Australian Dept of Defense Scientific and Intel Aspects of the UFO Problem

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8.

RAAF ATTITUDE TO UFO's

The Directorate of Air Force Intelligence is the component of the RAAF that is responsible for the analysis of all official reporting of Unidentified Flying Objects. At no stage has there been more than one part-time officer allocated to this task. Initial investigation of reports is often undertaken by a part-time investigator from near-by air bases. The RAAF admits that its interests lie solely in the area of air defence and it lacks both interest and competence to consider the scientific aspects. A 1957 request for the Scientific Intelligence section of JIB to accept UFO responsibility was rejected by JIB. In 1968, the Department of Air stated that it intended "to take up further the question of Commonwealth departments, e.g. Defence, Supply, Education and Science, Prime Minister's Department etc. to see whether some other Commonwealth Agency is better placed to assume responsibility for Unidentified Flying Objects. At the same time we would maintain our interest in the matter and work with any other Commonwealth agency who is considered to be more appropriate as a co-ordinating agency for the Commonwealth as a whole". There does not appear to have been any fulfillment of this intention to seek Commonwealth assistance.

2. In support of the RAAF's admission of scientific disinterest, an identification list of all sightings made between 1960 and 1965 contains 15 identifications of Venus, not one of which is valid. In every case Venus was in a totally different part of the sky or not even above the horizon. Out of 37 meteor identifications, only 9 could possibly be meteors and even several of those cases would be doubtful. This off-hand unscientific attitude to identification did not escape the notice of the press or various scientists.

3. In general, the RAAF attitude has been guided by the USAF public releases which were aimed at alloying public interest by denying the reality of UFO's. Consequently, most of the Australian reports were given identifications without a great concern for rational correlation. Most investigators and collectors regarded their UFO tasks as an intrusion into their more legitimate tasks. As a result, there has been a negligible scientific analysis of the data and most opinions expressed by DAFI have been, largely a reflection of the USAF public attitude. With the present reduced staff of DAFI

National Archives of Australia

NAA A13693, 3092/2/000