UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (20 page)

Yet the public continues to get very excited about seeing new batches of government documents about UFOs. Most recently, the release of large archives by France in 2007 and the UK in 2008, 2009, and 2010 generated a frenzy of international media coverage in America. So many people logged on to the French website its first day that it crashed. Most interesting was the announcement that about 28 percent of the French cases remain unexplained—approximately the same percentage found by Project Blue Book and the Condon report in 1968.
⁴

A featured 2008 piece in the
New York Times
by a staff reporter stationed in the UK selectively focused on a few of the silliest new documents released by the British MoD (letters written
to
the agency by wacky everyday people), and provided readers with the standard ridicule and blatantly biased approach traditionally employed by that noted paper.
⁵
Ironically, this led to the media breakthrough I had been waiting for: The
New York Times
published the first serious op-ed piece about UFOs in the paper’s history. “Unidentified Flying Threats” by former UK Ministry of Defence official Nick Pope
⁶
offered a rational response to that initial, essentially dishonest story. But once again, none of this publicity changed the political landscape in America regarding UFOs, or did much of anything really, except to make the point that UFOs must be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing whether more revealing documents remain closeted away by some governments in secure locations. We know even less about what remains classified in the United States, the most important one of all, and it’s highly unlikely that these documents will be provided anytime soon. If a government agency does not wish to release certain sensitive material through the Freedom of Information Act, it won’t. So in seeking a new emphasis while attempting to inform and persuade American officials to reevaluate the UFO issue, we can begin by learning from the other countries with established government agencies of their own, and finding out what has been gained from these endeavors. How were these agencies set up, and why? How does their work contrast with that of Project Blue Book? What have they learned about UFOs? What actions have they taken as a result?

First and foremost, we turn to France. Exclusive pieces by General Denis Letty, chair of the COMETA group, and Jean-Jacques Velasco, head of the French government agency for over twenty years, explore these questions. Another noted expert from France, Yves Sillard, is one of the most prominent proponents of cooperative international UFO research in the world. Former director general of the French national space center, CNES, Sillard is currently chairman of the steering committee for GEIPAN. In 1977, while head of CNES, he founded the original French scientific committee charged with the investigation of UFO reports—GEPAN, then with a different name. Sillard has served in many important government and research positions between then and his recent return to GEIPAN. In 1998, NATO appointed him assistant secretary general for scientific and environmental affairs.

In the United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is considered in the popular mind to be the country’s premier scientific organization with the most knowledge about everything that happens in outer space—a global leader in Earth and space research. CNES has a mandate and an esteem in France that parallel those of NASA here. Responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy in Europe, CNES, although smaller than NASA, also works on developing space systems and new technologies in cooperation with the European Space Agency, headquartered in Paris. Obviously, the views of the successive directors of either organization—CNES or NASA—are of great significance, whether they deal with the complexities of space exploration or the perplexities of the UFO phenomenon.

Yves Sillard, unknown to most Americans, is a man of stature within the European space community. He founded what has become the world’s most effective agency investigating UFOs more than thirty years ago, and still plays a leading role in directing that agency today.

Most important, he has successfully bridged what is usually a gap between scientific space research and UFO investigations, thereby assuring their coexistence within the framework of the French government’s national space agency. In 2007, Sillard consolidated his ideas in the landmark book
Phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés
⁷
: Un défi à la science
(Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: A Challenge to Science), written under his direction in collaboration with other scientists. A year later, in 2008, I had the privilege of meeting with him at CNES headquarters in Paris.

Mr. Sillard has provided the following commentary, composed specifically for this volume, summing up the current situation. We must all recognize the power carried by these concise, pointed words, which are highly unusual given the stature of Mr. Sillard in the world community.

The objective reality of unidentified aerial phenomena, better known to the general public as UFOs, is no longer in doubt. The data recorded by GEIPAN are based on rigorous methods of analysis and control. The aeronautical cases come from competent witnesses, trained to cope with unexpected situations and react calmly.

The climate of suspicion and disinformation, not to mention derision, which still too often surrounds the collection of reports, illustrates a surprising form of intellectual blindness. This is obviously the reason for the silence of many witnesses who do not dare to come forward, and is particularly true for pilots, civilian or military, who fear jeopardizing their careers by speaking out. We must be very open with information, in order to minimize the drama and make it easier for witnesses to file reports.

In addressing UFOs, we must consider the future. One day, through the conquest of space, we will be able to journey outside our solar system, something that is conceivable to us now, through simple extrapolation of our existing technical capacities. For the first time, this potential opens the door to a credible vision of contact between faraway civilizations, considered in the past to be unthinkable.

In spite of some spectacular progress in recent years, today’s science will appear very humble when looking back a few centuries from now. The development of science even in the next decades will certainly lead to many new concepts, totally unforeseeable today. What appear to be insurmountable obstacles to more advanced civilizations traveling from exoplanets to Earth will probably appear in a very different light then, and completely new hypotheses, linked to still unborn cosmological theories, will likely have been proposed and realized, completely changing how we view the physical world and the surrounding universe.

Even now—though so far the idea is only hypothetical—what if some unidentified phenomena are discovered to be automatic or inhabited vehicles coming from exoplanets? Shouldn’t the famous “precautionary principle” inspire political leaders to at least think about the consequences for every aspect of our society if this hypothesis were to be confirmed? The European Environmental Bureau position is that “the precautionary principle justifies early action in the case of uncertainty and ignorance in order to prevent potential harm.” It defines “uncertainty” as “a framework of understanding where we know enough to identify what we don’t know.”
⁸
The authors of the COMETA Report initiated the process of offering some commonsense recommendations to the highest civilian and military authorities, in order to prepare them to react in the most appropriate way in case what is today only a hypothesis should tomorrow become a reality. I would recommend greater responsiveness from authorities around the world.

As long as no other credible interpretation has been formulated, let us simply hope that GEIPAN and other agencies can make a modest contribution to this debate and that they will stimulate thinking about these phenomena, the existence of which cannot be contested. And finally, let us hope that our joint efforts will inspire unprejudiced minds to consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis with the seriousness and rigor it deserves, as long as no other credible interpretation has been formulated.

CHAPTER 13

The Birth of COMETA

by Major General Denis Letty (Ret.)

To learn more about the open approach of the French military to the problem of UFOs, Major General Denis Letty has provided us with his personal perspective on the historic COMETA Report, explaining why he felt personally compelled to organize the group’s investigation. As I mentioned previously, it was the work of a group of retired French generals and other officials from that country, coming together to write this report, that first brought the UFO issue to my attention. General Letty was the initiator of that effort, a central, driving force behind its completion. In the report, he and the other authors took the American government to task for its denials of the existence of UFOs, its harsh treatment of witnesses, and its excessive secrecy and spreading of “disinformation.” They asked the U.S. government to join France and other countries in a cooperative venture to investigate the UFO phenomenon, perhaps under the auspices of the European Union. No response has been forthcoming
.

Denis Letty, chairman of the COMETA group, is a well-known former fighter pilot who was head of the French Air Defense, southeast zone, and the French military mission for the Allied Air Force of Central Europe. A Fifth Wing commander, he also served as Strasbourg air base commander. In 2008, I was privileged to sit down with General Letty at his home on the outskirts of Paris. He and his wife were extremely gracious to filmmaker James Fox and me, who, complete with files, notepads, and a film crew to document our discussions, descended upon their well-kept, hillside duplex apartment with a stunning view of the city. Meeting him was a milestone for me personally. Dignified, gracious, and personable, General Letty was candid and relaxed with us, yet carried tremendous authority. He’s still mystified about the UFO phenomenon and wants very much to see a resolution
.

As we sat around a table in his living room discussing French cases with the cameras running, Letty addressed the issue of government transparency on UFOs. “I don’t think a powerful country like America finds it acceptable to acknowledge that something strange can fly over and the country can’t clear the skies of it. Another problem can be panic, created by people imagining that their military can’t protect them.” I carefully noted his further comments about the U.S. government role: “We are convinced that some governments don’t say all they know about the subject, and I mean, of course, the States. That’s why we asked for good cooperation from all countries. We’re ready to do the research, to work together.”
¹
The general is convinced that nothing remains hidden within the French military about UFOs, since all the files were released the previous year in order to make that very point. General Letty recently expanded his thoughts for us here
.

I
first became aware
²
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.