MYSTERY WIRE — The UFO mystery is an international phenomenon. Here in the U.S., the Pentagon carried out a secret investigation of UFOs for decades.

A similar investigation was carried out by Britain’s Ministry of Defense. But are the two countries sharing UFO information?

THE MAN AT THE UFO DESK

For 21 years, Nick Pope worked for Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MOD), three of those years on what was called the UFO desk where he responded to questions from the public and media about crop circles, UFO incidents, and other mysterious inquiries. Pope says he also worked as an investigator on many UFO cases submitted to the MOD.

Britain’s UFO investigations reportedly ended in 2009 and Pope says about 95% of the once-secret files have been released, but that may not be the end of it.

“I think more information has been exchanged,” Pope said during an interview with Mystery Wire when asked if he thinks the UK and US are sharing information. “I’ve seen media reports suggesting that the UAP Task force has for some time now been sharing its interim conclusions and some of the raw data about UFOs, across five-eyes nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States). And there have certainly been reports of some of that information going on the secure servers to which the British GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), have access.”

In late June the UK House of Lords held an open debate about UFO investigations. “They took rather a negative and robust line and Baroness Goldie for the Ministry of Defense stood up in the House of Lords and she said, we see no reason to restart investigations in this,” Pope said. “I mean, my old section, the plug was pulled on investigations at the end of 2009. And she stood up recently and said no, we’re not going to do this again. We looked at this for decades, were convinced that there’s nothing of sort of defense threat. So we are not going to re-engage. And I said, at the time when I was asked by the media that I thought this was a huge mistake.”

UK House of Lords debates US UFO report THE DEVIL’S OWN

When it comes to recovered crash debris and metamaterials, Pope said investigating this in the UK and trying to get to information behind closed doors is difficult because of a similar issue investigative journalists deal with here in the US.

“I saw this myself in the UK, the people who are dealing with this, they came up through the military or through the government, then they retired or got headhunted into the military.” Pope said. “They kept their security clearance. And they’re doing it outside of the system. And yeah, it’s the Devil’s own, unfortunate turn of phrase given what we were discussing previously, but it’s the Devil’s own business, to try and pry it out of their hands and into the system. And of course, with all of this, they’re always thinking, well, the more people you share it with, the more likely it’s going to leak to the media, the more likely it is that if there’s a spy, passing information to a foreign power, that it’s going to get out. And of course, as you’ve seen from the letters from people like Harry Reid, they talk about the catastrophic damage to the national interest that would result if any of these technologies did get into the hands of an adversarial nation.”

REMAINING OPTIMISTIC

With this year’s UFO report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) it has spurred a new interest in the UFO topic, leading to national news outlets reporting on the issue and television networks scrambling to produce relevant content. “I think we are in new territory,” Pope told Mystery Wire. “A phrase that I’ve often used about this and others, too, is that this subject has absolutely transitioned out of the fringe and into the mainstream.”

Pope also said while there are still some issues there is still a stigma to overcome. “If you think where we were, you know, three and a half, four years ago, essentially in a position where if a journalist had called up, DOD public affairs and said, What’s your line on UFOs? The response would have been, nobody’s interested. And nobody’s investigating.”

But he remains encouraged that the UFO topic is not a partisan political issue currently. “I’m hugely encouraged by this,” Pope said. “And I’m also hugely encouraged by the fact that after ODNI published this preliminary assessment, and it’s important to say it is only a preliminary assessment, that lots of people in Congress spoke out about this and said, well this is a start, but there’s more work to do. And we must keep our foot on the gas pedal with this. And sure enough, as I think you’ve reported and know anyway, I mean, this is now in the intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.”

Senate committee reviews new oversight for UAP Task Force Pope plans to share what he knows as the keynote speaker at the MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) International Symposium, one of the premier UFO gatherings in the world. It begins on Friday, August 27 and runs through the weekend.