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| UFO: France Opens Secret UFO Files Covering 50 Years |
1012 Views |
| posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 |
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FRANCE OPENS SECRET UFO FILES COVERING 50 YEARS
AFP
March 22, 2007
Original Link
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:
http://www.cnes-geipan.fr
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.
............
NHNE UFOs & Extraterrestrials
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