Secret Serpent Files?

Just recently, one of my Lair of the Beasts columns over at Mania.com was devoted to the British Government's files on the Loch Ness Monster (here's the link).

It seems, however, that as interested as the Government has certainly been in Nessie at times, that interest is not reflected by Britain's Royal Navy, who confirm that while sailors may, theoretically, wish to report a sighting of a sea-serpent while sailing the oceans, there is no official "Sea Serpent File," or official mandate to collect reports...

MoD Files & UFOs

Dave Clarke has an excellent new post over at his blog, which provides all the required info on the British Ministry of Defence's decision to close its "UFO Desk."

As Dave says: "Britain's Ministry of Defence is destroying all UFO reports it receives so it can avoid answering Freedom of Information requests. This decision means that any future sightings - even those made by reliable sources such as aircrew, radar and police - will in future be shredded after 30 days, according to a formerly secret MoD document I have obtained using the FOIA."

And here's the link to Dave's complete post, which explains how and why the MoD took the steps that have created so much controversy recently.

New UFO Files Surface

Newly-released UFO files from the archives of the British Ministry of Defense are getting a lot of coverage in Britain's media right now - and they do contain some interesting and weird reports.

Here's links to just a few items that demonstrate the nature of the media coverage:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/158874/UFOs-Close-encounters-of-the-weird-kind

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251850/MOD-records-UFO-sightings-include-Michael-Howard-encounter.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8520717.stm

But for definitive coverage - and explanation - of the files, check out Dave Clarke's latest post, which can be found right here.

UFO Files in Britain

From today’s Anomalist:

Britain’s X Files: RAF Suspected Aliens of Telegraph. Britain’s Ministry of Defense has had a keen interest in UFOs for decades, and since releasing numerous UFO documents to the public, documents have emerged that indicate copies were sent to other higher clearance agencies as well. The public files reveal a subversive interest in the extraterrestrial presence which was monitored by “Defence Intelligence” branches. High ranking officers apparently believe that the phenomenon does indeed exist but they ultimately conclude that there’s “no threat to defense” and have been categorized as mostly ET reconnaissance missions, scientific study, or alien “tourism.” Seems from the number of reports of unexplained sightings that we are a popular destination indeed!

More on the UK-UFO Files

Dave Clarke (who has been instrumental in pushing for the release of UFO material) gives a good overview on the newly-released British MoD-UFO files.

UK-UFO Files

Fellow Fortean Kithra alerts us to the latest news on the most recent release of UFO files from the British Ministry of Defence.

As she says:

"The UK has just released some more UFO files, this time for the years 1981 to 1996. Amongst the reports are some pertaining to Rendlesham Forest and, of course, the archive downloads are all in pdf which, personally, I really dislike.

"If you’d like to check them out then click here for the National Archives.

"As to be expected, Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, has his own theories about sightings being co-incidental with the release of some film and TV programmes in which the main themes were Aliens and/or UFOs.

"You can read more about that here in an article that also relates what Lord Hill-Norton thought when he wrote to Michael Heseltine, the UK Defence Secretary in 1985, about the Rendlesham event.

"But what I find particularly interesting is the case of a UFO seen across my own county of Cornwall, and other counties, at the very end of March 1993. The Ministry of Defence concluded that this was, in fact, either an American spy plane, or the re-entry of a Russian rocket.What all of this tells us about UFOs is, of course, open to question.

"Some of it relates to what are now old cases where further investigation would probably be very difficult given the passage of time. But that's not to say that investigating old cases has no merit, and I'm also a firm believer that those who are new to the UFO subject should make themselves aware of what went before. Without that basic grounding we fail to see how the subject has evolved, and is still evolving with each new generation."

Sewing Machines of Death

This is one of the strangest official secrets I've come across in a long-time: a previously-classified project that Britain was contemplating using on the enemy during the Second World War.