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PREFACE

Writtten by General Bernard NORLAIN, former director of the Institute of the High Studies of National Defense.

When the Letty general visited me in March 1995 in my office of 1 ' IHEDN to expose me its project of establishment of a new committee of study on the UFO, I ensured it of my interest, and addressed it to the direction of Association Listeners of 1 ' IHEDN (AA), which gave its support to him. Knowing that some 20 years before, 1 ' AA had produced, and published in its bulletin, a first report/ratio on the subject, it was only time to bring up to date it. Denis Letty seemed to me very indicated to animate this task; one month before, in February, it had organized, within the framework of the Association of the Alumni of 1 ' School of air, a conference on the not identified aerospace phenomena. In front of a public many, some of our comrades, old pilot, had exposed theirs spontaneously meetings with UFO. The person in charge for the study of these phenomena within the CNES had then presented its work and a known astronomer had described a version scientifically acceptable of the extraterrestrial assumption. The fields of knowledge concerned with the phenomenon UFO are very diverse, and it Letty general knew to find within the AA, but also outside, the many ones competences of which it coordinated the efforts. The list of the high level, civil diplomas and soldiers, of the members of his committee, is impressive: officers, engineers, specialists physical sciences, life sciences and social sciences could approach the study in all its aspects. It is not a question of a purely academic study. Concrete problems arise, and not only with the civil and military pilots, who call a response in terms of action. The composition of COMETA, name of the committee, in held account. Near total of its members have, or had during their career, of the important responsibilities in defense, industry, teaching, research, or various police headquarters. I formulate the wish that recommendations of COMETA, inspired by the good direction, are examined and implemented by the authorities of our country.

The first report/ratio of_1 ' AA had supported creation with the CNES of the only known civil official service in the world devoting to the study of the UFO. Can this new report/ratio, much more deepened, to give a new impulse with our national efforts, and an essential co-operation international. The IHEDN will then have served well the nation and, perhaps, humanity. Bernard Norlain, General of Air Army (Cr).

FOREWORD

The accumulation of the well documented observations made by credible witnesses oblige from now on to not consider all the assumptions on the origin of the Flying Objects Identified, the UFO, and in particular the extraterrestrial assumption. The UFO, make from now on part of our media environment; films, emissions of television, books, publicities etch treating of the UFO show it amply. Although no characterized threat was perceived to date in France, it seemed necessary to former listeners of the Institute of the High Studies of National Defense_(IHEDN), to give a progress report on the subject. Associated qualified experts coming from horizons very varied, they gathered, within the framework of the Association of the Listeners of the IHEDN, _to form a committee independent of thorough study baptized Comets. Chairing this committee, I would like to thank the general Bernard Norlain, old Director of the IHEDN, Mr. Michel Desmoulin, President of Association, and Mister André Lebeau, former President of the National Center of Space Studies, without which COMETA the day would not have seen.

I want in addition to express our recognition with the various people who have agreed to testify or contribute to this study, and in particular with: Jean-Jacques Velasco, person in charge for the SEPRA within the CNES, François Praises, Director General of the Fleximage company, Jean-Charles Duboc, Jean-Pierre Fartek, Rene Giraud, pilots civil and military, Edmond Campagnac, old Directing technical of Air France in Tananarive, Michel Perrier, Major of the National Gendarmerie, Mr. Soun of the Directorate-General of the Civil aviation, Joseph Domange, general of the Air Force, deputy general of Association. I make a point of also thanking the commander for the Center of Command for Air operations of the Air Force for its participation at the time of the investigation into flight AF_3532 of January 28, 1994. Among the members of COMETA, which did not spare their sorrow during nearly 3_years, it is possible for me to quote: Michel Algrin Doctor d' Etat in political sciences, Lawyer at the Court, AA (35 "), 'Pierre Bescond Engineer general of the armament, 2nd section, AA (48 "), Denis Blancher Police chief of DST, Jean Dunglas Doctor-Engineer, Engineer general of the Agricultural engineering of Water and of Forests, AR (48 "), Bruno the Monk General of the Year of the Air, 2nd section, AA (41°), Francoise Lépine of the Foundation for the Studies of Defense, AA (33 "),_Christian Marcha1 Engineer in chief of the Mines, Director of Research to ONERA, Marc Merlo Admiral, 2nd section, AA (35 "),_Alain Orszag science Doctor physics, Engineer general of the armament,_2nd section. Denis Letty General of the Year of the Air, 2nd section, AA (35 ")_'(AA or AR xxO) Former listener of national or regional promotion No xx_SYNTHESIS_In 1976, an Association committee of the former listeners of I' IHEDN, chaired by Blanchard general, of the National Gendarmerie, tackled the thorny problem of the objects not identified wheels. Its recommendations were followed, during creation, within Center National Space Studies, Group of Studies of the Aerospace Phenomena Not identified (GEPAN), become in 1988 Service of Expertise on the Phenomena of Re-entry Atmospheric (SEPRA). 20 years after, this committee considered it useful to give a progress report on this file, of which the topicality is large, as testify some to many films and emissions of television devoted to the subject. In fact, the phenomenon remains, and numbers it credible observations and unexplained, in spite of the abundance of their data, increases everywhere in the world.

Our report/ratio opens on some French and foreign remarkable cases. We describe then the current organization of research on this phenomenon, in France and abroad. We expose the principal partial explanations suggested by scientists and calling upon the known laws of physics, by mentioning those, which could lead to achievements in the more or less long term (system of propulsion, nonmetal weapons). Then we make the turn of the principal advanced total explanations, in insisting on those, which are in agreement with the current data of science, of the machines secrecies with the extraterrestrial demonstrations. Our recommendations are related to the impact of the phenomenon UFO on defense on broad direction. _1 Facts and testimony the committee auditioned a military pilot and a French civil pilot who were confronted with the phenomenon UFO. Another military pilot forwarded to the president committee a written deposition, but wished temporarily kept anonymity.

The first pilot, former colonel, during a night flight on Mirage IV, in 1977, saw, like its navigator, a luminous object to move towards him; it transferred to avoid one _collision; the object transferred in its turn to place itself behind him; the pilot then reversed sound turn, and the object moved away at high speed. The same play repeated time little afterwards with a similar object, the same one perhaps. Only a military aircraft could have been shown too rapid and maneuverable, but the radar of Contrexéville would have detected it; however, questioned by pilot at the beginning of the incident, the controller said not to have anything considering. The speed of the objects was supersonic, but no noise was perceived in the area of Dijon where was held the business. The other controls military saw in 1976, during a night flight, a green gleam to assemble ground, to exceed the altitude of its plane then to sink on him and to avoid it with the last moment by passing very close to its right wing.

The radar operator controlling his mission did not detect anything, whereas others in control saw the gleam. The testimony of the pilot of Air France was corroborated by a letter of the copilot, who has observed the phenomenon simultaneously, and especially by a recording radar of January 28 1994; this last shows clearly during 50 seconds, around Coulommiers, road of the plane of Air France and that of an unknown object which crosses it. This object, which was brown and shaped like a bell and that of a lens. The object disappeared from their sight at the same time as from radar.

In four of the five foreign aeronautical cases presented, radar detectionshave corroborated the visual observations made by military aircrafts, in Great Brittain, the United States, Iran, and in Russia. The unknown objects accellerated to supersonic speeds; in two of the cases, one knows that no supersonic bang was detected, and for two otherc cases, there was not recorded information on this point.

In Great Britain, in Lakenheath in 1956, launched Venom of night to the continuation of a luminous object not identified found itself taken in hunting; the object followed to short outdistance during ten minutes; the pilot could not succeed in placing itself behind him, in spite of many operations which it carried out during ten minutes. He then regained his base. In the United States, in 1957, a plane of electronic countermeasures detected microwaves pulsated coming from an unknown object which accompanied it on more than 1000 km in the south of the country.

No supersonic aircraft, whether it is American or Russian, was at the time large enought to create a radar signature whose signal had the characteristics observed. Close to Teheran, in 1976, Iranian Phantom, continuing an UFO, lost the use of its instruments of flight and its radio communications and intercom when it is approached to 45 km of the object. The pilot then stopped the interception and found the use of its instruments and of its communications. Second Phantom took its relay; arrived at 45 muffs, the pilot saw an object leaving and moving from there towards him. Wanting to fire a missile towards this object, it noted that its control board of shooting, and its communications radio and intercom had broken down. It then carried out an operation of avoidance; with the course whose the object continued then joined the UFO.

In Russia, in 1990, the General Maltsev, ordered air defense forces to chase a UFO that was reported in. Many crews of the fighter envoys on March 21 on mission of interception described UFO passing the hovering at a speed two to three times higher than that of the modern fighters, the whole in silence. Moreover their maneuverability was exceptional.

In Argentina, in 1997, in San Carlos de Bariloche, a Boeing 727 was accompanied in its final approach to the airport by an object resembling a large plane, which was held on its flight line. The lights of the airport and the beaconing breaking down, Boeing had to go around and to represent themselves in the axis of the track for a new approach. The object, who had accompanied it during all this operation, became then luminous and carried out various movements of “stop and go” around Boeing before disappearing towards the Cordillera from the Andes. The crew, passengers, those of another plane and part of the inhabitants of Sam Carlos were pilot phenomenon. The committee collected testimonies of two former officers having observed UFO since the ground.

The first was responsible for the engineering departments of Air France with Tananarive in 1954, when a cylinder flew over the city in full day, to 50 or 100 meters of height, in front of several hundreds of witnesses, by causing on his passage the extinction of lights of the stores. The second, fighter pilot, observed in company of his wife, in 1979, of day, with 250 meters approximately of their house, an object having the shape of two reversed saucers one on the other. Initially stationary to 3 meters of the ground approximately, the object left without noise to the horizontal one, at strong speed, to disappear at the horizon in a few seconds.

A report/ratio of the KGB, declassified in 1991, described observations with multiple witnesses make by Russian soldiers of a base of missiles during one night of July 1989; in none them, one heard noise. An object carried out jerked displacements, with very abrupt departure and stop, and periods of immobility (such a behavior were observed with Lake heath before the incident of Venom which we reported). Another flew more quickly that the sound. A third, in the shape of disc surmounted by a cupola, was held motionless with_20 meters above a deposit of missiles, which it lit by a mobile beam of light. Jean-Jacques Velasco, person in charge for the SEPRA, exposed finally four cases of meetings rap-ochées in France, having given place to lawsuits verbal of the National Gendarmerie, to the committee. In Valensole, by an early morning of July 1965, a farmer has surprised two small beings near an object posed in its field of lavender. One of them has paralyzed its movements while directing towards him a tube. The two intruders then entered the object, which rose with the vertically and dissapeared more quickly that a jet.

The object left traces on the ground, and the witness could not during several years to make push back lavender around these traces. The Gendarmerie did one inquire of great quality into this business.

The Cussac incident, which took place one morning on August 1967, was the subject of one counter-enquiry of the GEPAN which in consolidated the following description: two young children saw small beings near a brilliant sphere. The beings entered the sphere, and shortly after, it rose in the sky at high speed.

The study of the GEPAN on the landing of Trans-in-Province, in full day, in 1981, is universally known. A foreman saw an object, having the shape of two saucers reversed one on the other, to land during a few moments on a terrace on the ground, almost with the short-nap cloth of a low wall, then to set out again, without noise, at a very high speed towards the sky. The object left prints on the ground, and caused deterioration, and in particular one premature ageing, of the vegetation around whose causes remain unknown.

In October 1982, also in full daylight, an object also in the form of double saucer descended in the garden from a researcher in biology. The researcher observed it for over 20 minutes, stationary, one meter off the ground. At the moment of the departure, which was very fast, the object shot towards the sky, and the grass was torn up during the short moment of acceleration. Bushes from an amaranth neighbor were extremely dehydrated; that gives rise to think that they were subjected to an intense electric field. The report/ratio of study of the GEPAN has as a titled “the Amaranth one”.

2 the point of knowledge the organization of research in France is made since 1977 around CNESIGEPAN, then CNESISEPRA, which succeeded it. It rests mainly on protocols between this organization, National Gendarmerie, the Air Force, Management General of the civil aviation, National Meteorology, and a certain number of laboratories. An independent scientific council, chaired by Hubert Curien, directed and controlled work of the GEPAN until 1988. Currently, the SEPRA team is much smaller than it once was. She works on the cases, which him are subjected mainly by the National Gendarmerie, incidentally by the Army of air and Civil aviation. The Gendarmerie carries out investigations, which can give place to very complete reports/ratios.

The Air Force has of radars and average radio operators of which it transmits on request the recordings. Civil aviation, when it gives an account of one case, transmits the recording of the conversation between the crew and air control. The investigations of the SEPRA, complementary to those of the Gendarmerie, can to comprise analyses of traces on the ground or on the vegetation, of the analyses of photographs, studies on the effects of the lightning, etc.. Of conventions of co-operation with laboratories make it possible to carry them out and try an interpretation of the traces.

The method of investigation, development by the GEPAN, rested on research made in connection with universities, and was approved by its council, composed of scientists from many different backgrounds of study. The group studies the unknown phenomenon by analyzing data jointly concerning: witnesses: physiology, psychology, etc., testimonies: account, reactions to the questions, behavior general, etc., physical environment: meteorology, air traffic, photographs, given radar, traces on the environment, etc., and the psycho sociological environment: readings and beliefs of the witnesses, and the possible media influences of the various witnesses groups.

The GEPAN has obtained important results. A large majority of the observations could be identified, sometimes at the time of the investigation of gendarmerie, as being man made objects such as satellites, balloons, etc.. However, out of 3000 official reports made by the Gendarmerie, a few percent of them were unexplainable by the CNES, in spite of the vast amounts of data collected. These reports are called PAND (Aerospace Phenomena Not identified category D).

Very thorough investigations, supported into analyses of traces, showed the physical presence of a phenomenon whose nature and origin remain not known. The cases of Trans-in-Provence and Amaranth mentioned in example 1, are particularly interesting. These reports are also very similar to foreign reports that were made.

There are now over 500 French aeronautical cases, which were collected from 1942 to 1995, which were unexplainable. A fifth of these were confirmed by radar under conditions, which attest of their physical reality. A report/ratio of the Twining general, person in charge for the Air Material Command, on first American wave of UFO in 1947, insisted on the reality of the flying discs observed; their very high climbing speeds, their maneuverability and their trajectories as futile, when they were detected. They supposed that they were either controlled or remote-controlled. Work of the GEPAN consolidates the topicality of this report/ratio.

Admittedly, CNES does not have fragments of a crashed UFO. Officially at least, the United States and other countries either do not have fragments from crashed UFO's either, which could constitute an indisputable proof of their materiality. But analyses of traces on the ground and the recordings radar, carried out in France and abroad, establish with a quasi-certainty the materiality of these UFOs. Moreover, the objects very often appear, “are controlled or operated by remote control", that is to say, according to one more modern concepts, provided with artificial intelligence.

French military pilots who witnessed these crafts all had the same impression - that they seemed to be remote controlled. And landings of Trans-in-Provence and Amaranth can conceive itself like natural phenomena. Certain PAND thus appears well to be flying machines completely unknown factors, with the exceptional performances, guided by a natural intelligence or artificial.

Many scientists tried to model the phenomenon of the UFO. Partial modeling related to air displacements in particular. Since 30 years, one the study of the magneto hydrodynamic propulsion (MHD) of the UFO developed, by analogy with that of the ships. It returns account very high speeds and accelerations observed, and, on the whole, of the frequent absence of noise, even at the supersonic speeds. For displacement in the space vacuum, it is necessary to consider propulsion by reaction. The American Edwards Air Force Base studies in particular the propulsion by antimatter.

One tried to explain the temporary breakdowns of the engine, frequently observed with proximity of an UFO, by the action of microwaves pulsated on the lighting of the engines. Other explanations are possible. Finally reversible paralysis of the witnesses close to an UFO, like in the case of Valensole, is undoubtedly explained also by the effect of pulsated microwaves similar to those probably used nowadays by the weapons with anti-personnel microwaves.

Among the total assumptions on the UFO, some are not scientists. Thus those, which call upon the action of the demon or parapsychology, cannot be nor cancelled, nor confirmed. The only scientific assumptions are those of terrestrial machines secrecies, impossible to support for the cases going up with much more than 10 years, and those extraterrestrial machines. These last run up against the considerable distances, which separate them solar systems. Some then evoke a hypothetical physique of the 3rd millennium, which would authorize to travel more quickly than the light.

It is not necessary, because two astronomers French, J.C. Ribes and G. Monnet, worked out a scenario of the future of our planet, which fact call that to the science of today. One sees our descendants there being accustomed gradually with living in the pleasant ones and green artificial hollow planets orbits about it around Ground, then Sun. They equip one day some of them with engines with antimatter and leave towards another solar system inhabited for a voyage without return.

Several generations follow one another in hollow planets until the final destination, where new planets are built, and the studied autochthones. Those will perceive the activities of our descendants as we perceive the phenomenon UFO today. In a very disputed alternative of this assumption, representatives of a very old land civilization now disappeared would have created age of planets dig, established in our Solar system, a long time ago.

The organization of varied research on the UFO abroad is presented in various forms. The US Air Force from 1947 to 1969 made a considerable effort in the United States with regards to project Blue Book to study these craft. One university commission directed by the Condon physicist made an evaluation of the file Blue Book. Conclusions written by Condon, in contradiction with the body of the report/ratio, were very disputed; according to him, the UFO phenomenon does not present a threat for American safety, and does not show them of being of extraterrestrial origin. It is not of a scientific interest. Any official research that is open is thus stopped; but one knows, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, that research continued very discreetly in the US Air Force and different government agencies.

Recently, an international scientific conference organized by Laurence Rockefeller, brother of David, showed the scientific interest to carry out at the great day of research on the UFO phenomenon, while taking as a starting point the organization and the methods to seek French assistance, whose results were extremely appreciated.

Great Britain officially centralizes the file UFO with the ministry for Defense. A recent holder of the file described in a book the articulation of his service with the Royal Air Force, the Weather, etc it expressed the wish which research is intensified and marked its preference for the extraterrestrial assumption.

In Russia, as one saw, the KGB studied the phenomenon, which does not leave the indifferent Air Force. The Academy of Science is also occupied some research on the subject. It seems well that, in almost every country of some importance, the services of information of the Air Forces follow the UFO phenomenon more or less attentively.

The UFO and Defense If decree that is often the assumption of extraterrestrial machines present in our sky (controlled, automatic or remote-controlled), it cannot be isolated. It thus calls, as of the access, a strategic reflexion. We know few things of the possible visitors and let us must try to guess their intentions.

Do they simply want to observe us? They want more to prevent one nuclear holocaust, or to divert us to send in their zone of space residence of the rockets with nuclear warhead to modify the race of asteroids that us let us wish to exploit? These objectives are more plausible than a project of invasion, but all these assumptions, and others, must be evaluated permanently. Strategies must be worked out to deal with various possibilities, such as making of contact the extraterrestrial ones with the government. It is possible that the United States knows a lot more about this than we do (French Government), and that they have collected alien bodies from the Roswell crash incident.