laugh. When are some of you going to wise up?

But it could be even worse than that. What better way to bury the real good stuff than to have a gov reporting center set up to take the reports? So basically the people were likely employing people to hide the truth when they thought they were doing the opposite. It's actually funny when you think about it.

Originally posted by Unknown Origin
Good riddance to it. It was only a waste of tax dollars. You really expect to get any important info about UFOs from a gov agency? Ha, what a laugh. When are some of you going to wise up?

But it could be even worse than that. What better way to bury the real good stuff than to have a gov reporting center set up to take the reports? So basically the people were likely employing people to hide the truth when they thought they were doing the opposite. It's actually funny when you think about it.

Tax pounds. Actually, the FOIA information released by the MOD, pertaining to that dept., were pretty good. It's clear from the documents that there were genuinely interested in the phenomena because of potential defence significance. There were quite a few real mysteries - including a large diamond shaped UFO accompanied by a Harrier, that they assumed was American (your tax dollars at work).

Don't know if the files are permanently available online but you may find them by searching.

I assume they haven't released all documents because of the fairly extensive FOIA examinations, which leaves the door open for many more interesting cases lurking in storage. Some may not have been suitable for release on security or privacy grounds.

I don't think they were employed to hide the truth. (Aside from regular defence secrecy). They seemed genuinely interested to see if the Russians and others were to blame for UFOs, and, to a lesser extent, extraterrestrials.

One thing they did seem to be painfully aware of was that certain elements in the UFO community and press would distort their work, which made them fearful of dealing with them.

Originally posted by Majestic RNA
reply to post by Greenman1

 

Hi Greenman1,
welcome by the way, new here myself, the incident you talk of, when did this happen? Was it recently??

Thanks. I did a search in the national press, but I am not skilled enough with this machine to find anything. I did find a bit on a local mediums site, added because there was a lot going on in the S.Wales last summer.

Front Page in South Wales Echo - Helicopter swerved to avoid UFO outside Cardiff on the 20th June 2008 - Report by Katie Bodinger

A mystery aircraft spotted in the skies today sparked a debate over whether UFOs could be flying over South Wales. According to some reports, South Wales Police officers in a helicopter gave chase to “flying-saucer shaped” aircraft, after it zoomed over South Wales. A spokeswoman for the force was today quick to play down the incident. An anonymous source said the incident happened while the helicopter was at 500ft and waiting to land at the Ministry of Defence’s St Athan base in the Vale of Glamorgan. The crew saw the UFO speeding towards them from below, the source said. “It closed in at great speed, aiming straight at the helicopter,” the source said.

“The chopper had to swerve sharply to avoid being hit. The guys said if they’d stayed where they were, they’d be dead – it would have been a direct hit.

“They are convinced it was a UFO. It sounds far-fetched, but they know what they saw. “These guys are hardened professionals and know people will take the mickey, but they are certain they saw a UFO.” The source added that afterwards it flew towards Cardiff and then headed across the Bristol Channel. The un-named source also claimed the crew could not see the craft with their night-vision goggles, but that it was clearly visible to the naked eye. South Wales Police Control Room Inspector Ann Johnson confirmed the air support unit had spotted an unusual aircraft.

“This was reported to the relevant authority,” she said. But she added: “In today’s skies, there are a large number of aircraft which come in a range of different shapes and sizes and in all probability, this sighting has just confirmed that one of these was in the area at the time.”

I did see the full spread in The Sun newspaper a few days later. Not the most informative, but at least it was covered.



[edit on 4-12-2009 by Greenman1]

Found this from the national press.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

I have never seen anything myself, unfortunately, but I was in the RAF for six years and heard some good stories.

[edit on 4-12-2009 by Greenman1]

[edit on 4-12-2009 by Greenman1]

As i understand it they are only closing the department that the public can report sightings to. It does not mean they are not going to investigate sightings.

In all honesty i guess every friday and saturday night they are inundated with calls from drunken hicks who have seen a street light spinning round their heads!

reply to post by blackrabbit1


Assuming the FOIA files reflected the majority of inquiries I was surprised at how few deliberate time wasters there were. Could be because time wasters didn't get to the investigative stage, or because many of the reports were inter-department rather than originating from the phone-line. There was the occasional nutjob though and lots of people misidentifying mundane things.

Given the purported saving of £44k (a huge deal to most people, but not compared to the defence budget of ~£37bn) it doesn't sound like they're laying off a huge number of people.

reply to post by Greenman1


Nice one for the news article Greenman1 so it was late June according to the Telegraph then, must admit I missed that one, I love the way the report has a heading of "Police chase UFO over Cardiff" then they go on to describe it as an aircraft, (implying it was a plane) it’s amazing these reports seem to go no further, no closure or explanation, I guess I should be used it by now….

I’m intrigued, by your stories you heard … UTU me if you can be arsed, I’d like to hear them..

Cheers

I don't have anything earthshaking.

I was only a common or garden aircraft mechanic, and my first posting was to RAF Brawdy in Pembrokeshire in 1978. I did'nt know it at the time, but Brawdy was at the centre of the 'St Davids Triangle', known for loads of wierd stuff.
I used to drink with a bloke who worked in air traffic control, in the tower, and he said they had ufo reports at least several times a month, and they were switched straight to London. At the time, it seemed quite impressive to a seventeen year old, but obviously the reports were going to the MOD office as a matterr of course.

Later on in my career, I worked as a civilian contractor at RAF Valley on Anglesey. By then I did not mind telling everyone in sight my interests, and my shift supervisor, an ex nco told me that when he had been based at Valley some ten years ago, while still in the airforce, he and practically the whole camp had seen a bright glowing light sitting at the end of the main runway.
It stayed for some time and was supposed to have been on the radar as well.
At the time Valley was one of the busiest training airfields in the UK, and was also a master diversion airfield because of the lengnth of it's main runway.
To have the airfield shut down for hours must have caused some problems with the high-ups, and my boss said that they were all told to forget what they had seen.

I have not done any aircraft work for ten years now, so I have not spoken to anyone else in the know.

How the MOD can say that it is not a defence problem when there have been so many recorded incidents is just stupid.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
If you look at the last post,of my other thread it is one of the last ufo correspondance letters to be sent out a month ago from the RAF headquarters.

It basically means that they will still look into UFO's but now don't have to 'officially' comment on anything as officially they don't have a UFO department. A nice way of taking any pressure off them, the government or any official body - especially as other countries around the world are starting to open up a bit and putting info out there that might be hard to explain away as rubbish!