Britain Releases its X-Files

News Type: Event — Seeded on Wed May 14, 2008 9:36 AM EDT

Article Source: TIME

world-news, uk, aliens, ufos, extraterrestrials, x-files, ministry-of-defence, great-britian, fox-mulder

X-Files fans take note: The truth may be out there, online, starting today. This week Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) begins releasing all its files about UFOs — in ministry parlance, "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon" — on a government website, free for download.

The MoD posts brief notes of reported UFO sightings already. But these newly released files will go back further in time, to the 1970s, and will contain everything: not just brief summaries of what appeared when, the ministry says, but the full correspondence between witnesses and the government for every single sighting, and any notes about government follow-up.

"Most of the material is obviously misidentification of fairly ordinary objects: aircraft lights, meteorites, the planet Venus," says Nick Pope, a former MoD employee who, as head of the ministry's UFO program for three years in the early 1990s, is well acquainted with these early files. But the longer Pope spent studying the data, the more he came to believe that some UFO sightings really can't be explained by terrestrial activity — a conclusion that earned him a reputation as "Britain's Fox Mulder." "You've got to really drill down into it to get the good stuff, but the good stuff is there," he says.

[story continues...]

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{"commentId":1798718,"authorDomain":"Infohack"}

Infohack

Files are posted online at the U.K. National Archives website, if anyone's curious.

{"commentId":1798718,"threadId":"264267","contentId":"1487762","authorDomain":"Infohack"}

1 vote

#1 - Wed May 14, 2008 9:42 AM EDT

{"commentId":1799327,"authorDomain":"anthopos"}

Perry O

Clipped to Hall of Mirrors.

{"commentId":1799327,"threadId":"264267","contentId":"1487762","authorDomain":"anthopos"}

2 votes

#2 - Wed May 14, 2008 12:07 PM EDT

{"commentId":1799358,"authorDomain":"Infohack"}

Infohack

Thanks Perry O, I'm actually a member of that group and didn't think of it.

{"commentId":1799358,"threadId":"264267","contentId":"1487762","authorDomain":"Infohack"}

1 vote

#2.1 - Wed May 14, 2008 12:13 PM EDT

{"commentId":1799378,"authorDomain":"onlynow99"}

Angel_C

Hooray! Excellent news.

{"commentId":1799378,"threadId":"264267","contentId":"1487762","authorDomain":"onlynow99"}

1 vote

#3 - Wed May 14, 2008 12:19 PM EDT

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UFO sightings revealed in secret files	Horncastle News	Thu May 15	0
The truth really is out there as Britain's 'X-files' released	Independent.co.uk	Wed May 14	0
Britain releases batch of files on UFO sightings	Associated Press	Tue May 13	15

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