MoD gives up alien hunt

THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE is going to stop investigating UFO sightings because frankly it does not believe in aliens.

In recent months the MoD apparently has been going about closing down most of its extra-terrestrial research units, and in December it announced that it would no longer be running a department to investigate UFO sighting reports.

In a statement that has mysteriously disappeared but is available through a Google cache, the MoD said, "The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life. However, in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom. Accordingly, and in order to make best use of Defence resources, we have decided that from the 1 December 2009 the dedicated UFO hotline answer-phone service and e-mail address will be withdrawn. MOD will no longer respond to reported UFO sightings or investigate them. The ongoing programme to release Departmental files on UFO matters to the National Archive will continue."

However, the MoD is still collecting reports somehow, but apparently destroys them after thirty days. That's what a lecturer from Sheffield Hallam University says, anyway. As a result of this, we are warned that any evidence will be binned for ever, and thus will not be applicable for freedom of information requests.

"According to a November 2009 MoD briefing, the new policy took effect immediately after the decision to close the UFO desk and the public 'UFO hotline'. Officials said these 'serve no Defence purpose' and merely encourage the generation of correspondence of no Defence value," wrote wrote David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam. He added, "A defence minister, Kevan Jones MP, approved the decision, 'that reported sightings...should be answered by a standard letter and, on the advice of Corporate Memory and The National Archives, should be retained for 30 days and then destroyed, largely removing any future FOI liability and negating the need to release future files post 30 November 2009.'"

Apparently the MoD is going to focus on its other core defence business, and in fact adds in the printed statement, "MoD has no interest in receiving reports of UFO sightings and will not be actioning the reports that we receive post November 2009."

We might as well put a sign on the Moon then, saying, "Come on down!" µ