user posted image rThis is the fifth in a special series of Raiders News Network interviews focusing on the 60th Anniversary of the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO Incident. Tom Horn is joined by Nick Pope, former project leader for the British Government's UFO department at the Ministry of Defence. Initially skeptical, Nick's research and investigation into the UFO phenomenon and access to formerly classified government files on the subject soon convinced him that the phenomenon raised important defence and national security issues, especially when the witnesses were military pilots or where UFOs were tracked on radar. Horn: Nick. Thanks for joining me today. Earlier this year I emailed you when Britain declared it was going to open its MoD UFO files to the public. Because you had ran this department for the British Government, I wanted to know if we should expect anything unusual in these materials. You emailed me back to say that I should not expect a smoking gun, but that there were some devils in the details. What has been the result of the MoD files going public?

Pope: Although a good deal of material is already available at the National Archives and on the MoD website, the rest of the UFO files have yet to be made public. Two separate things are happening right now. Firstly, 24 Defence Intelligence Staff UFO files are going to be considered for release. These were part of a much larger batch of files (on various subjects) that had been contaminated with asbestos. Originally it was feared they'd have to be destroyed, sparking outrage from historians and leading to various conspiracy theories. At huge cost, the files have now been decontaminated and can be considered for release in the normal way. Numerous ufologists have made Freedom of Information Act requests in relation to these files. The second thing that's happening is that the MoD has decided to release its entire archive of UFO files, not least because of the increasing burden of responding to FOI requests (the MoD get more FOI requests in relation to UFOs than on any other subject, including the war in Iraq). This is a massive job and may take months, if not years, as personal details of witnesses have to be removed, along with any information that would genuinely compromise national security - e.g. information on the capability of military radar systems.

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