The Telegraph, by Richard Gray, 19 Aug 2012
 |
| Jane Randall from Woking, Surrey, captured a strange looking object in the skies above Silbury Hill in Wiltshire in the latest sighting Photo: Jane Randall |
It is
official at last: Britain is not at risk from unidentified flying objects.
Those who
have long feared an invasion from Mars or further afield can relax – at least,
that is, if they believe the Ministry of Defence.
An end has
been ordered to all official investigations of Unidentified Flying Objects, or
UFOs, after the ministry ruled they do not pose a threat to the nation’s
security.
It comes as
the head of UK Air Traffic Control admitted the country is visited by around
one unidentified flying object a month.
Asked on
BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the existence of UFOs, Mr Deakin confirmed
they were still being seen by his staff.
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He said:
"Occasionally there are objects identified that do not conform to normal
traffic patterns. It does not occupy a huge amount of my time. There are
approximately one a month."
Yet despite
this, the MoD insists it will no longer investigate UFO sightings.
The ruling
came after the careful collation over the years of reports of strange lights in
the skies, odd noises and apparent close encounters.
The move to
end all investigation was disclosed after a dedicated hotline for UFO sightings
was discontinued for cost grounds, and the “UFO desk”, which cost £44,000 a
year was also removed.
Now
officials say that any UFO investigation would divert valuable resources and
instead a sophisticated network of radar infrastructure and anti-ballistic
missile systems to monitor British airspace will spot any genuine threat.
An MoD
spokesman said: “In over fifty years no UFO report revealed any evidence of a
potential threat to the United Kingdom.
“The MoD
had no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings and
there would be no benefit in such an investigation. Furthermore, responding to
reported UFO sightings diverted MOD resources from tasks that were more
relevant to defence.”
The
abandonment of the UFO hotline and dedicated desk officer in 2009 had already
caused concern among those who believe in the phenomena.
Now the
decision to abandon investigations entirely has frustrated some members of the
public convinced they have glimpsed the extraterrestrial – and those who are
simply unsure of what they have seen.
Jane
Randall, a housewife from Woking, Surrey, captured a strange looking object in
the skies above Silbury Hill in Wiltshire when she took a photograph using her
mobile phone while taking part in a field trip to learn about the archaeology
in the area.
She said:
“I didn’t see anything at the time, nor did the ten people I was with, but when
I looked back over the photos there were two pictures a second apart with this
strange conical shape hovering behind the hill.
“The
pictures I took either side of this didn’t have any mark on them so I don’t
think it could have been dust on the lens.
“I’m just
an ordinary person, but thought I should report it to someone so they could
take a look. When I phoned the police, they said it was not a police matter and
I spoke to someone at the RAF who said they did not investigate UFOs any more.”
Nick Pope,
who ran the MoD’s UFO desk from 1991 to 1994 and now researches UFO sightings
privately, said: “One of the problems was that an increasing number of the
reports the MoD was getting were low quality.
“When
someone has a photograph though, that should be considered to be a different
situation. The MoD has the personnel and equipment to very quickly analyse an
image to tell whether it has been altered and identify what an object might be.
“A lot of
ordinary members of the public feel it is there duty to report anything out of
the ordinary.
"I get
a lot of people contacting me now about sightings and it is frustrating that
there is no where official that they can report them – it has become a black
hole.”
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