It looks like Britain has discovered its Ramsey Clark

And the award for biggest doofus of all time to hold a high government office goes to:

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

Mr Pope decided to speak out about his worries after resigning from his post at the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD this week.

"The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.

"If you reported a UFO sighting now, I am absolutely sure that you would just get back a standard letter telling you not to worry. ''Frankly we are wide open - if something does not behave like a conventional aircraft now, it will be ignored.

"The X-Files have been closed down." If these words had come from a sci-fi fanatic, they could be easily dismissed by cynics.

But Mr Pope's CV - he was head of the UFO project between 1991 and 1994 - cannot be ignored.

When he began his job, he too was sceptical about UFOs but access to classified files on the subject and investigation of a series of spectacular UFO sightings gradually changed his mind.

And while Mr Pope says that there is no evidence of hostile intent, he insists it cannot be ruled out.

"There has got to be the potential for that and one is left with the uneasy feeling that if it turned out to be so, there is very little we could do about it," he said.

Standard mockery is just too easy for folks like this.