Encounter Atlas
Britain's Ministry of Defence kept a small desk that logged public UFO reports for more than 50 years, mainly to check that nothing threatened UK airspace. A secret intelligence study, Project Condign, reviewed the reports in the late 1990s and found no threat.
The desk closed in December 2009. Between 2008 and 2013 the MoD released its files through The National Archives, including the Rendlesham Forest papers from 1980, and the Condign report came out under Freedom of Information in 2006.
Our data: The National Archives' catalogue is Open Government Licence, but its API terms ask users not to store results, and the files are scanned letters rather than a sighting table. We link to the files rather than copy them.
Official releases
- Jun 21, 2013
UK UFO files: final tranche
Ministry of Defence / The National Archives
The last 25 files, about 4,400 pages, covering the MoD UFO desk's final two years, including the decision to close it in late 2009 because sightings had no defence value.
- May 2008
Ministry of Defence UFO files at The National Archives
Ministry of Defence / The National Archives
From 2008 to 2013 the MoD transferred its UFO desk files to The National Archives in ten batches and they were put online free. They hold public sighting reports, letters, parliamentary questions, Rendlesham Forest papers and internal briefings, ending when the desk closed in 2009.
- May 2006
Project Condign: UAP in the UK Air Defence Region
Defence Intelligence Staff (DI55)
A secret study completed in 2000, released under Freedom of Information in 2006. It analysed about 10,000 sighting reports, found no threat, and suggested most unexplained cases were natural atmospheric plasmas, a theory that drew heavy criticism.
The US Air Force also logged 38 Blue Book case folders from United Kingdom.