Officials Stress There Are Rational Explanations For Sightings

The first in a series of British UFO files, dating back to the 1970s, were released on The National Archives' website Wednesday. The Ministry of Defense files include descriptions of alleged unidentified aerial phenomenon or UFO sightings, and subsequent MoD evaluations of the reports.

To date, independent experts have concluded there are realistic explanations behind all the alleged UFO reports, such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena. Reports are examined by the Ministry of Defense solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorized military activity -- not because the Ministry believes Britain has ever been visited by extraterrestrials.

If required, sighting reports are examined with the assistance of the Department's air Defense experts. Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, no further work is undertaken to identify the nature of each sighting reported.

The reports released this week include witness descriptions of sightings, including such accounts as "an object was moving across the sky and looked like it was on fire. It was cigar shaped and silver in color," to "a disc was seen flying above two aircraft."

"The Ministry of Defense has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters and does not consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms," officials stressed.

The MoD receives a large number of requests each year for information relating to UFOs, so to meet demand a new system has been introduced to release these files in a structured way. The rest of the files are currently under review and will be added to The National Archives over the next three years.

FMI: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk