The National Archives of Britain released 209 files and approximately 52,000 pages of information on UFOs collected by Britain’s Ministry of Defense.
According to The Guardian, the goal in releasing this information is to create a sense of openness about the Ministry of Defense’s involvement with UFO reports. They believed that it would fight against “the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation” that often comes with their involvement.
The statistics compiled by The National Archives show that the UFO files have been very popular. Since the release of the first UFO document, more than 3 million visitors from over 160 countries have viewed the documents.
USA Today reports that the files reveal the real reason why the Ministry of Defense decided to shut down the public UFO hotline in December of 2009. The hotline was described as having “no defense benefit.” Also, there was a lack of evidence of extraterrestrials in over 50 years of reports.
The documents show an average of 150 reports of UFOs per year, but in 2009 there was a spike. 643 reports of UFOs were recorded which made the amount of work “unmanageable.”