France Opens Secret UFO files Covering 50 years
By Marlowe Hood
March 22, 2007

PARIS (AFP) - France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.

The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

"It is a world first," said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of "non-identified aerospatial phenomena."

Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.

"Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.

But many others involving multiple sightings -- in at least one case involving thousands of people across France -- and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.

A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained.

Of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25 percent are classified as "type D", meaning that "despite good or very good data and credible witnesses, we are confronted with something we can't explain," Patenet said.

On January 8, 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern France, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a strange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5 meters (eight feet) in diameter land in his field about 50 meters (yards) away.

A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off, he told police, almost immediately, leaving burn marks. Investigators took photos, and then collected and analyzed samples, and to this day no satisfactory explanation has been made.

The nearly 1,000 witness who said they saw flashing lights in the sky on November 5, 1990, by contrast, had simply seen a rocket fragment falling back into earth's atmosphere.

Patenet's answer to questions about evidence of life beyond Earth was sure to inflame the suspicions of those convinced the government is holding back: "We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena."

But then he added: "Nor do we have the least proof that they aren't."

The CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually written up by police. Of these, 10 percent are the object of on-site investigations, Patenet said.

Other countries collect data more or less systematically about unidentified flying objects, notably in Britain and in the United States, where information can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.

"But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public," Patenet said.

The aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research.

The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports.

To visit the website: www.cnes-geipan.fr.

Any link to the website ??????

Sounds like nothing more the French version of Bluebook, rather than revealing true secrets.

It is hardly a first- Bluebook has been publically availabe for years, and despite the high-level story of "nothing interesting here", Bluebook still contains many unexplained cases.

And, many of Blue Book's explained case files are flawed. I won't be surprised at all if more nations come forward over the next few years and reveal what they know about UFOs.

I agree. Many cases over many decades remain unexplained, however, more countries will most likely follow France's lead on opening up these cases.

I dont see the point of that.....wouldn't it just make more sense to say nothing rather than to put something out that you're going to have to defend all the time ?
At least if it's the truth as opposed to propoganda it will stand by itself

Thanks!

It seems that over the years, a pattern is emerging.





The Disclosure Project

http://www.disclosureproject.org/


The COMETA Report

http://netowne.com/ufos/important/cometa.htm

UFOs fly near Indian PMs house

http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/36030/were-t...-pms-house.html

Yes, I've seen it too. I think it's a positive thing. It allows more minds to investigate the phenomena, and allows governments to take a heavy load off their backs by opening up case files.

Now we have to wait and see when the US government will come out and tell the truth.

The US Blue Book investigations of civilian sightings have been open for years, you can find all of them online. It sounds like the French release is the same type of project, despite all the hype of 'first country to do this'. It doesn't sound like there's any smoking gun there.

agreed ...nothing new here...it could even be disinformation?....nice to see they are talking about it at least...........

Yes indeed, and it seems the ball keeps right on rolling along.



More on that story.

Jet Chase Over Brazil
May 19, 1986

Summary:
As many as twenty UFOs were seen and tracked by ground radar and at least six airplanes. Unidentified radar returns were tracked by airports in São Paulo and the Integrated Air Defense & Air Traffic Control Center (CINDACTA) in Brasilia. Two F-5E and three Mirage jet fighters were scrambled from Santa Cruz AFB in Sao Paulo State, and Anápolis AFB in Goias State.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case51.htm

Yes, that's another one that is an excellent example of the numerous military encounters with UFOs.

Depends on the cases. We all know that the UFO phenomena is very real, no doubt. However, I think one of things that most so-called debunkers fail to account for is the fact that the modern UFO-era began right at the end of WWII and at the start of the Cold War which seriously clouded the phenomena due to international geopolitics. Debunkers are still caught up in that past, where governments were not sure if these UFOs were sonehow connected to their geopolitical enemies.

What was missed by scientific skeptics was the fact that the anomalous sightings were increasing, and with physical traces left behind. Because of the potential Cold War implications, and internal politics, governments were forced to cover the growing UFO phenomena in shrouds of secrecy while putting out disinformation due to the geopolitical climate of most of the 20th century.

Most of this changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when past cases such as those of Corona, New Mexico (Roswell) and many other UFO cases between the years 1947-1990 came back into the limelight.

The shattering UFO cases from Mexico, especially the daylight filming of UFOs over Mexico City in July 1991 highlighted the increasingly anomalous sightings around the world such as those in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and the cases of the triangular crafts filmed by the Belgian military in 1989.

However, generations age, and new generations come of age, and the UFO phenomena continues, so, it is only natural that sharper minds that are clearly more open to the increasing anomalous sightings of UFOs are studying past cases with more information. Governments are wise to release their findings as this will help to sift through all the deliberate mis-information surrounding real cases, and allow them to be looked at with fresh eyes in an effort to discover the truths about the worldwide UFO phenomena.

Depends on the cases. Looking for a "smoking gun" in any one case isn't the point ~ especially when it comes to anomalous UFO phenomena. What is important is to look at what the entire picture of UFO cases shows over the decades.

absolutely, and I'm sure this move will bring alot more interesting cases to light. I'm just reacting to all the hype that this move is somehow Earth-shattering or it's the first time something like this has happened.

hmm i wonder if the alians know any french such as " I Surrender" or "run away"

Well it is not Earth-shattering that's for sure, but IMO its a big step in the right direction!

BTW, the site is finally up and running.

Here's the link.

http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/geipan/

Was France really the first? I thought Belgium, Argentina, and a few others had been much more open about UFO's for quite a while.

That's true those countries and others have been open about UFOs. However, France is the only country who's official Space Agency, CNES, has studied UAP for over thirty years. In that respect it truly is a first.

hopefully they will buy a server that can handle the web traffic.........

I hear that bro ....I've been trying all day but i still cant get in.....I hope they've got an English language version.
I s'pose whn all the hoo ha dies down it'll be easier....just goes to show the amount of interest in this though.
I have no doubt that when the cases are picked apart piece by piece by the tons of amateur researchers trawling through it that some interesting stuff will come to light....pieces of a jigsaw.

I've been on the site. I can tell you that there is a heck of alot there, it's not just simply a list of UFO cases. There are Scientific Papers, Statistics, that kind of stuff, but as of right now it's all in French.

i wish i could get on there. fwiw ... use http://www.google.com/language_tools and translate website from french to english.

I am still having trouble but I will keep trying.

still broken...i've never accessed it once....

I am anxious to see what's in those files, especially those for the months of March thru June 1990.

maybe the NSA is making the site inaccesible until they've censored it....

Reminds me of the jammed lines when the Disclosure Project began.

I wonder how easy it is to just shut a website down; the "party" finds undesirable....

IF the breakdown were intentional, it’s much more likely that the French Gov. would be holding it up, while negotiating with the NSA about censoring sensitive material... IMO, the French would undoubtably notice outside ‘censoring’ and simply re-post the reports...

Actually this was in the news yesterday. The hits were so high and often that it flooded their allocated bandwidth and the system had crashed a number of times.

They are trying to figure out what to do.

Sorry no conspiracies - just good old Internet Bandwidth crash.

Agreed. It'll be a few weeks before it all calms down, and then the site will be most likely available easily for viewing.

http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/geipan/

First page translated reads-


Reception
What the GEIPAN?
Documentation
Seek
Statistics
Contact
New files
Opening of the gate of information of the GEIPAN. More than 350 cases are available right now representing a great part of the ground observations made during 20 last years.
Addition 22-03-2007

Welcome on the gate of the GEIPAN Opening of the gate d information of the GEIPAN This site will allow, in the long term and in the respect of the private life of the citizens, to place at the disposal of the public l'ensemble data collected since 30 years by the GEIPAN on the not identified aerospace phenomena. D'ores and already nearly 25 percent of the cases observed are available and consultable, which represents the majority of the 20 last years observations. The site will be regularly updated progressively with the validation of the data, including the photographic documents and videos which are in the course of digitalization. The GEIPAN thanks you for your patience and hopes that this site will answer waitings of the majority of the people interested by the phenomenon UFO.

you can translate pages using yahoo's babel fish..just incase anyone didn't know..

I've been on there today....no problems ,Unfortunately i cant speak French so i may as well not have been there.

I translate French to English well, if anyone wants partly transcripts you can send me a message.

Upon first view, the importance of this series of publications lies more in its timing, than in its contents. The French want to show the world that the UFO phenomenon, for which an extraterrestrial origin is acknowledged, is serious. The closest way in which official politics will allow disclosure is this quasi-straightforward way of telling the public that something real is going on.

Such a signal was also sent by releasing the semi-official Cometa Report (English translation here).

Looking forward to viewing these files.. Going to ask a good friend if they can translate a few of the files for me..

The COMETA report is very interesting! Here are a couple of French reports.

1994 UFO

http://www.ufocasebook.com/1994af3532.html

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case1062.htm


1954 UFO

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Rouen/Rouen.htm

I've already seen enough proof...if they translate it to english I will check it out...

Good post DeltaT. Thanks.

Many of the sights are now open, and since France has opened their books on the phenomena, we are bound to see and hear more of the history behind the history of UFOs.