Australian Department of Defence - UAP files from 1985-1994

Hi all,

UAP files 1951-1984:

Due to the efforts of a number of Australian researchers, namely Sydney based Bill Chalker in the 1980's; the Disclosure Australia Project team in the period 2003-2008,and lately the efforts of Melbourne based researcher Paul Dean and myself, almost all of the known Department of Defence UAP files for the period 1951-1984, have now been digitised and are available for you to view on the website of the National Archives of Australia.

UAP files 1985-1994:

This leaves Defence Department UAP files for the period 1985-1994 (the DOD ceased taking UAP reports for the public in 1994, rounded up all its UAP files and deposited them in the National Archives under file series A9755.)

Under an arrangement with the Department of Defence, Dominic McNamara and myself, as part of the Disclosure Australia Project had an opportunity to examine these 1985-1994 UAP files at RAAF Base Edinburgh in the year 2004. Under the watchful eyes of RAAF Military Police we were allowed to take notes, but not to record personal details of witnesses. We reported our findings on these files in Newsletter 15 of the Disclosure Australia Newsletter. Although I submitted an FOI request for copies of all these files, the request was denied on the grounds that it would take too much effort on behalf of the DOD to photocopy the several thousand pages, redact personal details and re-photocopy and supply me with these documents.

Times change:

I  decided recently, to test the waters again, and submitted an FOI request to the DOD for two DOD UAP files which were recorded on the NAA's RecordSearch but lay partly outside the dates accessible by the Archives Act. I was pleasantly surprised to be advised by the DOD that, yes I could have copies of the documents held on these two files. I have now received them.

I also had details of three more files held by the NAA that lay partly or totally outside the dates accessible by the Archives Act and so submitted a second FOI Act request for these files. Yesterday I received PDF copies of them, making five new files, the contents of which have not been previously available in full.

I will report on the contents of these files in a future blog post, when I have had time to digest them.

To read the Disclosure Project Newsletters please go to http://www.auforn.com/DisclosureP.htm