'Following sustained pressure by a small number of UFO researchers during the last 8 years, the British Ministry of Defence have decided to release all of their UFO files.Gary Anthony, Dave Clarke, and Joe McGonagle have been making full use of the Freedom of Information Act and it's precursor, the Code of Practice on access to Government information...

The following is a direct quote from an FoIA response from the MoD explaining the rationale behind the release. Elsewhere in the response, the release was described as "a major exercise, which I believe is unique in MoD history".

"The subject of UFOs is one of the most popular subjects for FOI requests. Answering requests takes a considerable amount of time and resources and can involve officials in days of work, which frequently means trawling through old files to find the information requested. By placing the UFO files on-line at the National Archive in a structured manner, the MoD is able to follow its remit for more open government and, by re-directing applicants to the National Archive site, reduce the amount of time it spends answering requests. By opening our files in this way, we may also help to counter the maze of rumour and frequently ill informed speculation that surrounds the role of the MoD in the UFO phenomena."

<em>Via Dave Clarke, Gary Anthony, Joe McGonagle.
Read their full report <a href="http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/di55docs.html" target="new">here</a></em>