Summary
Project Condign was a secret Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) study undertaken by the British Government's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) between 1997 and 2000. The report is titled ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Defence Region’ and was code-named Project Condign.¹
The study aim was to make a rational scientific examination of the phenomena based on raw material and UK Air Defence Region (UKADR) incident reports and ‘to determine the potential value, if any, of UAP sightings reports to defence intelligence’.
The introduction of Project Condign states “that UAP exist is indisputable” and further says:
“Credited with the ability to hover, land, take-off, accelerate to exceptional velocities and vanish, they [UAP) can reportedly alter direction of flight suddenly and clearly can exhibit aerodynamic characteristics well beyond those of any known aircraft or missile – either manned or unmanned.”
The author of the report, whose identity has never been officially disclosed, was an UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) contractor with high security clearance and evident scientific training.
The results of Project Condign were compiled into a 400-page document titled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region² that drew on approximately 10,000 sightings and reports that had been gathered by the DI55, a section of the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI) within the DIS. It was released into the public domain on 15 May 2006 after a September 2005 Freedom of Information Act request by UAP researchers Dr David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, and Gary Anthony, an amateur astronomer from Yorkshire.³
Project Condign Background
The initial request in 1993 for an MoD research project into UAP was shelved, but in a later memo dated June 19, 1995, following a surge in UAP reports, an unnamed wing commander at DI55 wrote: "Until we conduct some analysis of the files, we will not have any idea what the many reports represent. If at any stage in the future UAPs are shown to exist, then there is the potential for severe embarrassment."⁴
Study Findings
Key findings from Project Condign included:
Study Recommendations
Although Project Condign could not offer any certainty of explanation of UAP, its key recommendation was that ‘it should no longer be a requirement for DI55 to monitor UAP reports as they do not demonstrably provide information useful to Defence Intelligence’.
Subsidiary recommendations included the recommendation that there be no further requirement for maintaining the UK’s UAP database. The report also recommended that findings should be made available to the appropriate RAF Air Defence and other military and civil authorities operating aircraft, ‘particularly those operating fast and at low altitude.’
The study also advised the following:
The recommendation not to out-manoeuvre UAP during intercepts relate to reports referenced in the study that several aircraft belonging to Russia, former Soviet Republics and Chinese authorities had been destroyed and four pilots killed ‘chasing UFOs’.
Reaction
Dr David Clarke and Gary Anthony, who made the original Freedom of Information request, leading to the release of Project Condign, noted that during the years of this study the UK government continued to maintain publicly that it had no interest in UAP.
Clarke and Anthony wrote:
‘At face value the study was commissioned to determine, once and for all, if the UFO phenomenon posed any form of threat to UK national security. The main outcome, as would be expected, was to support the MoD’s policy—which has remained consistent for more than half a century—that UFOs, whatever their origin, were “of no defence significance.’
Both Clarke and Anthony concluded that Project Condign is ‘replete with errors’ although despite its flaws is an ‘important document in the history of ufology,’ including its author’s trust in accurate reporting of UAP from the public. They went on to suggest that the ‘main raison d’être, to remove the sensitive Defence Intelligence section of the MoD from the unwelcome publicity it had received as a result of its involvement in the UFO business.’⁵
Through further investigation, Clarke, in 2018, was able to find evidence to support his theory that the study was merely a mechanism to remove DI55 from investigating UAP, when a ‘UK Restricted’ minute dated 16 April 1998 from Project Condign’s author stated⁶:
‘I am particularly looking ahead to my expected recommendation, that DI55 should no longer be involved in UAP monitoring’.
One of the errors that Clarke has since written about is the study’s suggestion that UAP could be attributed to plasma, with Clarke commenting in 2018⁷ that:
‘The fact remains that ‘plasmas’ are no more valid than extraterrestrials as a scientific explanation for the unexplained residue of UFO sightings.’
In a 2020 article, Clarke⁸ stated that the anonymous author of Project Condign was electronic warfare, radar, air defense and guided weapons expert, Professor Ron Haddow, who Clarke describes as ‘the MoD’s former UAP consultant’, and former GEC Marconi scientist. Clarke has claimed that journalists at several UK national newspapers are aware of Haddow’s involvement in Project Condign, and in a transcript provided to Clarke, the person thought to be Haddow writes⁹:
‘Someone has given our (my) name and number.’
Adding that:
‘This could raise awkward questions since [the UFO desk] not long ago denied publicly that any work was going on. UFOlogists know about DI55 because of the [National Archives] and subsequent TV leaks…at best the name and telephone number will be throughout the UK ufologists in a matter of days.’
He went on to write:
‘At worst the press could get hold of it!…Any disparity in future responses will be seen by the UFO community as a “sensitive” cover up and only serve (in their eyes) as confirmation’.
Aftermath
In 2009, the MoD’s UFO desk closed, with UK defense officials citing that it served "no defence purpose" and was taking staff away from "more valuable defence-related activities," in line with Project Condign’s recommendations, although as reported by Dr David Clarke, DIS shut down its UFO unit in 2000 following delivery of the study¹⁰.
As of 2022, MoD’s position is as follows:
‘The MOD has no opinion on the existence of extra-terrestrial life and no longer investigates reports of sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unidentified Flying Objects. This is because, in over 50 years no such reporting to the Department indicated the existence of any military threat to the UK, and it was deemed more valuable to prioritise MOD staff resources towards other Defence-related activities.’¹¹
Since Project Condign and the closure of the UK’s MoD UFO desk, no further study of UAPs has been publicly acknowledged by the UK Government, although a debate did occur regarding the topic on 30 June 2022 in the House of Lords¹², following the release of the United States government’s UAP Preliminary Assessment¹³.
