National Archives Lifts Lid on UFO Files

Inevitably, the Ministry of Defence papers, released to the public for the first time, will be known as Britain’s X-Files. Over the next three or four years, 160 files will be handed over to the National Archives. Covering 1978 to 1987, the first group of eight files, one of which is more than 450 pages long, is available via its website today. Some of the incidents are truly bizarre, but although some UFO sightings remain unexplained there is no evidence in the files for alien contact. There simply is no saucer-in-a-hangar smoking gun, said Nick Pope, a former civil servant who worked at the MoD for 21 years, spending three years on its UFO desk