After 50+ years - Britain shuts down UFO unit

The British government has shut a unit which has investigated UFO sightings for more than 50 years, judging its resources better spent on more earthly threats, it said Friday.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) closed down a hotline and an email address to which sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) could be reported on December 1.

"The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life. However, in over 50 years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom," it said in a statement.

"The MoD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources," it added.

An MoD employee whose job was to investigate UFO reports has been moved to another post.

"Our resources are focused on the top priority -- the frontline in Afghanistan. Any legitimate threat to the UK's airspace will spotted by our 24/7 radar checks and dealt with by Royal Air Force fighter aircraft," said a spokesman.

Source

Wow, that's really disappointing, I always thought that the British were some of the more progressive in terms of governments. I wonder what Nick Pope thinks about this and if the reason stated for the office closing is the only reason.

[edit on 12/4/2009 by ZombieOctopus]

reply to post by ZombieOctopus


After 50 years of researching and zero answers, it's time to put it to rest.

After 50 years of "nothing to see here"...now they are "moving along". It certainly seems like a waste of government money to keep it going. Especially when there are so many amateur UFO enthusiasts out there that will do the research for free.

reply to post by HankMcCoy


I agree with this.

I do find it interesting though that none of the MOD's statements seek to deny the existence of UFOs, but rather, point to a lack of threat posed by them. The inference is that, yes, there might very well be unexplained phenomena in the sky, but we can't do anything about it and whatever it is doesn't seem to be posing any sort of threat, so why waste money, time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

I don't really see what harm closing down this facility will do anyway. From my understanding it was little more than a hotline to report sightings and as the FOIA files have shown we've had plenty of them over the last 50 years and, though some of it provides interesting evidence, nothing concrete has ever emerged. So why carry on?

I know some may think that next week, month or year definite proof may reveal itself, but surely anything that irrefutable would be apparent regardless of whether this department was still open or not.








[edit on 4-12-2009 by Antony270381]

Theres an existing thread here about the subject:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by karl 12


And another:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Can a mod merge these, or something? It's annoying to want to reply the same answers to three threads .

Some would probably think that the shut down is evidence that disclosure is imminent in the near future. Perhaps this Christmas, NASA will finally confirm that there is a "Santa Claus" !!!

reply to post by polychronopolis


Oh how i wish!

BEST


CHRISTMAS



EVER!

and we were here to see it

naw..... this wasnt covered already

Thats three of them together , one more and we got the set