This is an image captured by British private pilot David Hastings in 1985 while flying a Cessna Skymaster plane over the Mojave Desert. Hastings didn't see the cigar-shaped object when he took the picture. It only showed up after the picture was developed"They were only interested in sightings that definitely had a bearing on aircraft or flight safety, and were no longer interested in reports from the public, who'd seen things in the sky and reported them to the Civil Aviation Authority," said David Clarke, the official UK National Archives consultant and a journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.Clarke, seen at right, told the Huffington Post that the Civil Aviation Authority -- a different government department from the MoD -- kept separate records of UFO cases, "not only by the aircrew, themselves, but also anything unusual that was seen by air traffic controllers on the ground at airports."
Through the filing of Freedom of Information requests, Clarke found that the Royal Air Force specifically requested any UFO reports submitted to the Department of Transport would no longer be forwarded to the MoD.
The RAF specifically states that "members of the public who make such reports are not encouraged to believe an investigation will take place."
It's now known that British air traffic controllers have been receiving UFO reports on almost a regular basis.
Speaking on the BBC Radio's "Today" programme, on Aug. 17, Richard Deakin, the head of the UK's National Air Traffic Control Services, was asked if he or his staff had ever been unable to identify a flying object.
"Well, occasionally, there are objects that are identified that don't conform to normal traffic patterns -- not just from the UK point of view, but from around the world," Deakin responded. "I have to say it's not something that occupies a huge amount of my time."
Deakin added that these sightings occur "typically around one a month."
If that's true, then Clarke's calculations of how many actual UFO sightings were written up as Mandatory Occurrence Reports, or MORS, was substantially higher.
"As far as MOR reports that I got from using the Freedom of Information, from December 2004 to October 2010, their actual database listed 10 instances of UFOs or unidentified aircraft," said Clarke.
"Now [Deakin] is saying they get a report every month," he added. "If that was the case, I'd expect it to be 80 in that six-year period, not 10. So, my question is: Where did all the others go?"