The UK government published almost all the files about UFOs

Last month it was reported that the British government plans to publicize its latest secret files about UFOs, and now 15 of 18 documents are available to everyone. Unfortunately, they have not yet been digitized, so if you want to see them, you will have to go to the National Archives in Kew, London.

Declassification of documents

The lack of digital copies only fueled the interest of the conspiracy theorists, despite the Ministry of Defense's commentary on the published documents.

"No cases of detection of UFOs reported by the Ministry of Defense have ever indicated an extraterrestrial presence or a military threat to the UK," said Carl Mantell of the British Air Force at a briefing for the Ministry of Defense in 2009. "Thus, recording, comparing, analyzing, or investigating UFO sightings does not offer any advantages."

Most of the files were declassified back in 2013, also through the National Archives. In 2014, the Ministry of Defense acknowledged that 18 documents were kept classified as the military is not yet ready to publicly disseminate their content. It was expected that the files would be revised before the public accessed them, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.

Public response

The declassification of these last files was not widely advertised, which made it possible for skeptics to accuse the Ministry of Defense of trying to "bury" files, although any members of the public can now read them. Obviously, if the Ministry of Defense decided to publicize the opening of access to these files, it would be accused of trying to focus public attention on documents that do not have any evidence of the existence of "green men".

"I consider it fair to say that the program of declassification was successful for the Ministry of Defense. It attracted the attention of many representatives of the national and international press, and the reaction of most of them can be considered positive or, in the worst case, neutral, "the UFO police officer said in a statement in 2009. "Naturally, we will never be able to convince some ufologists, but, frankly, they decide what to believe in, and we will never be able to convince them otherwise." This statement remains relevant today.

Cases of observation

Among the most interesting reports there are several observations of UFOs in the period from 2008 to 2009. Some people described a vision of white, orange and red lights floating in the sky. Some of these lights were hanging in the air, some were jumping up and down, others were moving against the apparent direction of the wind. After studying all the incidents, it turned out that these were just Chinese lanterns, which the guests were launching at weddings.

But if you want to independently check documents declassified by the British government, welcome to the National Archives (UK)!