Teh One Who Knocks
06-07-2011, 07:31 PM
Michael Santo - Huliq News
Cue the X-Files theme music, as conspiracy theorists may make hay with this information: Australia has admitted it has lost its "X-Files," meaning its data on UFO sightings, after a two month Freedom of Information (FOI) search.
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Reportedly, decades of information have been lost. These included investigatiions into untold numbers of UFO sightings being reported all over the continent. The Royal Australian Air Force had intelligence officers which diligently checked the known movements of aircraft against reported UFO sightings, responding to everyone who claimed they saw unknown . Some of the files were marked as classified.
The Sydney Morning Herald sent an FOI request to the Defense Department. It hoped to achieve the same results as occurred in the case of the British government in 2010: after a number of FOI requests and much pressure, the U.K. released a large portion of its UFO database. The resulting information, more than 4000 pages of Defense Ministry documents, with details on approximately 800 reported UFO sightings during the 1980s and 1990s were then posted online.
However, Australia's Defense Department ran into issues. After two months searching its offices for files related to the Herald's FOI request (which was seeking ''a schedule of records held by the Department of Defence … which relate to unidentified flying objects"), the department came back with a sheepish response.
In late May, the department's FOI assistant director, Natalie Carpenter, responded to the request with only one file titled ''Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera;" according to Carpenter, the others had been destroyed. She added,
''We also discovered one [other] file, which had not been destroyed but could not be located. 'In an effort to retrieve this file our office conducted searches of the Defence Record Management System, National Archives Australia [Canberra], National Archives Australia [Chester Hill], Defence Archives Queanbeyan and Headquarters Air Command, RAAF Base Glenbrook.
''Despite searching these locations, the files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost.''
Interestingly, even if the records had been found, the Australian Defense Force decided to stop collecting UFO reports in November 2000. In a policy memo, the ADF said:
''For many years the RAAF was responsible for the handling of Unusual Aerial Sightings (UAS) at the official level. 'This function ceased in 1996 after consideration of the scientific record suggested that there was no compelling reason for the RAAF to continue to devote resources to the recording and investigation of UAS.
''The ADF does not accept reports on UAS and does not attempt assignment of cause or allocation of reliability. Members of the community who seek to report UAS to ADF personnel are to be referred to their local police authorities in the first instance, or alternatively to seek contact numbers for civil Unidentified Flying Object research organisations from the relevant state telephone directory.''
Cue the X-Files theme music, as conspiracy theorists may make hay with this information: Australia has admitted it has lost its "X-Files," meaning its data on UFO sightings, after a two month Freedom of Information (FOI) search.
Share
Reportedly, decades of information have been lost. These included investigatiions into untold numbers of UFO sightings being reported all over the continent. The Royal Australian Air Force had intelligence officers which diligently checked the known movements of aircraft against reported UFO sightings, responding to everyone who claimed they saw unknown . Some of the files were marked as classified.
The Sydney Morning Herald sent an FOI request to the Defense Department. It hoped to achieve the same results as occurred in the case of the British government in 2010: after a number of FOI requests and much pressure, the U.K. released a large portion of its UFO database. The resulting information, more than 4000 pages of Defense Ministry documents, with details on approximately 800 reported UFO sightings during the 1980s and 1990s were then posted online.
However, Australia's Defense Department ran into issues. After two months searching its offices for files related to the Herald's FOI request (which was seeking ''a schedule of records held by the Department of Defence … which relate to unidentified flying objects"), the department came back with a sheepish response.
In late May, the department's FOI assistant director, Natalie Carpenter, responded to the request with only one file titled ''Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera;" according to Carpenter, the others had been destroyed. She added,
''We also discovered one [other] file, which had not been destroyed but could not be located. 'In an effort to retrieve this file our office conducted searches of the Defence Record Management System, National Archives Australia [Canberra], National Archives Australia [Chester Hill], Defence Archives Queanbeyan and Headquarters Air Command, RAAF Base Glenbrook.
''Despite searching these locations, the files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost.''
Interestingly, even if the records had been found, the Australian Defense Force decided to stop collecting UFO reports in November 2000. In a policy memo, the ADF said:
''For many years the RAAF was responsible for the handling of Unusual Aerial Sightings (UAS) at the official level. 'This function ceased in 1996 after consideration of the scientific record suggested that there was no compelling reason for the RAAF to continue to devote resources to the recording and investigation of UAS.
''The ADF does not accept reports on UAS and does not attempt assignment of cause or allocation of reliability. Members of the community who seek to report UAS to ADF personnel are to be referred to their local police authorities in the first instance, or alternatively to seek contact numbers for civil Unidentified Flying Object research organisations from the relevant state telephone directory.''