1 - The Black Vault

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DRAFT reply to Dr Clarke
I am writing further to my letter of29 September in which I indicated that I
hoped to be able to reply to you in greater detail during the course of the first
week in October.
Towards the end of your own letter of 4 September you summarised your
request for access to information under the Code of Practice on Access to
Government Information, asking five main questions. I shall answer these in
the order they were asked.
• DSIIJTIC Report No 7 Unidentified Flying Objects (1952) and
related intelligence reports on UFOs 1951-52- I can confirm that a
review of the closed files has taken place but none were found to contain
the report you seek. As a consequence of this, and earlier searches which
failed to locate the report, we conclude that it has not survived the
passage oftime. (Question: can we just say destroyed?) However, this
latest review identified a number of 'UFO' related papers and copies of
these papers may be made available to you at your request, as I shall
explain below.
• BJ 5/311 Records of the Meteorological Office, Unidentified Flying
Objects: meteorological aspects, 1968-79- The file contains some 300
enclosures, mostly letters to and from members of the public, and is due
for release to the Public Records Office in January 2001. You may wish
to view the file at that time but, should you not wish to wait, it would be
possible to sanitise the documents and supply copies to you (see below).
• AIR 2/18564 Air Ministry/MOD, 'UFO' Report West Freugh 1957-
1971 - This file is for release in January 2002. In the meantime it would
be possible to sanitise the dozen or so pages before containing personal
details, photocopying the full number of around 50 and supplying you
with those copies (see below).