Ministry of Defence may have deliberately ignored UFO sightings, expert claims
UFO fans love the idea of secret government documents – but are often bitterly disappointed by the real thing, as there’s no ‘smoking gun’ proving that aliens are real.
But Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University claims that there might be a very real reason why there is no ‘smoking gun’ in the Ministry of Defence’s ‘X-Files’.
Clarke says that government efforts to investigate UFOs in 1997 deliberately focused on other explanations – and that officials deliberately destroyed files after a report which discounted the possibility of alien sightings, the Guardian reports.
MOST POPULAR TODAY ON YAHOO
Oxford city centre reopens after armed siege between gunman and police ends peacefully
Fury over mountains of of litter left by Bank Holiday drinkers on British beauty spot
Here’s why some people’s hair goes grey early, according to science
IKEA fans who travelled 100 miles are turned away after new store gets opening date wrong
Messages between analysts and the Defence Intelligence Service said that investigations should focus on foreign powers and technology, and that it ‘It shouldn’t be driven by a UFO thesis’.
The report, completed in 2000, gave the Ministry of Defence grounds for a new policy where it no longer accepted reports of alien sightings.
But Defence Intelligence Service officials then destroyed the database, Clarke discovered after filing Freedom of Information requests.
Clarke said, ‘They always say that the public gets the wrong idea about UFOs, but they’ve actually encouraged that themselves by destroying the files. They’ve actually encouraged conspiracy theorists through their own paranoia.’