French Government UFO Study

... ·.. ·
.... _............ . ......•., :- ........ ;
. : '
...
•:.·-.·.· .: ..
FRENCH GOVERNMENT UFO STUDY
•presentation to the Scientific
Counsel of G.E.P.A.N. of Studies
Undertaken During the First
Semester of 1978," (June 1978, 5
volumes, approximately 500 pages).
This report of the French
governmental UFO study group
GEPAN1 documents the studies
carried out by the group during the first
part of 1978. Three special groups
(rapid intervention, physical traces,
radar alert) were created as part of the
study group's functions, but they were
little used during 1978. Instead, the bulk
of work was devoted to 11 cases of high
credibility and high strangeness. Eieven
such cases were studied in great detail;
only one proved to have a conventional
explanation. In the other 10, it appeared
.that the distance between the witnesses
and the objects was less than 250
meters. Of the five volumes of the
report, three were entirely devoted to
analysis of these 11 cases, all except
one of which was pre·1978. The earliest
was 1966. Two of the cases were
humanoid sightings.
The analysis and investigation was
carried out. by a four-"person team in
each case; the team included a
psychologist, who separately carried
out a psychological examination
relevant to the evaluation of the
testimony of the witnesses. The care
with which distances, angles, and
psychological factors were evaluated
makes the bulk of the Condon Report
seem very poor by comparison. In
many cases, the investigations were
textbook models of how. such
investigations should be carried out.
In 10 of the 11 cases, the
~lusion was that the witMsses had
witnessed a material phenomenon that
could not be explained as a natural
phenomenon or a human device. One
of the conclusions of the total report is
that bel)ind the overall phenomenon
there is a "flying machine. . . whose
modes of sustenance and propulsion
are beyond our knowledge."
GEPAN was created in 1977,
l.Dlder the direction of Dr. Claude
6
Poher. Poher has now resigned, feeling
that he has done everything he co~ld do
with the methods at hand. Nonetheless,
the organization has not been
disbanded but continues its work.
During 1977. it was largely concerned
with checking Poher's statistics, which
it approved.2 During 1978, it has
expanded its operation into the
investigation of actual cases. It is
alerted to actual cases by teletype by
the Genclarmerie, the French national
police force. The above report has
reportedly been approved by GEPAN's
supervisory scientl.'ic counsel.
Note: the original repbrt was
limited to 120 or 140 copies and was
secret. It is not available for general
dissemination, and in any case is in
French. There is extensive coverage in
the report of the T eheran case, but
nothing beyond what is. known to
American researchers; it was not one of
threleven cases studied, all of which
were in France.
!Group d'Etudes Des Phenomenes Al!ro-
spatiaux Non-ldentifiees
2Although it did study two nocturnal light cases,
both of which ended up labelled "unidentified". __
(Submitted by Ron Westrum.)