Case file · Government program
UK MoD 'UFO desk' & DI55 (closed 2009)
For half a century a small Ministry of Defence desk logged public UFO reports, while the intelligence section DI55 assessed them.
2009 CE · 51.50, -0.13 · status: official
The account
Reports were handled by secretariat desks (in the 1990s Nick Pope staffed one), and technical analysis went to the Defence Intelligence Staff. The MoD closed the desk and its hotline in 2009, saying that in over fifty years no report had revealed a threat. Its files went to the National Archives between 2008 and 2013.
The sceptical view
The MoD consistently found nothing of defence interest. Researchers counter that cases like Rendlesham were never properly examined.
Connections in the atlas
- Cosford / Shawbury triangle
- Flying Saucer Working Party (UK)
- UK Ministry of Defence UFO files released
- The Halt memo ('Unexplained Lights')
- Nick Pope
- Calvine photograph
- Project Condign (UK)
- Rendlesham Forest