Government Funded UFO Study in France

by Charles Lear

Many countries around the world have active, state funded, long-term UFO studies. If the United States Congress follows up on the recommendation in the recently released Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force report that “additional funding for research and development could further the future study of the topics laid out in this report,” the U.S. may soon have one as well. The U.S. has had two acknowledged, publicly funded UFO investigations in the past. One was run by the Air Force under the name of “Project Blue Book” for most of its existence from 1948 until 1969, and the other by the Pentagon from 2007 until 2012 as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. While the 21-year run for the Air Force investigation may seem substantial, the investigation funded by the French government has lasted more than twice as long.

The group studying UFOs in France is now operating as Groupe d’Etude et Information des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés or GEIPAN. The group was first called Groupe d’Etude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, or GEPAN, when it was started in 1977, and then Service d’Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrée Atmérique, or SEPRA from 1988 to 2004. GEIPAN operates as part of the French Space Agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES.

France has a long UFO history and received international attention in 1954 with a flap that involved reports of UFOs (called soucoupes volantes in France at the time) along with occupants. French UFOlogist Aimé Michel published “Glimmering Lights on Flying Saucers” (Lueurs sur les Soucoupes Volantes) that year and became the go-to French UFO expert. A young Jacques Vallée (the model for the scientist Claude Lacombe in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”), who’d had a sighting himself, wrote to Michel, the two became friends, and Vallée developed a lifelong interest in UFOs that he still pursues today as the most famous French-born UFOlogist.

France’s space agency is the largest in Europe as a result of Charles de Gaulle’s determination to develop a space program independent of the United States. GEIPAN works out of CNES Technical Headquarters in Toulouse. When the program was first established in 1977, it was headed by Dr. Claude Poher who, when he was the director of the Scientific Systems and Projects division of CNES, campaigned for its creation along with CNES President Hubert Curien.

Poher was introduced to the UFO mystery by Project Blue Book scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek during a trip to the U.S. in 1969. He kept an association with Hynek as a member of a group of scientists with an interest in UFOs known as the “Invisible College,” and in 1975, he presented a statistical analysis of worldwide UFO reports to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Once GEPAN was established, its staff initially consisted of Poher and a secretary, but it quickly grew to around ten scientists and engineers. GEPAN also worked with outside volunteers and consultants and GEIPAN does so today as well.

GEPAN established four classifications for cases that remains in effect today:

A: Perfectly identified phenomenon.

B: Probably identified phenomenon.

C: Unidentified phenomenon (lack of evidence.)

D: Unidentified phenomenon (after investigation.)

In 1978, Poher announced his conclusion to GEPAN’s Scientific Council that  category D sightings were of physical machines of unknown origin. Soon after that, CNES offered him the opportunity to take a sabbatical, which he did, and on his return he was no longer involved with GEPAN though he reatained a personal interest in UFOs.

GEPAN established a relationship with many public agencies and received reports from the Air Force, Navy, Gendarmerie Nationale, weather agencies, and local police departments. It was found that the reports from the Gendarmerie best suited GEPAN’s purposes and that relationship has been maintained.

When SEPRA replaced GEPAN in 1988, it was headed by Jean Jaques Velasco, who had been with the program from its time as GEPAN, and he stayed in that position until SEPRA was dissolved in January 2004. That year, a book Velasco co-authored with Nicolas Montigiani, “OVNIS l’évidence,” was published in which Velasco stated his belief that some UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin. Though SEPRA no longer existed, Velasco was still “in charge of mission” according to CNES spokesman Arnaud Benedetti, during an interview with Gregory Gutierez on May 28, 2004. Gutierez concluded from the interview that CNES wasn’t concerned with Velasco’s publicly stated views on UFOs.

In October 2005, it was announced that the program would be resumed with a new director, Yves Sillard, who had recently been the Assistant Secretary General for Environmental and Scientific Affairs for NATO. It was named GEIPAN and has operated under that name up until the present. Then, on March 22, 2007, under the directorship of Jacques Patenet, GEIPAN announced that they were posting their files online for public view, and they continue to do so to this day. CNES prepared for the announcement by placing a barrier of security guards in front of the building to “to screen out uninvited UFOlogists” according to a CNES official quoted in an article on news24.com. According to Patenet, the GEIPAN website crashed within two hours of the announcement.

One case investigated by GEIPAN was deemed worthy of its own Wikipedia page, and it provides an example of how the CNES UFO investigation operates. It’s known as the “Trans-en-Provence case” and it involved a sighting of a disk that landed on the ground about 50 meters (160 ft) away from a farmer on January 8, 1981.  The farmer, Renato Nicolaï, said that it took off almost immediately and that it left behind burn marks.

Nicolaï reported his sighting to the local gendarmerie the next day. They interviewed Nicolaï, took soil and plant samples from the site, and took pictures of the burn marks. They notified GEPAN and that group carried out their own investigation. GEPAN’s analysis found traces of phosphate and zinc in the samples, that the ground had been compressed by a weight of between 4 and 5 tons, and that the ground had been heated to between 300 and 600 °C (572 and 1,112 °F). GEPAN found no prosaic explanation for the case.

For more cases, the reader is urged to visit the GEIPAN website. It can be viewed in French or English, and it’s easily navigated. Hopefully, if Congress agrees to fund a program in the U.S., France’s open investigation will serve as a model.