Project Hessdalen and the RAAF

Hi all,

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) has just digitised, at my request, file series A9755 control symbol 1 titled "UAS Policy - Hessdalen." The file was originally held by the Chief of Staff, Headquarters, Support Command. It was originally RAAF file 5/6/4 Air Part 1 and consists of 149 pages, of which 50 pages have been withheld as they are outside the date range of the Archives Act.

The papers which have been made available fall into two categories. There are dozens of coloured and black and white images, apparently taken from six strips of negatives. These appear to be shots of lights and then computer enhancements of various types.

The other set of papers on the file are titled the "Project Hessdalen 1984: Final Technical Report Part one." These provide an overview of Project Hessdalen. Hessdalen is the name of a small; valley in Norway where mysterious lights were seen over several years. Instrumented research attempted to determine the nature of these lights. Click here for the Project Hessdalen website.

What was the RAAF's interest?

The RAAF has always maintained that its only interest in the subject of "Unusual Aerial Sightings" as they referred to UAP, was national security. They were not interested in conducting any scientific research on the reports which they classified as "unknown." So, the finding of this file, and particularly its contents, raises the question of who in the RAAF was in fact interested in this scientific research being conducted in Norway?

If any blog reader can throw any light on this question, I'd appreciate hearing from them.