MOD file DEFE 24/2032/1

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• FRENCH AIR FORCE VERSUS ~£8
e bz Lt Col Gaston Alexis·
-Since last year, the specialist and general press, radio- and televisio~ netwrks
have been paying an inc1·easing amount of attention to UFOs. Certainly, public
interest in this subject has not yet reached the level of 1954, which caused
two I-1Ps, Messrs Jean Nocher and Leotard, to put a written q-aestion before the
Secretary-of State for the Armed Forces, on October 22, concerning the role
of the armed forces in this at"ea. It i.e true that Mr Galley, the thel'!
Minister of Defence, recalled it clearly at his interview on France-Inter~
In view of the currency of· the aubjoc~ however, it seems useful tc recall
the role of the air force in this matten to present the UFO dossier hold by
thea and to sumhlarize the various theories and counter-theorie~ which exiet in
France.
The Role of the Air Force iu this Al~ea~ ?::TTl mrs
At the end of the last world war, a seientific bureau was set up within the
Air Ministry to follow the development of aero-apace techniqueo and technologies
and the progress in the knowledge of the aero-terestrial and spatial envil~nment
in which aircraft and satellitas have their beinge It has since become a fore-
casting and development bureal.\ but its ro::.es have not changed. In 1951, when
the wave of statements on the appearance of 11myaterious heavenly objects''
increased in volume in France, this bureau, on ita O"cn initiative, opened ~
dossier on the subject in order better to appreciate the nature and location of
these manifestations in French airspace.
In 1954, the Secretary of State fo~ the Armed Forces asked the air force to follow
up thia question on an official basis from that time on •
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An Instruction from the air force staff put th~e cl.eeision iuto concrete form.
All high commands were asked to communicate to the "air" scientific .bureau all
evidence of UFOs collected on their territory.