From the early 1950s to 2009, a Department of Defense in the United Kingdom documented and investigated reports of unidentified flying objects. Now, more than ten years after the end of the program, many of the previously classified files will be released to the public for the first time, The Telegraph reports.
Some documents have already been posted on the Internet on the website of the UK National Archives. In the near future, all UFO reports will appear on the gov.uk web page, said a spokesman for the British Royal Air Force.
The general fascination with "flying saucers" in the UK increased sharply around 1950, as a result of which the Department of Defense formed a working group to study this phenomenon. UFOs even caught the attention of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who in 1952 sent a note to the Air Secretary asking, “What does all this nonsense amount to? What does this mean? Where is the truth?"
Experts concluded that UFOs were hoax, illusion, or common objects that had been misidentified and recommended that no further research be undertaken. But separate divisions of the Ministry of Defense continued to collect data.
The latest UFO report, dated 2009, describes the phenomena that took place from January to November. These include “silver disc-shaped light” (January), “up to 20 orange and red lights” (June), “large bright silvery-whitish ball” (July) and “three sparkling golden balls diagonally in the sky” (September).
"These new files must contain real nuggets," said former UFO researcher Nick Pope.