Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in the UK Air Defence Region (Project Condign)

Commissioned during a 1996 policy review of how the Ministry of Defence handled UAP reports, the study analysed available data primarily to determine whether there was any evidence of a threat to the United Kingdom and, secondarily, whether any potential military technologies of interest could be identified. The report examined reports over decades and concluded that UAPs do not represent a defence threat. It proposed that many unexplained sightings could be explained by buoyant, electrically charged atmospheric plasmas or other natural phenomena, along with misidentifications of conventional objects. The executive summary and volumes recommend that DI55 no longer monitor routine UAP reports, noting that further scientific study of plasmas might have novel applications but that no extraordinary aerial craft were indicated by the data.