Ministry of Defence UFO Policy 2009

This document constitutes a formal administrative file from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MOD) detailing the 2009 policy shift regarding the handling of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) or UFO reports. The file documents the internal decision-making process that led to the cessation of UFO investigations and the closure of the dedicated UFO hotline and email address, effective December 1, 2009. The primary rationale provided for this change is that after over fifty years of monitoring, no UFO report had ever provided evidence of a military threat to the United Kingdom. Consequently, the MOD concluded that investigating these reports provided no Defence value and represented an inefficient use of resources, particularly given an upsurge in reports and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests that were straining staff capacity. The file includes internal correspondence between various departments, including the RAF Business Secretariat and the Corporate Information office, discussing the logistics of this policy change, the management of public expectations, and the ongoing programme to transfer historical UFO files to The National Archives. It also contains drafts of the public statement to be placed on the MOD website, which emphasizes that the MOD does not carry out research into extra-terrestrial matters and that the defence of UK airspace remains unchanged. Furthermore, the file contains discussions regarding the handling of past media requests, including a 1994 interview with Nick Pope, and the rationale for destroying future public reports after 30 days to mitigate FOI liability. The document reflects a deliberate effort to align the MOD's approach with that of other nations, such as the United States, which had previously terminated its own Project Blue Book investigation.