Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South and a former shadow defence secretary, has told Peter Skafish of the Sol Foundation that he was “definitely misled” by the UK Ministry of Defence over whether Britain works with Five Eyes partners on UAP.
The ministers’ written answers said the MOD had not joined any international grouping focused on UAP since May 2023, and pointed back to the old line that Britain stopped investigating sightings in 2009. A documentary trail – U.S. Navy emails, New Zealand Official Information Act releases, a Pentagon working-group agenda, and an Information Commissioner’s Office decision – shows British officials were coordinating with the U.S. UAP Task Force and later AARO before and during that May 2023 caucus.
Lewis is not claiming non-human craft. He is claiming Parliament was not told the truth about allied meetings.
The records do not stop at meetings. Liberation Times previously reported that a Five Eyes intelligence assessment classified an object engaged by an RAF Typhoon over Syria in December 2021 as UAP. The RAF described it as a hostile drone and said it had been destroyed. Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, who said they had seen the assessment, stated that it did not confirm destruction. The assessment itself has not been released, so those details cannot be checked independently. They do show how UAP-related reporting can move among allies while the MOD tells Parliament it no longer investigates the subject.
What Ministers Told the Commons
Lewis put written questions to the MOD in July and August 2025. Then-Armed Forces minister Luke Pollard said the department had not conducted or commissioned any UAP studies since 2013, and repeated that investigations ended in 2009 after more than 50 years of sightings showed no military threat.
On international work, Pollard wrote:
“The Ministry of Defence has not participated in any international groupings specifically focused on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) since May 2023.”
Lewis then asked whether UK cooperation with the Five Eyes UAP Caucus was ongoing. Veterans minister Louise Sandher-Jones did not answer yes or no. She referred him back to Pollard’s earlier reply.
Skafish put that exchange to Lewis. Lewis said Five Eyes members have openly said they are working the issue together. “So, have I been lied to? I’ve definitely been misled.”
The Paper Trail Ministers Did Not Cite
John Greenewald of The Black Vault published U.S. Navy emails in June 2025 showing an introductory briefing between the UAPTF and Five Eyes representatives being arranged for late 2021 – subject line “UAPTF Intro (unclassified).” Australian researcher Grant Lavac supplied Liberation Times with New Zealand OIA emails on the same chain. British officials Owen Rimmer (Royal Navy lieutenant commander) and Annabelle Janes (then a senior Army intelligence officer, later a colonel and defence attaché) appear as UK points of contact. The records show the 2021 briefing was postponed, not that it never existed. Rimmer forwarded the invitation and served as the UK point of contact. Janes had already done a U.S. Army exchange at the National Ground Intelligence Center; by 2025 she was the British defence attaché to Thailand.
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough later confirmed a Five Eyes meeting with AARO in 2022, refusing to name which countries attended. On 24 May 2023, an official Pentagon agenda listed the UK alongside Australia, Canada, and New Zealand as partners due to give a UAP update at AARO’s inaugural Five Eyes UAP Caucus Working Group. The MOD’s Defence Intelligence Secretariat later confirmed two of its officials attended – a fact also recorded in an ICO decision.
In June 2024, Gough told Liberation Times that AARO “continues to discuss areas of mutual interest and concern related to UAP with its FVEY partners.” After Rimmer and Janes were named, the MOD refused to confirm or deny whether it held their UAP/Five Eyes correspondence, citing national security and international relations.
Liberation Times notes the careful gap: Pollard’s “since May 2023” line is not directly disproved by the 2021–22 papers. What those papers do show is UK involvement up to and including the May 2023 caucus, continued Pentagon language about FVEY talks, and a ministerial refusal to say whether Britain is still in.
Australia Already Had to Walk Back a Denial
The same May 2023 meeting tripped Australia. On 19 July 2023, the Australian Department of Defence told then-senator Peter Whish-Wilson that Australia had not attended AARO’s UAP briefing. On 15 December 2023 it reversed: a defence representative from the Washington embassy had attended and presented. Air Marshal Robert Chipman had told Senate Estimates in November 2022 he was unaware of formal UAP discussions with the United States.
Lavac called that pattern “very concerning” – either the Air Force chief was uninformed, or the answers were designed not to land on his desk.
”We’re a Democracy Too”
Lewis served as a British Army infantry officer in Afghanistan. He will not judge in public whether UAP are non-human. He will judge whether the public is being cut out.
“I don’t make a public judgement on whether UAP are real, whether the technology exists or whether we have been visited by non-human intelligence. I just think there is a discrepancy in what we’re being told, and I think the British public have a right to know. The U.S. public seem to be hearing things that we should also be hearing here in the United Kingdom. We’re a democracy too.”
He added that some classification is legitimate – and that history is full of secrets kept because they were inconvenient, not because they protected the realm. “At some point, someone somewhere in my government, or one of the institutions around it, has decided that the British public should not hear about this. As a parliamentarian, I have an issue with that.”
Nick Pope, who ran the MOD’s UFO desk in the 1990s, has said for years that Five Eyes sharing on UAP was already happening through the UAP Task Force. Lewis is now putting that claim on the floor of the Commons with names, dates, and a ministerial answer that does not match the allied paper.
| Date | Record |
|---|---|
| Late 2021 | UAPTF–Five Eyes intro briefing arranged; UK officers on the email chain; meeting postponed |
| 2022 | Pentagon confirms a Five Eyes meeting with AARO; attendees unnamed |
| 24 May 2023 | Inaugural Five Eyes UAP Caucus; UK listed to give an update; two MOD Defence Intelligence officials attended |
| June 2024 | AARO “continues to discuss” UAP with FVEY partners |
| July–Aug 2025 | Pollard: no international UAP grouping since May 2023; Sandher-Jones refers Lewis back to that answer |
| 29 Aug 2026 | Lewis: “I’ve definitely been misled” |
Sources: Liberation Times · Chris Sharp on X · Jeremy Corbell on X
