New MOD files released under FOIA - October batch

Right, the usual monthly dump came through and there's actually some interesting stuff this time. Nothing earth-shattering, but worth reviewing.

The October batch includes three UFO sighting reports from 1987 (redacted locations, naturally), one memo about 'airspace incursions' over the Cotswolds in 1992, and a rather heavily censored letter about Rendlesham Forest that we've only got about 30% of.

Most of it's the standard bollocks - 'likely misidentification,' 'weather balloon,' 'swamp gas but make it official' - but the Cotswolds stuff has some genuinely unexplained characteristics that the memo doesn't quite manage to explain away.

I've uploaded the PDFs to the shared drive. The redactions are thick, but you can read between the lines a bit if you're determined.

The Cotswolds memo is brilliant. Even with the redactions, you can see they're baffled by something. The phrase 'beyond conventional aircraft capabilities' actually made it past the censor, which is wild.

The Rendlesham stuff frustrates me because we already know most of it from declassified American sources. Why the UK still won't fully release their files is a mystery unto itself.

the standard bollocks - 'likely misidentification,' 'weather balloon,' 'swamp gas but make it official'

Has anyone tried submitting further FOIA requests specifically for the unredacted Rendlesham documents? Might be worth a coordinated effort. They released most of it in 2023, so there's definitely more they're still sitting on.

@QuietWeasel already tried something similar last year for a different case and got back a letter so redacted it basically just said "Dear [REDACTED], regarding your request for [REDACTED]..."

Honestly though, the really telling detail in this batch isn't Rendlesham - it's the response times on the three new sighting reports. Two of them show RAF scramble authorisation before the civilian report was officially logged. Someone knew something before the ". Official". Notification chain supposedly started. 🤔

Worth cross-referencing the timestamps against the National Archives catalogue to see if any adjacent files got quietly pulled from the same period.