The X-Files - UFO facts and figures

This summer, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprise their roles of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files: I Want To Believe. We take a look at some great facts, figures and anecdotes on UFO's.


In the Second World War some RAF pilots saw and reported strange discs and other craft. One was dubbed "the wingless wonder". US pilots who saw them called them "Foo Fighters".

The MoD's formal interest in UFOs goes back to 1950 and investigations began in 1953.

The United States Air Force used to investigate UFOs and the programme was codenamed Project Blue Book.

The Ministry of Defence's UFO project has no codename.

Most UFOs reported to the MoD are misidentifications but around 5% of sightings remain unexplained.

The most commonly misidentified objects reported as UFOs are bright stars and planets, meteors, satellites and aircraft lights.

To date, the MoD has received over 11,000 reports of UFO sightings.

The MoD received more reports (750) of UFOs in 1978 than in any other year before or since. That was the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in the UK.

The Ministry of Defence received the first report of a crop circle in 1985.

King Henry VIII's old wine cellar still exists in the basement of MoD Main Building on Whitehall. Patrolling security guards have seen ghosts in this part of the building.

Another old MoD building in Whitehall, Metropole Building, is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a chambermaid who was murdered in the building when it was previously used as a hotel.

The MoD has allowed paranormal investigators access to some reputedly haunted parts of the Defence Estate, including Coalhouse Fort and Master Ropemaker's House at Devonport Naval Base.

A member of the public wrote to the MoD about alien abduction. The MoD's reply stated "Abduction is a criminal offence and as such is a matter for the civil police".
In the Nineties, in an attempt to deal with the negative connotations of the term "UFO", the MoD started using "UAP" - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

The MoD's 2001 study into remote viewing (i.e. using psychics to locate and describe people and objects of interest to the authorities) was formerly classified Secret - UK Eyes Only.

In May 2008 the MoD began the process of releasing its entire archive of UFO files.


The X-Files: I Want To Believe will be released in UK cinemas on 1st August 2008.