UFO's and Defense What Should we Prepare For

"Concrete problems are raised that call for a response
in terms ofaction"
by General Bernard Norlain, IFormer director of the lnstitut des Hautes Etudes de Defense
Nation ale
(Institute for Advanced National Defense Studies I(IBEDN)]
When General Letty visited me in March I995 at my office at IHEDN to explain to me
his project for creating a new committee for study of UFOs, I assured him of my interest
and referred him to the management ofthe IHEDN Auditors Association (AA), which •
Igave him its support. Knowing that some twenty years earlier the AA had produced and
published a preliminary report on the subject in its bulletin, it was but time to update it.
Denis Letty seemed to me to be the perfect one to spearhead this task~ one month Iearlier, in February, he had organized, within the framework of the Ecole de l' Air [Air
Force Academy] Alumni Association, a conference on unidentified aerospace phenomena.
Before a large public, some ofour comrades, former pilots, spontaneously related their Iencounters with UFOs. The person in charge of studying these phenomena at the CNES
then presented his results, and a well-known astronomer described a scientifically
acceptable version of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I
The fields of knowledge affected by the UFO phenomenon are very diverse, and
General Letty was able to find within the AA, but on the outside as well, numerous Iexperts whose efforts h~ coordinated. The list of high-level civilian and military degrees
of the members of his committee is very impressive: officers, engineers, and specialists in
physics, life sciences, and social sciences were able to deal with all aspects of the study. I
This is not a purely academic study. Concrete problems are raised, and not only for
civilian and military pilots, that call for a response in tenns of action. The makeup of ICOMETA [Committee for In-Depth Studies], which is the name ofthe committee, took
these into account. Almost all of its members have, or had during the course of their
careers, important responsibilities in defense, industry, teaching, research or various Icentral administrations.
I express the wish that the recommendations of COMETA, which are inspired by good Isense, will be examined and implemented by the authorities of our country. The first
report of the AA favored the creation within CNES of the only civilian government agency
known in the world dedicated to the study of UFOs. May this new report, which is much
more in-depth, give new impetus to our national efforts and to indispensable international
cooperation. IHEDN will then have well served the nation and, perhaps, humanity.
"Consider all oftile hypotheses"
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