On May 15, 2006, the UK Ministry of Defence released an expurgated version of the classified Project Condign report, formally titled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) in the UK Air Defence Region, through its Freedom of Information publication scheme.12
Origin
The public release grew out of a 1996 MOD policy review into how unidentified aerial phenomena sighting reports were handled. The archived MOD release page states that the study was undertaken to determine whether such reports had value for Defence Intelligence, whether they indicated any threat to the UK, and whether they revealed potential military technologies of interest.1
In Parliament, Defence Minister Derek Twigg later identified the report's official title and said it had been commissioned by the Scientific and Technical Directorate of the Defence Intelligence Staff to determine whether sighting reports copied to DIS contained intelligence value. He also said the full report had been classified Secret UK Eyes Only.3
The MOD publication record dated the document's creation and proactive release to May 15, 2006, and said it was made available to a wider audience after a Freedom of Information request. The release page also noted redactions under FOIA exemptions for defence, international relations, and personal information.1
Who
The archived MOD publication record listed Air Command as author and MOD as owner for the main release page. The linked executive summary page likewise listed Air Command, while Volume 1 was listed under DAS FOI and the later volume pages under Air Command.12456
Dr David Clarke, one of the researchers who pursued the material through FOI, later described receiving the redacted Condign text from MOD official Linda Unwin after using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain it from Defence Intelligence Staff holdings.7
The report's named author was still withheld in 2007. In response to Norman Baker, Defence Minister Adam Ingram said the author was a long-term DIS contractor and that name and identifying details were being withheld under data-protection law.8
What was released
The MOD publication page linked the report as an executive summary and three volumes. The executive-summary page described the summary as containing findings and recommendations, while Volume 1 covered background, methodology, database construction, and statistical analysis.24
Volume 2 contained supporting technical point papers on the phenomena, and Volume 3 covered classified radar-performance data, possible military applications, and the assessment of UAP as aviation hazards. Those volume descriptions show why the public version was redacted rather than released as an ordinary historical file.56
MOD's 2009 Freedom of Information Publication Scheme guide preserved the release in the public catalogue, listing the executive summary, all three volumes, later internal-review releases, and the main UAP report as free website publications.9
How evolved
The 2006 release changed Project Condign from a closed Defence Intelligence Staff product into a public reference point for UK UFO policy. Hansard later confirmed that the expurgated version was already available on the MOD FOI website, while the complete report remained classified.3
The report also shaped MOD practice after completion. Ingram told Parliament in March 2007 that the report had circulated inside DIS, other MOD branches, and the RAF, and that DIS stopped monitoring UAP sighting reports because they held no Defence Intelligence value.8
Later National Archives public material placed Condign inside the broader release of MOD UFO files. In a National Archives UFO files talk, Clarke summarized the project as a late-1990s MOD study funded after the 1996 policy review and completed in 2000, marking the end of a longer official intelligence thread on British UFO reports.10