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British "X-files" Released to Public

Smivs writes "Britain's Ministry of Defence has just released files regarding investigations into UFO sightings between 1978 to 1987. Over the next three or four years, 160 files will be handed over to the National Archives. The first group of eight files, one of which is more than 450 pages long, is available today. The Guardian newspaper details many of the events in question, some interesting and many just bizarre. A similar release of UFO files by France's national space agency last year attracted more than 220,000 users on its first day, causing it to crash. To avoid such problems, the National Archives is using an external hosting company which can add extra capacity as needed to handle the web traffic."

38 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. UFO Expert by SimonGhent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This was reported on BBC Radio 4 this morning. They had an interview with a "UFO Expert" who suggested that they had only released the files that conained no real evidence and that they were holding back much more than they had released.

    He, and his colleagues, knew all along that this is what would happen. Apparently.

    The interviewer tried to get him to say "the truth is out there" but he wouldn't bite!

    --
    simon
    1. Re:UFO Expert by tristian_was_here · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well I was once abducted by alien babes from planet hot and they had their way with me for science on their own planet.

      The sad thing is I woke up lying in my own bed

    2. Re:UFO Expert by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Informative

      Heh. It's often thought that many alien abduction stories (which are very different from UFO's, but anyways . . .) stem from ASP, or Awareness during Sleep Paralysis. It's essentially a waking dream where you can't move but you can hallucinate things (you eyes see the real world but you mind, still in a dreamstate, can superimpose a dream over the real world).

      Some people see aliens (a common modern thing), many see ghosts. When researching this (I suffer from this disorder myself) I found out that in earlier times many people would see a succubus or demon raping them.

      These episodes can be lucid if you work at it (I can lucid dream but I've never been able to have a lucid ASP episode), so you could actually make your alien babe abduction fantasy come true ;).

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    3. Re:UFO Expert by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 4, Funny

      Great. Yet another way I can fail to have sex.

      --
      Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    4. Re:UFO Expert by sentientbeing · · Score: 3, Funny

      I dont buy it. Theyre just showing us pictures of aliens because they dont want to tell us what they REALLY found.

      --

      ------
      beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
    5. Re:UFO Expert by lm317t · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have been able to have these Awareness during Sleep Paralysis (which then after a while often spawn Out of Body Dreams), since I can remember. As a test when I was a teenager I shuffled a deck of cards and put five random ones in an open box on top of a high cabinet. Every time I checked when I was in these OBD's I wasnt even close to observing what was actually there, but it sure felt like I was right up until I physiacally checked!

      Since then I have been skeptical of so called OBE's and alien visitations/abductions.

      --
      EOF
  2. British 'X-Files'? by muellerr1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought the British X-Files was called 'Torchwood'?

    1. Re:British 'X-Files'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought the British X-Files was called 'Torchwood'?

      You're confused. That's the British gay porn show.
  3. Proof at last by archammer2 · · Score: 5, Funny
    from TFA:

    Other reports are more credible. At quarter past midnight on Christmas Day 1985, three police officers in Woking were surprised by a white light descending on the Horsell area.


    Finally! Undeniable proof in the existance of Santa Claus! I knew it!
  4. Don't forget by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Informative

    That UFO does not automatically make it alien.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Don't forget by the_rev_matt · · Score: 5, Informative

      Jimmy Carter was on the Skeptics Guide podcast not long ago and they brought up the UFO incident, as he is often cited by the conspiracy theorists as 'proof' that aliens are among us and the government is covering it up. No, I can't explain their logic. Carter was unaware that he'd been coopted in this manner and quite forcefully noted that what he saw was indeed a UFO because he couldn't identify what it was, making it unidentified. He was at the same time quite sure that it was likely not an alien craft of any sort. It's one of the few times I've heard someone make the point that because you don't know what it is, then by definition it's an unidentified flying object. A conclusion that has no relation whatsoever to the *nature* of the object (e.g. alien, human).

      --
      this is getting old and so are you

      blog

  5. If you believe in alien spaceships on Earth... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...you exhibit a serious lack of imagination. Human history is but a leaf in the wind compared to the ocean of time and space. All of the purported alien encounters are so similar to what we experience on Earth so that it's not even funny. It's like religion, overly antrophomorphic.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
    1. Re:If you believe in alien spaceships on Earth... by Genady · · Score: 5, Funny

      What are you saying? Religion is really behind all the probing of young boys? We already knew that.

      --


      What if it is just turtles all the way down?
    2. Re:If you believe in alien spaceships on Earth... by uniquename72 · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's exactly what they want us to think -- can't believe you fell for it.

  6. Well fuck me silly.... by neokushan · · Score: 3, Funny

    The truth really IS out there...and in an easy to read digital format, too!

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  7. Re:Awesome by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The AF came out a few years ago and admitted to spreading rumors about aliens in Roswell and other places to cover up their experimental aircraft projects. As an intelligence analyst with a top secret and above clearance (some of the classifications have names which are themselves classified) working in "the system", I'm pretty sure there's not much more. We tend to overclassify things just to be on the safe side, classify things out of habit, overestimate the importance of what we're doing, underestimate how much is already known, etc, but to suggest there's a conspiracy to cover up UFO sightings is ridiculous. You need an act of Congress to get the CIA and FBI to talk each other. What makes anyone think the US government is competent enough to pull off a conspiracy?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  8. Highlight by Gat0r30y · · Score: 4, Funny

    a number of people leaving a Tunbridge Wells pub one night reported seeing a strange craft "with red and green" lights, according to the released documents. Asked by police where the object seemed to be traveling, the pub crawlers said it appeared to be heading for London's Gatwick Airport. It didn't take a scientist to figure out it was a commercial plane making a routine approach.
    --
    Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
  9. Re:Awesome by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The History Channel spends an inordinate amount of time on this sort of crap. Before I changed the channel, I once heard a guy ranting about how the Air Force had an officer who reported to Johnson about ufos and what a big conspiracy it was. My first thought was that of course they were keeping track of sightings of unidentified aircraft, they had aircraft that they wanted to remain unidentified. It was disappointing that they show didn't bother with that obvious angle.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  10. Re:Awesome by imstanny · · Score: 3, Informative

    As an intelligence analyst with a top secret and above clearance (some of the classifications have names which are themselves classified) working in "the system", I'm pretty sure there's not much more. With all due respect, having Top Secret clearance doesn't automatically give you access to all Top Secret documents. You still have to have a 'need to know' authority to get access to certain files. So I can't really see how you can use that as evidence to your conjecture of there not being much more beyond what they released.
  11. Evidence of non-existence by mangu · · Score: 5, Informative
    They had an interview with a "UFO Expert" who suggested that they had only released the files that contained no real evidence and that they were holding back much more than they had released.


    Everything regarding UFOs, paranormal effects, and such, is like that. They always claim that something is being hidden, and how can you possibly prove that some file is not being hidden somewhere?


    I once tried to counteract that, asking for an UFO expert to give me the very best case they had for UFOs. He answered with a case that is cited in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as being one of the most reliable cases for the existence of UFOs: in August 13, 1956 RAF jets were sent after some objects that were detected by radar, coming from above the Soviet Union at very high speed. Those objects disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. My answer: that sighting coincides exactly with the Perseid meteor shower. Those UFOs had the same behavior that would be expected from a meteoroid. And that's one of the "best established and most puzzling" UFO sightings, according to the Britannica.


    To sum up, we cannot prove that "real evidence" isn't being hidden somewhere. But if one of the most respected publications in the world cannot give us one single example of an UFO sighting that cannot be trivially explained with five minutes of research, then I really cannot believe that any stronger evidence exists.
     

  12. Re:parent poster is right by Jonny_eh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    UFO nuts: Release the secret document that prove aliens are here!
    (UFO documents are released)
    UFO nuts: Those documents don't offer the evidence we wanted! Therefore, there must be more documents somewhere that do! Release more documents!
    (rinse, repeat)

    This cycle has been going on for 50 years. If there was anything to this, some country somewhere would have released documents proving something by now.

    And just because the government investigated UFO sightings, it doesn't mean aliens are visiting. The government investigated ESP too, and it's still hogwash.

  13. Re:parent poster is right by unity100 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    aaaaah.

    in 50s and 60s, people who claimed that they saw ufos with a solid argument would get visited by intelligence agencies and told to shut up, and if they didnt comply either suddenly disappeared from public life, or extremely discredited to the extent that they would need to move and hide. if there isnt anything important about ufo things like skeptics like you argue, no intelligence agency would need to go that far.

    nowadays in the last 3 years, we are seeing an increasing level of 'allowance' for ufo talks. first it started with main outlets like cnn showing ufo clips, whereas they never did before, and then started the government agencies - first mexican air force, then japanese government official drops a hint. then some documents are released in france, then in uk now.

    can you see a pattern ?

  14. Aliens visting us would change nothing... by TheNarrator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If there are Aliens visiting us nothing is actually going to change. They are like naturalists going out into some remote jungle (our little corner of the solar system) to take pictures of monkeys (us). The monkeys see a pickup truck the naturalist is driving, something they could never possibly be able to explain. The naturalist comes up to them befriends them and then leaves. The other monkeys come back and say that the large white ape does not exist. Even if they all see the large white ape and the interesting craft she drives. So what?
    Maybe some of the religious monkey elders would get upset but that's about it. It's not like the monkeys are going to suddenly figure out how to turn sticks and branches into a car and drive out of the forest and start wearing suits and ties and drinking $4 lattes at Starbucks.

  15. Re:parent poster is right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes. The pattern leads you to being one of the ufo nuts.

  16. Take off the tinfoil hat by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Hey Mulder, here's a scoop. They weren't trying to cover up aliens, they were covering up their secret spy aircraft. Why do you think most of these "UFO cover-ups" involved strange craft spotted near air force bases at the height of the Cold War? Project Blue Book wasn't about little green men, it was about making sure no one had gotten a good look at their latest prototype stealth planes and also checking to see if any hillbillies might have actually spotted any Soviet spy planes in the area.

    No alien civilization is expending the mammoth amount of resources needed to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space just to stick a probe up your ass. Deal with it.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Take off the tinfoil hat by sentientbeing · · Score: 5, Funny

      Look im no boaster,

      But you aint SEEN my ass, honey.

      --

      ------
      beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
    2. Re:Take off the tinfoil hat by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

      No alien civilization is expending the mammoth amount of resources needed to traverse the vast distances of interstellar space just to stick a probe up your ass. Deal with it.

      One of the greatest moments in the history of TV occurred on a show I can't even remember now, though it was probably an old episode of the Daily Show.

      The show featured three different and independent UFO crazies who all claimed to have had close contact with aliens, and it brought them together to tell their tales.

      One of the guys claimed that he had been abducted and raped on a repeated basis. Not probed, raped, because the aliens intent was to impregnate him with their alien eggs, and I guess the human rectum was a viable implantation spot.

      One of the other crazies, who if I recall claimed that she had seen aliens wandering around the woods by her house, chimed in to say something along the lines of "That's just silly; nobody is gonna travel half way across the galaxy just to have anal sex with you."

      How do you know you're a true UFO crazy? When another UFO crazy tells you off for being too damn crazy! Oh man I about died that day; and it would have been okay because my life was complete.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  17. Re:parent poster is right by vslashg · · Score: 4, Funny

    it's like the film of lock ness, or bigfoot. Why hasn't a modern camera caught something yet?
    Gosh, you're right! Global warming must have killed Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster!
  18. You forgot 28 by geekoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    28) And the wheel within the wheel would spin counter to the wheel, and it's bling was awesome.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  19. I believed when I was young by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was young I thought I had seen a UFO in our backyard. I was utterly convinced. I started to do research on it and couldn't understand why so many things (lochness monster, bigfoot) were not better explained and explored when man seemed to understand so many other things (elements of nature, physics, genetics). I though I was on to something big.

    As I matured it began to dawn on me. My experience, had it been real, would have been reported by somebody else. The memory was from my childhood, it could have been a dream before I understood the difference.

    The more I tried to relive the memory, the more an unnerving recognition hit me. Shit, I had seen the spaceship from ET in my backyard! It had been a dream created by my overactive imagination.

    I had wanted it to be true I swore that it was, because the memory backed me up, but my own memory betrayed me.

    Looking back I see that misconceptions are common human fallicies, and that is why scientific data, which is checked and doubled checked by many people is so critical in the search for truth.

    --
    "I only speak the truth"
    Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
  20. How exactly do you prove something DOESN'T exist? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I also don't have any evidence of the nonexistance of the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, fire-breathing dragons, and magical unicorns. Does that make them plausible too?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  21. Re:parent poster is right by gartogg · · Score: 4, Funny

    The problem with saying that people get their ideas about what the government does from movies is that the underlying assumption is that the government doesn't get them from the same place.

    --
    I'm a concientious .sig objector.
  22. I Used to Get UFO Calls From the Public by aquatone282 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Way back in a previous life, when I was a USAF Recruiter working out of the Reno, Nevada office on Moana Lane, I would occasionally get a UFO report from an excited member of the public. The recruiting office was the only number listed under U.S. Air Force in the Reno phone book because the nearest Air Force base was located across the Sierra Nevada mountains in Sacramento, California.

    At first, I tried to explain that the local Air Force recruiting office wasn't the right place to report a UFO sighting, but then I realized what a gift these calls were.

    From then on, whenever a UFO report came in, I got as excited as the caller, asking them for details, etc. Then I explained I wasn't the correct office to report UFOs to and then gave them the number to the Nevada Air National Guard's base operations office.

    And I always told the caller to not take "no" as answer from whoever answered the phone.

    --
    What?
  23. Re:parent poster is right by Kelbear · · Score: 5, Informative

    Article from May 13th regarding Catholicism and aliens:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_aliens

  24. ASP by Myrddin+Wyllt · · Score: 4, Funny
    "ASP, or Awareness during Sleep Paralysis" - It all makes sense now; that mind-numbing fear, the horrifying images, a total inability to do anything about it other than surrender to the sheer horror of it all.

    I always thought it stood for "Active Server Pages", silly me.

    --
    [ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
  25. Re:I had one by Jerry+Beasters · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was younger I had a couple of these, and I could absolutely see how people could interpret it as aliens/ghosts. It's such a feeling of overwhelming terror and/or dread with sometimes dreamlike "hallucinations," if that's the right word.

  26. Alright I'll bite ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    How's this for real evidence ...

    During the 1942 Battle of Los Angeles the military instituted a mandatory black out of the entire city & fired 1400+ Anti-Aircraft rounds at a single, quoting the military, "unidentified aircraft." This lasted for more than an hour. Despite numerous confirmed hits the craft remained airborne and eventually flew off without ever being identified. (read the LA times article).

    In 1948 green fireballs were seen over the south-western skies of the US near nuclear weapons research sites. Famous meteoriticist Dr. Lincoln La Paz declared they weren't normal meteors. In 1949 the USAF started Project Twinkle under the direction of Dr. Anythony Mirachi.

    The study concluded in a now unclassified report that cinetheodolites had tracked 4 objects traveling at an "altitude of ~150K ft" (~28.5 miles!), were "30 ft. in diameter", & traveling at an "undeterminable, yet high speed." Mirachi went on to later criticize a Time magazine article that claimed there was no proof to support the existence of UFOs.

    Mirachi wrote, "There was too much evidence in favor of saucers to say they could have all been balloons. 'I was conducting the main investigation. The government had to depend on me or my branch for information.' He said he didn't see how the Navy could say there had been no concrete evidence of the phenomena."

    Also in the year 1948 Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a self-proclaimed skeptic, joined Project Blue Book as a scientific advisor. By 1969 when Blue Book was shutdown Hynek did an about face. He wrote several books, particularly, "The Hynek UFO Report" which repeatedly stated that the attitude of Blue Book was, "it can't be therefore it isn't."

    He also gave an interview, available on youtube watch?v=pyDVR2B14dw, where he said, "I was there at Blue Book and I know the job they had. They were told not to excite the public, don't rock the boat, & I saw it [with] my own eyes. ... The cases that were very difficult to explain they would jump handsprings to keep the media away from that." He later went on to found the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).

    On July 13-29th, 1952, over the skies of Washington DC, numerous UFOs were seen on the ground, in the air, & tracked on radar. The situation escalated & General Samford, Director of Intelligence of the USAF, held an emergency press conference. When asked by a reporters what people were seeing he suggested the lights on the ground may have looked like they were in the air because inversions act like an "air lens" & bend light rays. He added that something similar could have "tricked" radar in to thinking it was tracking aerial targets.

    In 1969 an Air Force scientific report titled "Quantitative Aspects of Mirages" (Menkello, F.G. Report No. 6112, USAF, Environmental Technical Applications Center) made it clear inversion strong enough to create the visual effect described during the 1952 press-conference could not exist in earth's atmosphere.

    1956 at Bentwater/Lakenheath an object was sighted by several military officers on the ground while simultaneously tracked on radar at 2 different stations. The object moved at ~4000 mph and was monitored for several hours during which two planes were scrambled.

    When the 1st DeHavilland Venom locked on to the object it shot to the rear of the plane. The pilot tried evasive maneuvers, couldn't break free & eventually had to return to base to refuel.

    The 2nd plane encountered mechanical difficulties as it flew within range of the object. The US sponsored Condon Report had this to say, "In conclusion, although conventional or natural explanations certainly cannot be ruled out, the probability of such seems low in this case and the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears fairly high."

    Astronaut Gordon Cooper claimed he saw his 1st UFO while flying over W. Germany in 1952. During 1957 while filming at Edwards AFB base he stated he saw a UFO land in the CA flats and that t

  27. Re:I had one by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I experience that when I sleep under an electric blanket.
    You don't get used to it, and it is really freaky. Actually I've gotten pretty used to it. I don't have visual hallucinations anymore (last one was about 5 years ago in college). Just wake up and can't move. I think to myself "Don't let your mind wander." (since if you think crazy things, you're dreaming, and you can see them). I then just attempt to rock back and forth until I break out of it and can move (which is usually 20-30 seconds later).

    I get them pretty often though. Normally once every 2-3 weeks, for as long as I can remember. What really helped me was learning the medical explanation. Once I knew that no ghosts or zombies were actually coming into my room to terrorize me, I was able to handle it much better.
    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain