Bad timing for MoD -
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The British Ministry of Defence has just given The History Channel’s
“UFO Hunters”* the sort of publicity windfall that money just can’t buy.
On
Feb. 25, just two days before the network aired an episode on the
Rendlesham Forest incident, the MoD announced it was yanking related
documents off its Web site.
* Exo-UK Note - Just as the MoD document release is "a fairly dull affair" UFOHunters isn't exactly ground-breaking stuff - a kind of Ghost-hunters meets Time-Team approach - taking us in the eternal loops of fake/real logic and failing once more to advance the debate to the point that in these objects are various forms of intelligence - this means more than metal samples. Still onwards and upwards... We've known for decades this area pulls in audiences of all rank and culture - to the point of being an admans' dream.
Its press office cited “breach of
copyright” laws pertaining to public correspondences bundled into the
military data, arguing that “it made little sense” to delete those
letters while trying to uphold their context. The MoD reassured
inquiring minds that said documents — letters and all — could still be
obtained through individual Freedom of Information Act requests.
The
announcement was disseminated to the rest of the world largely through
Nick Pope, an ex-MoD official who worked the Ministry’s UFO desk from
1991-94. Given how long those suddenly withdrawn documents had
languished in the public domain — not to mention the banality of the
accompanying letters that so recently raised the eyebrows of the UK’s
legal eagles — Pope found the sudden move perplexing.
“MOD is its
own worst enemy sometimes,” Pope stated in an e-mail. “(It has) managed
to turn a potential good news story about open government and freedom
of information into a bad news story about cover-ups and conspiracies.”
Indeed,
unlike the U.S., which insults common sense by insisting it doesn’t
collect UFO data, the Brits at least pay lip service to the notion by
logging queries from its citizens who want to report sightings.
Certainly, keeping official links open removes the stigma from British
pilots like Ray Bowyer who, without fear of negative professional
repercussions, felt free to discuss the “mile wide” UFO he and others
spotted over the English Channel last April. No such openness exists
among active-duty American pilots.
The Rendlesham Forest incident
occurred in late December 1980, when U.S. military security working the
UK’s NATO base outside Woodbridge investigated nightime sightings in
the woods nearby. Several Americans reported seeing a UFO on the
ground, as well measuring its attendant landing-gear indentations in
the soil as well as residual traces of radation.
It’s an old case
revisited numerous times, from “Unsolved Mysteries” to Larry King. But
“UFO Hunters” would be derelict if it didn’t exploit the MoD’s recent
maneuver, even if the issue is more about timing than intention.
Meanwhile,
back in the UK, Pope says readers who might not have otherwise been
inclined to review those documents online are still free to do so,
thanks to some real crackerjack quality control.
“MoD haven't
even blocked access properly anyway,” he writes. “There are still ways
of accessing it, e.g. through the Wayback Machine, which gave me
this: http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F0B0EDE5-BCBF-43DA-BCD9-2B96C3A002AF/0/ufofilepart1.pdf.”
So have at it, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s pretty dull fare.
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