It was reported last month that the British government plans to release its latest classified UFO files, and now 15 of the 18 documents are available to everyone. Unfortunately they have not yet been digitized, so if you want to see them you will have to head to the National Archives in Kew, London.
Declassification of documents
The lack of digital copies only fueled the interest of conspiracy theorists, despite the Defense Department's comment on the leaked documents.
"No UFO sightings reported by the Department of Defense have ever indicated an extraterrestrial presence or a military threat to Britain," said Carl Mantell of the Royal Air Force in a 2009 Defense Department briefing. "So there is no advantage in recording, correlating, analyzing or investigating UFO sightings."
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Most of the files were declassified back in 2013, also through the National Archives. In 2014, the Ministry of Defense admitted that 18 documents remained classified because the military was not yet ready to publicly disseminate their content. The files were expected to be revised before they can be accessed by the public, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.
Public reaction
The declassification of these latest files has not been widely publicized, allowing skeptics to accuse the Department of Defense of trying to "bury" the files, although now any member of the public can view them. Obviously, if the Ministry of Defense decided to advertise the opening of access to these files, it would be accused of trying to focus public attention on documents that have no evidence of the existence of "green men".
“I think it's fair to say that the declassification program itself has been a success for the Department of Defense. It has attracted the attention of many in the national and international press, and the reaction of most of them can be considered positive or at worst neutral, the UFO police officer said in a 2009 statement. “Naturally, we will never be able to convince some of the ufologists, but, frankly, they themselves decide what to believe, and we will never be able to convince them otherwise.” This statement remains valid today.
Observation cases
Among the more interesting reports are several UFO sightings between 2008 and 2009. Some people have described seeing white, orange and red lights floating in the sky. At the same time, some of these lights hovered in the air, some jumped up and down, others moved against the apparent direction of the wind. After studying all the incidents, it turned out that these were just Chinese lanterns that were launched by guests at weddings.
But if you would like to independently verify documents declassified by the British government, welcome to the National Archives (UK)!
Anna Pismenna