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This MoD file, titled UFOs - Persistent Correspondence - Dr David Clarke, holds Dr David Clarke's Freedom of Information requests and emails to the Directorate of Air Staff from 2005 to 2008. Clarke asked for the DI55 report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region and for Rendlesham papers. He also sought records about Nick Pope. Other items include an internal review that released redacted passages on plasmas, the MoD's statement that it had no report of the 2008 South Wales police helicopter sighting, and a 2009 disposal form.
“Works”36 pages
in November 2005 in response to an FOI request from Section 40 and they confirmed that they had records of "one satellite which decayed on 5 November 1990. The object was SCC number 20925, International Designator 90094 C, Gorizont 21 platform. The object had a radar cross section of about 5.0 square metres and its destruction by burning in the Earth's atmosphere would have been visible from the ground. The actual decay time is unknown, but has been calculated to be between 1700 and 2100." While RAF Fylingdales are always helpful in providing us with information should we request it, they are not required to inform DAS or DAO every time they track such debris which they do on a daily basis. As you will be aware, our only interest in UFO sighting reports is to establish whether there is evidence of a threat to UK airspace, not to provide an aerial identification service. We do not therefore contact RAF Fylingdales every time we receive a sighting report. I hope this is helpful. Yours sincerely, ## Section 40 Directorate of Air Staff - Freedom of Information From: david clarke [mailto: Section 40 Sent: 22 May 2006 17:32 Importance: High 22 May 2006 Please find attached response following up your letter of 28 April and including a fresh FOI request. I have also posted a copy of this request today which you should receive shortly. Further to our telecon last week I mentioned that a group in the Netherlands had completed a thorough investigation of the 1990 sighting made by RAF Tornado aircrew. The results of their findings can be seen at the following link: http://www.ufonet.nl/nieuws/tornado/index2.html (you may have to click on the UK flag to obtain a translation to English). As I explained the UFO sighted by the Tornado crews is clearly explained here as a misinterpretation of the burning debris from the Soviet Proton-Gorizont rocket body. It is a pity that MoD records on this case do not appear to contain any information upon this explanation. I'm sure that either DAO or RAF Fylingdales would have been aware of the presence of the space debris at the relevant time. I notice with amusement that Mr P has again cited the Tornado sighting in the context of "unidentified" UFOs in his article in the Daily Express on 15 May, again under the byline of "Ministry of Defence UFO Project." Yours sincerely, David Clarke
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 160 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.