Nick Pope, the real life Fox Mulder
“Individual UFO researchers and organizations like the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) have always been in the frontline when it comes to investigating UFOs. While government UFO programs such as Project Blue Book did much good work, it’s groups like MUFON that have done the most. Now, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is taking testimony and reports from serving and retired US government, military and Intelligence Community personnel, as well as from government contractors. However, over 95% of UFO reports come not from these people, but from the public. And at present, AARO offers no way for the public to make reports, meaning that the only outlet most people have when it comes to getting people to listen to them and investigate their sightings is organizations like MUFON. So, in one sense, MUFON is doing the job that the US government should be doing, but isn’t doing”
Did you have, while in MoD, support from 'upper level' for investigating UFO cases?
During my time investigating UFOs for the MoD I always had support from more senior levels, because these were my official duties and there is always a chain of command. So my line manager, my second reporting officer (the Deputy Head of Division) and the Head of Division were always there to provide support and advice when needed. I was in the junior managerial/executive grade at the time, so as a young manager this was a particularly important time in my career, especially as - for the first time - I had supervisory duties in respect of the clerical/administrative staff who I managed. That is not to say that we always agreed on things! People have strong opinions about UFOs, and on occasions my bosses agreed with the results of my investigations, but on other cases they disagreed. But I was the "Subject Matter Expert" (the person who - irrespective of their grade - has the most deep specialist knowledge on any particular topic) within the MoD, so even if an important decision was taken by a more senior officer, they would usually follow the recommendation of the SME. I had some very good bosses during my MoD career, and even though I took early retirement many years ago, I am still friendly with some of them, and we stay in contact.
Was it ever 'officially' resolved what was the famous 'Diamond UFO'?
The Calvine UFO case remains unresolved. This involved a large diamond-shaped UFO seen by two witnesses in Scotland in 1990. Six photos and the associated negatives were acquired by the Ministry of Defence, but were never returned to the Scottish newspaper who sent them, or to the two witnesses - one of whom took the photos. There are many different theories about these photos - which were assessed by UK Intelligence Community imagery analysts as being genuine, and not hoaxes. Some people in the MoD believed the object might be extraterrestrial, but others favored the theory that this was a secret prototype aircraft or drone. The fact that the sighting took place just two days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait seems to support the second theory, although it is also possible that the incident was an intelligence operation based around deception - I have been accused of being part of this intelligence operation! The situation was complicated in 2023 when a retired Royal Air Force press officer - Craig Lindsay - came forward to claim that he had a copy of one of the original six photographs. While the image looks similar to a CGI recreation that I helped create a few years ago for a television documentary, neither the MoD nor I have confirmed the authenticity of Craig Lindsay's image. Unless the MoD comments and confirms the authenticity of this new photograph, this is just one of a number of competing claims about this story.
Is the now famous 'Rendlesham event' kind of UK’s 'Roswell’?
The Rendlesham Forest incident from December 1980 has been called "Britain’s Roswell", but while there are some similarities, there are some differences too. The main similarity is that this was the UK’s biggest and most high-profile UFO case. The main difference was that this was an alleged landing and not a crash - the witnesses saw the UFO take off again afterwards! This happened before I joined the MoD, but I undertook a cold case review in 1993. The case is certainly a compelling one, and indeed I wrote a 100,000 word book on the incident, called "Encounter in Rendlesham Forest", written with two of the main US Air Force witnesses, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. It is the only book that I am aware of where the manuscript needed security clearance from the MoD and from the US Department of Defence - the same unit (DOPSR) that is clearing Luis Elizondo’s book. The sightings - including the landing on the first night - took place over three consecutive nights. Most of the witnesses were in the US Air Force, and these witnesses included the Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt. The UFO was briefly tracked on radar. Radiation levels at the landing site were assessed by MoD scientific and technical intelligence staff as "significantly higher than the average background"; the fact that the witnesses were exposed to "UAP radiation" for longer time periods than usual was subsequently confirmed in a UK intelligence assessment of UAP codenamed Project Condign. And all of this is officially recorded in official US and UK government files, so can be fact-checked.
Are we seeing global and gradual release of official UFO/UAP data from various countries? In the 80’s and 90’s, the 'AARO' and officials commenting on these topics for sure would be really unimaginable?
I am not convinced that we are seeing the gradual release of UFO data on a global scale. It is true that some countries have previously released a lot of UFO files. The UK, for example, has declassified and released approximately 60,000 pages of UFO-related documents and sent them to the National Archives. I wrote many of these documents and returned from early retirement to help with the program to release this material. This is one of the reasons I am able to discuss this subject despite my Non-Disclosure Agreement, on the basis that the UK government put documentation on many of the cases that I investigated into the public domain. But the discussion and release of material that we see now largely relates to the United States, and almost all the recent mainstream news media stories about UFOs relate to developments in the US: AATIP and AAWSAP; the US Navy videos; NASA’s study; the reports from the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; AARO; the UFO-related provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act - these are all stories from the US. So while it would be nice if this reflects a wider global trend, this isn’t what I am seeing at present. The US is leading a conversation about UFOs, but most of the rest of the world has not yet joined this conversation. UFOs are a global phenomenon, so I hope other countries will join the conversation soon.
Ivan Trajković
Photo: Nick Pope/ Archive
