LONDON: Britain’s Defense Ministry shuts down its UFO unit four years ago after concluding that extra-terrestrials likely did not exist, and in any case did not pose a threat, previously secret files released yesterday showed. The Ministry of Defense closed its hotline in 2009 despite a trebling of reported sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) that year, many of them near national landmarks.
In a briefing for then Defense Minister Bob Ainsworth, civil servant Carl Mantell said the UFO desk was using up increasing amounts of staff time but had “no valuable defense output.” He wrote in a memo that in more than 50 years, “no UFO sighting reported to the ministry has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK.”
UK shuts down UFO desk after finding no threat
