April 21, 1996

"The Sunday Times"

Air force jets were scrambled for UFOs 

A SERVING official at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) revealed yesterday that
British jets were scrambled to intercept unidentified flying objects (UFOs)
as recently as the 1980s, write Richard Woods and Steve Ball. 

Nick Pope, who has been called "the real Fox Mulder" after the investigator
in the X Files television series, said RAF fighters had tried to intercept
the UFOs but had failed to lock on to the objects, leaving open the
possibility of error by ground-based radars. 

However, Pope, who was the MoD official in charge of investigating UFO
reports until 1994 and still works for the ministry, said he knew of other
credible reports that UFOs based on high technology had flown over Britain.

Pope is publishing a book in June on UFO incidents and his experience at
the MoD.

"There is no cover-up or a lot of classified information about
extra-terrestrials," he said at Unconvention, a conference organised by
Fortean Times, the magazine about the paranormal. "What there is is a total
lack of official understanding. This is not something that is a joke. Our
air defences have been penetrated by structured aircraft."

About 95% of UFO sightings could be described as ordinary mistakes, he
said, but that still left dozens unexplained. In public, the MoD has always
maintained a sniffy attitude to UFOs and aliens, saying they present no
threat to national security.

To date, the only evidence of its real response has been public records
released many years in arrears. Documents from the 1950s and 1960s were
released last year showing the MoD had scrambled jets to investigate UFOs.