UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record

by Leslie Kean

  I first became aware2 of UFOs in 1965 as a captain in the 3rd staff headquarters of the Tactical Air Force (FATAC) in the city of Metz, when I received all the reports submitted by the national police in the territory of the 1st Area. Some were disconcerting. Since there was no perceptible threat, we simply filed them away. At first I was only a bit taken aback, but then competent pilots I knew personally gradually admitted having been confronted by these phenomena.

  One was Hervé Giraud, now a colonel, who in 1977 was flying a Mirage IV with his navigator at about 32,000 feet after dark. They saw an extremely bright light approaching on a collision course, heading straight for them. Giraud radioed military air traffic control, which had no radar track on his scope. He had to bank to the right to avoid the object and then tried to keep in visual contact with it. It moved away, and then either it came back or something identical arrived. Giraud felt as if he was being watched at this point, defenseless, and both men were upset, while the pilot had to maneuver into another tight bank. Still, there was nothing picked up on radar. They returned safely to the base at Luxeuil.

  Captain Giraud reported that he perceived that the object was solid and immense, comparing it to running into an eighteen-wheeler at night with all the lights on. It didn’t emit any light beams, but glowed with a steady, brilliant white light that obscured any shape behind the illumination.

  Two points about this really impressed me. Nothing other than a combat aircraft could perform with the speed and maneuverability of this object. But if it were a combat jet, it would have been registered on radar, especially at that low altitude. In fact, no traffic was picked up by the air traffic controllers anywhere in the area of the Mirage IV. Second, the speed of the object during both encounters was so high during a sharp turn that it would have been supersonic. This means that if it were a combat plane, it would have made a loud sonic boom that would be heard on the ground and in the surrounding area, especially while things were quiet at night. No sound was heard anywhere.

  There were other cases involving pilots flying Mirage fighter jets and in-training aircraft. But one more account in particular left its mark on me. In 1979 I learned that Air Force Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek, then a Mirage III pilot, had seen a UFO. It was most unusual, because this was not while he was flying, but had taken place at his home in a village near Dijon, during the day. The object was very low to the ground, at close range. I wanted to meet him to discuss this, and I arranged to do so three months later on the Strasbourg base. On another occasion, I went to his home and visited his wife, as well, who also saw the UFO.

  He told me that on December 9, 1979, at around 9:15 a.m., his wife was coming down the stairs to prepare breakfast when she saw a strange disc-shaped object through the window. She called for Fartek to come and look. The object was hovering low to the ground, in front of a row of apple trees, branches of which could be seen behind it; because of that, the captain could measure the distance of about 250 meters (820 feet) from their house. It was approximately 20 meters (65 feet) in diameter and 7 meters thick. The weather was clear, with excellent visibility. I still have the notes that I wrote during the meeting in the presence of Captain and Mrs. Fartek, which say:

  The object looked like two reversed saucers pressed against each other, with a precise contour, a gray metal color on the top and dark blue below, with no lights or portholes.

  It was about three meters from the ground, not stabilized, and then rose to the level of the trees, while continuously oscillating, then went down again slightly and stopped. It went up a little once again, always while oscillating; it tilted and accelerated quickly to reach a speed much higher than that of a Mirage III, and disappeared.

  Captain Fartek and his wife provided many other details. There was a clear delineation between the top and the bottom parts of the craft, and the difference in color could not have been due to effects of the sunlight. The clarity and precision of the shape of the object left no doubt that it was something solid and physical. The disc looked like it was revolving symmetrically around an axis, but the oscillations were slow, as if it were trying to find its balance. It moved without any sound. The witnesses could clearly see the trees towering just behind it, but couldn’t tell whether it cast a shadow. Captain Fartek carefully checked for turbulence underneath the object while it hovered, but he couldn’t detect any, and it left no trace on the ground. Its departure speed was so extraordinary that it disappeared over the horizon in a few seconds.

  Captain Fartek reported this incident to the air guard station at the base. He says that other people also saw the phenomenon but didn’t dare report it, such as his neighbors and their children. At the time, the base commander instructed Fartek not to talk about this, because he was concerned about ridicule.

  Captain Fartek was very upset by this experience. He told me when we met that the sighting called into question his perception of what were then called “flying saucers,” because he had never believed in them. Now, he acknowledged to me, after seeing this craft he could no longer doubt their existence. Hearing his testimony, I, too, did not have any more doubt about the reality of the phenomenon. In fact, taken together, I found the Farteks’ testimony so disturbing that I have been preoccupied by the UFO problem ever since. In 1996, after he became a major, Captain Fartek was interviewed for the COMETA study that I initiated, and even then, after seventeen years, he was still visibly shaken by what he saw. His case was documented in our report, in the section about sightings from the ground.

  Drawing by Captain Fartek of the object he observed with his wife in 1979. Collection of Jean-Pierre Fartek

  The decision to create a twelve-member “Committee for In-Depth Studies,” abbreviated to COMETA, to study UFOs, was made in 1996 within the association of veteran auditors of the French Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense, a government-financed strategic planning agency. Since France had been officially studying UFO cases for twenty years, a substantial database of well-investigated and thoroughly documented cases had been gathered by our government agency. In fact, France was a world leader in this process. We felt it was time for an assessment addressing the current situation around the world and defense issues, and the need for international cooperation in dealing with this global problem.

  I initiated the private study and became chairman of the group. General Norlain, former commander of the French Tactical Air Force and counselor to the prime minister, and André Lebeau, former head of CNES, were happy to help us and agreed to play major roles. All three of us were retired from the military by this time, although until 2002 I was chairman of an aeronautical company working mainly for French defense.

  The investigation lasted from 1996 to 1999. We began by interviewing people who had witnessed UFO phenomena in France and then proceeded to review the best cases that had been recognized and thoroughly studied around the world. We drew on data only from official sources, government authorities, pilots, and the air forces of France and other countries. In the process, we assessed and consolidated the best information and presented our research to the appropriate French authorities.

  All the testimony we retained for the COMETA Report is supported by tangible pieces of evidence: radar echoes, tracks on the ground, photographs, electromagnetic phenomena, and even the modification of the process of photosynthesis in plants. Many accounts given by totally independent witnesses confirm one another. It became clear that at least 5 percent of sightings for which there is solid documentation cannot be attributed to man-made or natural sources. Our experts examined all possible explanations for these cases.

  We wanted to demonstrate that the UFO phenomenon is real and is not the result of fantasy. I was astonished to discover, and now know for certain, that silent and completely unknown objects sometimes penetrate our airspace with flying capabilities that are impossible to replicate on Earth. And these objects appear to be operated by some kind of intelligence. The COMETA Report shows, in a straightforward manner, that the extrater
restrial hypothesis is the most rational explanation, although of course it has not been proven.

  Since the release of the report, I have often quoted General Thouverez, commander of the French air defense force, who in 2002 acknowledged that unknown objects could sometimes be seen in the sky over France and that consequently, it was our responsibility to study them seriously.3

  Because of statements like this, my co-authors and I believed it was important to submit the COMETA Report to the highest authorities of the state, and we forwarded it to the prime minister and to the military cabinet of the president. In the interests of informing the public, we also published the report in France. At the time of its release, France had reduced the efforts of its national UFO agency at CNES considerably, with only two staff members remaining. After the release of our report, the agency was resurrected and renamed GEIPAN, a process likely facilitated by the support of our group. The COMETA Report has since received worldwide recognition in spite of some virulent denigration by certain people, and when read carefully its findings are impossible to ignore.

  We advocated strong international cooperation on UFO investigations, with the United States, in particular, and continue to do so. The sightings in November 2006 above O’Hare Airport near Chicago and over Guernsey in April 2007, which were reported by pilots and air traffic controllers, reinforced our determination not to give up this effort. We now hope that as we continue to collect reports from many colleagues around the world, we will facilitate greater understanding leading to a unified international effort that will determine the true nature and origin of UFOs. We are ready in our country to play a significant role in such an effort.

  CHAPTER 14

  France and the UFO Question

  by Jean-Jacques Velasco

  Jean-Jacques Velasco was in charge of the French government’s UFO agency for more than twenty years. Although he began his investigations after the close of Project Blue Book, he worked for the French government consistently for about the same length of time as J. Allen Hynek worked for ours. He remained focused and dedicated, as did Hynek, becoming one of the more knowledgeable figures about UFOs in the world. Velasco was an engineer working on the development of French satellites at CNES when he became involved with the new agency studying unidentified aerospace phenomena the year it was founded, 1977, by Yves Sillard. Six years later, he was placed in charge of that agency.

  Throughout his tenure, Velasco worked openly within the French national space agency on UFO investigations and was not burdened by a complex, restrictive military framework. He remains actively involved with UFO case studies today and is the author of several books on the subject.

  For twenty-one years,1 from 1983 to 2004, I was the director of the French program to investigate and analyze unidentified aerospace phenomena. Working within the framework of an official mission with specific responsibilities, I had imposed on myself, as was my duty, great reserve in expressing any interpretations or conclusions on the UFO question. Now, all of that has changed. After these many decades of acquired knowledge and experience, I am no longer restricted and can express my personal conclusions with complete freedom of conscience. Therefore, I have chosen to speak here more freely and with more openness than in my previous publications.

  First, it is possible to show, using data from established cases officially listed throughout the world, that UFOs—material objects—exist and are distinct from any ordinary phenomena. These cases are few, but their extraordinary characteristics and physical effects demonstrate this fact without ambiguity. On the basis of well-established cases, the existence of UFOs is without question.

  UFOs seem to be “artificial and controlled objects,” and their physical characteristics can be measured by our detection systems—particularly radar. They display a physics seemingly far different from that which we employ in our most technologically advanced countries. Ground and on-board radar show that their performances greatly exceed our best aeronautical and space capabilities. These capabilities include stationary and silent flights, accelerations and speeds defying the laws of inertia, effects on electronic navigation or transmission systems, and the apparent ability to induce electrical blackouts. When encountered by military aircraft, these objects seem able to anticipate and neutralize pilots’ defensive maneuvers, as in such remarkable cases as that of General Parviz Jafari over Tehran and the incidents at Malmstrom Air Force Base.2 In such encounters, the UFO phenomenon appears to behave as if it is under some kind of intelligent control.

  My relationship to this subject matter began in 1977, when I was working as an engineer at CNES, the French space agency. That year, CNES was put in charge of launching an official investigation into the UFO phenomenon in France, under the auspices of a new internal agency then called GEPAN.3 I soon learned why CNES set up this department—France had been dealing with the question of unidentified aerospace phenomena for more than twenty-five years.

  It began in 1951, when three Air Force pilots flying separate Vampire F-5B fighters encountered a shiny, silvery round object. Two tried to close in on it, but it was much faster than they were. A UFO wave followed in 1954, in which gendarmes throughout metropolitan France collected over 100 official reports of “flying saucers,” some of which were classified as “close encounters.” In one instance, observed by several thousand people, something strange flew back and forth over Tananarive, which today is Antananarivo, the capital of the island of Madagascar. The witnesses were shopping at the outdoor market in the early evening, and were frozen in place and flabbergasted by what they saw. They described a kind of green ball the size of an airplane, followed by a metallic object shaped like a rugby ball. Dogs were running and howling throughout the city and oxen panicked and destroyed the fences of their enclosures. Most extraordinary was the fact that, during the flight over the capital by this phenomenon, the public power system went off and came back on a few minutes later, after the departure of the “large green ball” and its apparent companion. As might be expected, there was a public outcry and much coverage in the press, all of which prompted an investigation by the French government authorities.

  Twenty years later, in 1974, the Defense Minister, Robert Galley, declared on national radio that there existed an unexplained phenomenon that needed to be studied. At the time, I had no idea I would become so involved with this investigation. Our first task at GEPAN, I realized, was to establish a network of police, gendarmerie, Air Force, Navy, meteorologists, and aviation officials and a methodology so that data from sightings could be reported and centralized. A scientific council comprised of astronomers, physicists, legal experts, and other eminent citizens met annually to evaluate and direct studies.

  This first phase, from 1977 to 1983, reached three basic conclusions, which still remain valid:

  The vast majority of UFO reports can be explained after rigorous analysis.

  However, some phenomena cannot be explained in terms of conventional physics, psychology, or social psychology.

  It seems highly probable that this small percentage of unidentified aerospace phenomena have a physical basis.

  I gradually developed an expertise in these studies, and beginning in 1983 was placed in charge of GEPAN. Following these initial steps, we undertook to develop a more theoretical but still rigorous approach to these studies. It was clear at the outset that it would be necessary to consider both the physical and psychological nature of the phenomenon. In order to fully understand a witness’s narrative account, we had to evaluate not only the stated report but also the personality and state-of-mind of the witness, the physical environment in which the event occurred, and the witness’s psychosocial environment. GEPAN created a database, unique in the world, of all the cases of sightings of aerospace phenomena recorded by the French authorities since 1951, allowing for statistical analysis.

  A classification was adopted that places the UAP (unidentified aerospace phenomena) in four categories:

  Type A: The phenomenon is ful
ly and unambiguously identified.

  Type B: The nature of the phenomenon has probably been identified but some doubt remains.

  Type C: The phenomenon cannot be identified or classified due to insufficient data.

  Type D: The phenomenon cannot be explained despite precise witness accounts and good-quality evidence recovered from the scene.

  In Type D cases, those which remain unexplained, a subcategorization was also adopted using the “Close Encounters” classification established by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, based on the sighting distance and the effects generated by the phenomenon.

  These on-the-spot investigations, carried out at the request of the police or the civil and military aviation authorities, followed by scientific analysis, made it possible to confirm the existence of rare physical phenomena, classified as unexplained UAP, that do not conform to any known natural or artificial phenomena. The statistical analyses and the surveys carried out since the creation of the GEPAN make this even clearer. The Type D category contained more cases during some unusual periods, called “waves,” like the wave of 1954, when nearly 40 percent of the cases in the database belong to this last category.

  GEPAN initiated several lines of research involving other laboratories and consultants in countries where similar events were occurring, which allowed for comparison with additional files and databases. We worked on developing improved detection systems, such as image analysis of photographs and video footage.