After receiving a concerned letter from a member of the public afraid of a governmental alien cover-up Blair asked the Ministry of Defence for their policy in case aliens invaded.

Defence staff told the former PM the ministry “has only a limited interest in UFO matters, but remains open minded about extraterrestrial life forms”.

They assured him that any release of information would require substantial resources.

Blair wrote back to author of the concerned letter and UFO expert Nicholas Redfern “There is no Government sponsored research into the UFO phenomena and there are no plans to initiate such work”.

He added that the information could be requested under the Freedom of Information Act, but was subject to clauses including personal privacy and confidentiality.

The correspondence came from one of 6,700 pages of classified documents released today by the National Archives.

Britain’s “UFO files” include government briefings, letters from UFO scientists and numerous alien sightings.

They also outline the role of a UFO desk officer entrusted to handle Freedom of Information requests.

However, he admitted that many of his investigations involved searching the Internet.

Dr. David Clarke who lobbied the Ministry of Defence to release the files told the Telegraph, “It was Tony Blair’s government which brought in FOI requests and it opened a floodgate for people to ask about UFO files.

“At that point in 1998, they were probably being inundated with requests. The Ministry of Defense realized it was something that wasn’t going to go away and gave him a briefing.

“Now, we now have a fascinating insight into some of the extraordinary reports and briefings which passed over the UFO Desk on a daily basis and how its officers used logic and science in their attempts to explain ‘the unexplained’.

“What it actually tells us is that far from running around the country doing investigations, they didn’t really have any special equipment or knowledge, or the resources to pursue it.”

Tony Blair has described the Freedom of Information Act as one of his greatest mistakes while in office, but perhaps Blair was afraid the public would discover his home was on a planet far far away…

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