X-Archives
Once again, it’s time for one of my “From the Archives” posts…
On 8 October 1993, following a routine FOIA request submitted to the Defense Intelligence Agency, I received a number of UFO records that had then recently been declassified by the State Department.
Notably, one of those documents – dated 1992 - dealt with a reference to a UFO conference in China that was the subject of official interest to the American Intelligence community.
According to an extract from the document:
“China Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Research Organization hosts national conference in Beijing on 11 May. The organization hopes that China will be selected to host the first world UFO conference, which is scheduled for 1993. More than 200 Chinese researchers are attending the conference to study reports of flying saucers or ‘Fei Die’ in China. About 5,000 UFO sightings have been reported in China in the past 20 years.”
Copies of this document were forwarded to a number of departments within the American Government, Intelligence community and military, including the National Security Agency, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the CIA and the American Embassy in Beijing.
Most notable of all, the DIA also flashed a copy of the report, via electronic signal, to the British Ministry of Defense’s Defense Intelligence Staff (DIS) in London.
An integral part of the MoD, the DIS was created on 1 April 1964 out of the amalgamation of the pre-1964 service intelligence branches and the Joint Intelligence Bureau, and now serves as a unified body able to serve the MoD, the Armed Forces, and a variety of other Government departments. Broadly speaking, the DIS carries out the same functions as that of its predecessors, Army, Navy and Air Intelligence.
That is, to provide the MoD with a central and unified intelligence organization that can provide objective assessments of defense intelligence matters in both peacetime and wartime. Its primary function is to give warning of preparations for war by a potential enemy.
Much of the work of the DIS is devoted to military issues such as tactics, orders of battle (known as ORBATS), and weapons and capabilities. Other areas are covered to ensure a more complete picture, and these include science and technology, nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities, arms traffic, and the control and verification and economic aspects of defense.
In 1989, Clive Neville of the MoD had informed me that: “…we are only interested in reported [UFO] sightings which occur in the airspace of the United Kingdom.” Therefore, this raises an important question: Why was the MoD’s Defense Intelligence Staff receiving official briefings relating to UFO conferences held on the other side of the world? Not surprisingly, the DIS refused to discuss this matter with me.
Thus, having failed to secure a reply from the DIS, I directed the same question to Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs at an official level for the MoD between 1991 and 1994 and who, in 1996, wrote a book on UFOs titled Open Skies, Closed Minds. Pope’s response of 11 October 1993 was as follows:
“I am afraid that it is not our policy to discuss the distribution of UFO data within the Ministry of Defense, beyond saying that [we] are assisted by specialist staff with responsibilities covering the Air Defense of the UK. These staff examine such data routinely as part of their normal duties. Their task – like ours – is to look for evidence of any threat to the UK. If no such evidence is found, no further action is taken.”
Although not without interest, Pope’s carefully worded reply did not reveal a great deal. Five months later, however, and during a tape-recorded interview with him, Pope provided me with a slightly modified response: “I’ve not seen this document arrive to us, apart from you sending it; so I don’t know what happened with it.”
Did this not imply that the DIS had an interest in monitoring UFO conferences and researchers on the other side of the world? I asked.
Pope’s reply was intriguing: “I don’t know. That’s a whole area that I don’t want to comment on, and it’s not anything to do with the UFO subject per se. One doesn’t talk about intelligence divisions or their role in relation to any subject.”
Case closed.
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Dec 05 2007 
December 5th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Speaking of the MoD, I can’t help but remember that they were supposed to release all those UFO files this summer.
Aside from a few lists of sightings, I really haven’t seen anything.
Nick, do you know what’s happening with this?
December 5th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
The state-proscribed religious movement Falun-Gong has a lot to do with beliefs in UFOs and aliens. Maybe that’s the connection to the interest in chinese conferences by the american intelligence agencies…
December 5th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Seems to me that attention paid to civilian UFO research groups, allows one to collect possible information of military activity….
December 6th, 2007 at 8:58 am
UV:
No, unfortunately I’m not sure what the status is on the UK files. I’ll ask around…
MisterAnderson:
I think that is definitely the case in part. Some UFOs, I’m certain, are classified military vehicles, and keeping tabs on the UFO research community allows the official world to determine if any of their classified projects (UAVs etc) have been compromised or not.
RPJ:
Yep, I’m sure a whole range of data along these exact lines can be uncovered from such monitoring of UFO events.