Army Policy & Secretariat Army Headquarters IDL 24 Blenheim Building Marlborough Lines Andover Hampshire, SP11 8HJ United Kingdom Ref: Eqpt/H/ArmySec/FOI2021/03279 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.army.mod.uk Mr Daryl Hall request-727214- 10 May 2021 [email protected] Dear Mr Hall, Thank you for your email of 16 March 2021 in which you requested the following information: “Did the Royal Air Force send any type of helicopter or passenger vehicle to the area known as Milk Hill to observe or be there for some other reason, the 'Trinity' Crop Formation in Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, that was discovered in 2011? You can find out on the internet what that looked like as well as YouTube. Did the Royal Air Force send any helicopters or passenger vehicles to the area known as 'East Field', Alton Barnes, Wiltshire to observe or for any other reason, the Crop Formation known as the 'CBS Logo' that was discovered on or around July 19/20 1994 at that location as the crop formation highly resembled the logo of the media corporation, CBS? An image of which can be found here: https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftemporarytemp les.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F07%2F1994_07_21_east-field- alton-barnes-wilts-wheat-oh-35mm- neg.jpg&data=04%7C01%7CChloe.Tyson101%40mod.gov.uk%7Cf4bdcf01e2b 0441ccb9508d8e91d0f1c%7Cbe7760ed5953484bae95d0a16dfa09e5%7C0%7C0% 7C637515658300013425%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMD AiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=2ie Nl93fXpYG7q08CKceiLN5RUlwVCVf%2B1Euqr8Zv14%3D&reserved=0” I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am writing to confirm that MOD holds some of the information on the subject you have requested, which has been provided below. Turning to the first part of your request which asks about helicopters deployed to Milk Hill in 2011, I can confirm that in the calendar month following the discovery of the crop formation (June 2011), RAF Chinooks were in the area on 17 different occasions. There were no Chinook tasks that were authorised as investigating the crop formation and there is nothing stating that Milk Hill was a specific destination during this time period. It has not been possible to establish if any other types of helicopters were present during this time period due to the limitations of flight logging at the time. Please be aware that the tool now used to ascertain flight paths did not exist in 2011, so the number provided above was for aircraft that were authorised to be in the general area but might not have been specifically in the Milk Hill area. Turning to the second part of your request relating to East Field, Alton Barnes in 1994, the MOD does not hold this information. It is believed that if information is held, it would most likely be in The National Archives whose website I have provided here: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Under S16, you may find it helpful to note that besides Search and Rescue helicopters and the training helicopters at RAF Shawbury, the last time the Royal Air Force (RAF) would have ‘owned’ helicopters would be before the formation of the Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) in 1999. JHC brings under one command, battlefield helicopters of the Royal Navy, Army Air Corps and RAF. For your awareness, in 2011, all Chinooks were based at RAF Odiham. Turning to towards your comment regarding the processing of FOI2021/01727, under S16 of the act, please be aware that the previous refusal under section 12(2) did not confirm that any relevant information was held by MOD. It was confirmation that carrying out a comprehensive search to determine whether or not relevant information was held would, in itself, exceed the appropriate cost limit. If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the first instance. Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of your request, or the content of this response, you can request an independent internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail [email protected]). Please note that any request for an internal review should be made within 40 working days of the date of this response. If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint directly to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not normally investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website at https://ico.org.uk/. Yours sincerely, Ops & Training Desk Army Policy & Secretariat .