The Ministry of Defense’s UFO reporting program has been shut down due to the UK government’s decision that it’s an “inappropriate use of resources.” Previously the UFO reports could be submitted via phone, email, or mail. Currently the ministry’s email service and voicemail operations have been shut down, and all mail is either discarded or returned to sender. The MOD’s “How to Report a UFO” page has been modified and changed to inform of the shutdown.
The website is still at the moment up and running, but modified with a message from HQ Air Command saying the following: “The MOD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life. However, in over fifty years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.” They go on to say the change has happened largely due to the apparent lack of defense applications to the sightings, and that regardless of their existence or not the objects reported do not seem to pose a direct threat to the United Kingdom or its people. The reporting services of the program are no longer functioning, but they will continue to release UFO reports previously made to the MOD.
This change may or may not make a significant impact on the UFO community, but its impact is suspected by many UFOlogists and bloggers to be less profound than previously suspected. The phenomena of Unidentified Flying Objects does not inherently mean aliens, though many sightings seem to defy any other explanation. As a result, the general phenomena of unexplainable aerial occurrences isn’t going anywhere any time soon. There will be hundreds upon hundreds of UFO reports to be made, and a private sector will likely make up the difference. Programs such as MUFON (the mutual UFO network) have been doing an excellent job of cataloguing UFO phenomena in a real-time format and making it possible for investigators to spot patterns in UFO activity. In addition to this, there’s no need to wait for MUFON to declassify their files. The shutting down of the MOD’s UFO program is therefore advantageous to the public that will no doubt be submitting to private organizations that will publish the results immediately rather than twenty years later when a potential pattern is long gone and no longer possible to be investigated on foot.
Still, it is the end of an era when the UK government at least pretended to be actively pursuing this type of phenomenon. Mixed reports from insiders indicate that while the program was taken very seriously by some (and the information passed on to others within the Ministry of Defense regularly) others within the group didn’t take it very seriously and became jaded about the whole phenomenon of UFOs. While the big disclosure disappointment seemed to take place in mid-November when many believed full disclosure would take place, still others are still hopeful. And they say the shutting down of this program is yet another step in the direction of having all their ducks in a row when disclosure finally does happen.