BACKGROUND NOTE

Norman Baker MP is the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes Constituency, East Sussex and is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment and Rural Affairs Secretary. He has not written to the MOD about Unidentified Flying Objects before.

It is most likely that Mr Baker has asked this Question, having seen recent press articles in the Daily Mail, the Metro and on various internet websites in which Mr Nick Pope, a serving Civil Servant, has been widely quoted on the topic of the MoD's "UFO Project".

The MoD has never operated anything described as ''the UFO Project". In the early post World War 2 era, when there was a rise in the number of reports of"UFOs" from the public, a working party was set up at the instigation of Sir Henry Tizard to consider whether there was anything credible in such reports. The working party concluded in 1951 that" .. . no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken unless and until some material evidence becomes available". In other words, there was insufficient evidence of the existence of UFOs to warrant any further official investigation. Nevertheless, the public continued to report such sightings, and it was decided that they would be handled by a branch responsible for Air Force issues, solely with a view to determining whether any reports might indicate some threat to UK air defence. That remains the situation up to today, with approximately 100 reports being received each year.

Mr Pope at one time served as an EO (Band D) in the Secretariat Air Staff (the precursor of the Civilian element within DAS). Mr Pope left Sec (AS) in 1994 (he is currently serving in D DefSy) and his knowledge of this issue, other than from publicly available sources, must be regarded as dated. Mr Pope elected to describe his position as the "Head of the MoD's UFO Project", a term entirely ofhis own invention, and he has used his experience and information he gathered (frequently by going beyond the official remit of his position) to develop a parallel career as a pundit on the topic, including writing several books, some purportedly non-fiction. Mr Pope constantly puts himself forward in various parts of the media, solicited and unsolicited, as an "expert" (despite his lack of recent knowledge about the work carried on in the branch concerned) and seeks credit amongst other aficionados for having "forced" MoD to reveal its "secret" files on the subject. The latter is far from the truth, as we had begun publishing details of the most "popular" reports in the Publication scheme, prior to the advent of the Freedom of Information Act. Mr Pope's activities have nevertheless resulted in the generation of considerable workload for the staff currently employed in responding to queries on this topic.

From The Black Vault, as above, p.145