Open Skies, Closed Minds, a book on ufology

Ufology

Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...

, expresses the views of Nick Pope

Nick Pope

Nick Pope worked for 21 years at the British Government's Ministry of Defence from 1985 to 2006. He is best-known for a job that he did from 1991 to 1994, where his duties included investigating reports of UFO sightings, to see if they had any defence significance...

, a former UFO investigator with the British Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 (MOD).

The book provides an overview of the UFO

Unidentified flying object

A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...

 phenomenon, with the emphasis on Pope's three-year tour of duty as the Ministry of Defence's UFO desk officer. It examines a number of well-known UFO cases, including the Roswell crash

Roswell UFO incident

The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...

 and the Rendlesham Forest Incident

Rendlesham Forest Incident

The Rendlesham Forest Incident is the name given to a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights and the alleged landing of a craft or multiple craft of unknown origin in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, in late December 1980, just outside RAF Woodbridge, used at the time by the U.S....

, as well as a number of less well-known cases from the MOD's UFO case-files. Pope also discusses the politics surrounding the way in which those within government and the military view UFO phenomena.