{"id":1514,"date":"2007-03-22T17:10:02","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T17:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/2007\/03\/22\/france_updates_\/"},"modified":"2007-03-22T17:10:02","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T17:10:02","slug":"france_updates_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/france_updates_\/","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE Updates: New Scientist: France becomes the first country to open its files on UFOs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"gmail_quote\">FRANCE Updates: New Scientist: France becomes the first country to open its files on UFOs<\/span><span class=\"gmail_quote\"><br \/><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<div><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article\/dn11443-france-opens-up-its-ufo-files.html\">http:\/\/space.newscientist.com<wbr><\/wbr>\/article\/dn11443-france-opens<wbr><\/wbr>-up-its-ufo-files.html<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<h2>France opens up its UFO files<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>20:57 22 March 2007\n<\/li>\n<li>NewScientist.com news service\n<\/li>\n<li>New Scientist Space and AFP\n<div><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/adserver.adtech.de\/?adlink%7C2.0%7C289%7C113572%7C1%7C170%7CADTECH;grp=220156050;loc=300;\"><br \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>France became the first country to open its files on UFOs on Thursday<br \/>\nwhen the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than<br \/>\n1600 sightings spanning five decades.<br \/>\nThe online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported,<br \/>\ncatalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to<br \/>\na handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.<br \/>\n&quot;It is a world first,&quot; says Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer<br \/>\nwho heads the office for the study of &quot;non-identified aerospatial<br \/>\nphenomena.&quot;<br \/>\nKnown as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest<br \/>\nalong with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government<br \/>\ncover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public<br \/>\nconsumption.<br \/>\n&quot;Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like<br \/>\na flying roll of toilet paper&quot; are clearly not worth investigating,<br \/>\nsays Patenet. <br \/>\nBut many others involving multiple sightings \u2013 in at least one case<br \/>\ninvolving thousands of people across France \u2013 and evidence such as burn<br \/>\nmarks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that<br \/>\ndefy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h5>No explanation<\/h5>\n<p>A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a<br \/>\nbarrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the<br \/>\nannouncement was made, &quot;to screen out uninvited UFOlogists,&quot; an<br \/>\nofficial explained.<br \/>\nOf the 1600 cases registered since 1954, nearly 25% are classified as<br \/>\n&quot;type D&quot;, meaning that &quot;despite good or very good data and credible<br \/>\nwitnesses, we are confronted with something we can&#8217;t explain&quot;, Patenet<br \/>\nsays. <br \/>\nOn 8 January 1981 outside the town of Trans-en-Provence in southern<br \/>\nFrance, for example, a man working in a field reported hearing a<br \/>\nstrange whistling sound and seeing a saucer-like object about 2.5<br \/>\nmetres in diameter land in his field about 50 metres away.<br \/>\n<br \/>A dull-zinc grey, the saucer took off almost immediately, leaving<br \/>\nburn marks, he told police. Investigators took photos, and then<br \/>\ncollected and analysed samples, and to this day no satisfactory<br \/>\nexplanation has been made.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h5>Flashing lights<\/h5>\n<p>The nearly 1000 witnesses who said they saw<br \/>\nflashing lights in the sky on 5 November 1990, by contrast, had simply<br \/>\nseen a rocket fragment falling back into Earth&#8217;s atmosphere.<br \/>\n&quot;We do not have the least proof that extra-terrestrials are behind the<br \/>\nunexplained phenomena,&quot; says Patenet, adding: &quot;Nor do we have the least<br \/>\nproof that they aren&#8217;t.&quot;<br \/>\nThe CNES fields between 50 and 100 UFO reports ever year, usually<br \/>\nwritten up by police. Of these, 10% are the object of on-site<br \/>\ninvestigations, Patenet says.<br \/>\nOther countries, notably Britain and the US, collect data more or less<br \/>\nsystematically about unidentified flying objects. In the US,<br \/>\ninformation can be requested on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom<br \/>\nof Information Act.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n&quot;But we decided to do it the other way around and made everything available to the public,&quot; Patenet says.<br \/>\nThe aim was to make it easier for scientists and other UFO buffs to access the data for research. The <a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/\"><u><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><br \/>\nwebsite<\/span><\/u><\/a><br \/>\nitself \u2013 which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to<br \/>\nheavy traffic \u2013 is extremely well organised and complete, even<br \/>\nincluding scanned copies of police reports.<\/p>\n<div>\n<h5>Related Articles<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=mg19325885.500\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">The search for ET must go on<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=mg19325885.500\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/www.newscientist.com<wbr><\/wbr>\/article.ns?id=mg19325885.500<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>26 January 2007\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=dn10482\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">Monica Grady forecasts the future<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=dn10482\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/www.newscientist.com<wbr><\/wbr>\/article.ns?id=dn10482<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>16 November 2006\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=mg19225754.100\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">Alien-hunters tune in to ET-TV<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article.ns?id=mg19225754.100\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/www.newscientist.com<wbr><\/wbr>\/article.ns?id=mg19225754.100<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>26 October 2006 <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h5>Weblinks<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">UFO sightings, CNES<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.foia.cia.gov\/ufo.asp\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">UFOs, CIA<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.foia.cia.gov\/ufo.asp\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/www.foia.cia.gov\/ufo.asp<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Unidentified_flying_object\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">UFO, Wikipedia<\/span><\/u><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Unidentified_flying_object\"><u><span style=\"color: #214a73;\">http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki<wbr><\/wbr>\/Unidentified_flying_object<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>===<\/p>\n<p><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.associatedcontent.com\/article\/187422\/france_makes_its_official_ufo_files.html\">http:\/\/www.associatedcontent<wbr><\/wbr>.com\/article\/187422\/france<wbr><\/wbr>_makes_its_official_ufo_files<wbr><\/wbr>.html<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<h1>France Makes Its Official UFO Files Public<\/h1>\n<p>By <strong>Griff<\/strong> <br \/>\nUFOs are something we are all aware of, some people take no notice of<br \/>\nthem, some show a mild interest and some study them seriously. Whatever<br \/>\nlevel of interest people may have about UFOs most people will be<br \/>\nsomewhat intrigued by them. <br \/>\nTo date countries around the world have been very tight lipped about<br \/>\nthe UFO information they possessed, trying their best to keep it from<br \/>\nthe general public. Today France made a bold move by becoming the first<br \/>\ncountry in the world to make its official UFO files available to the<br \/>\npublic. <\/p>\n<p>The information has been made available today through a new<br \/>\nwebsite developed by the French national space agency. The UFO<br \/>\ninformation revealed occurs during a fifty-year time span and includes<br \/>\n1,600 sightings. <\/p>\n<p>The new online UFO archive will receive regular updates when<br \/>\nnew UFO sightings occur in France. Each case included on the UFO<br \/>\nwebsite contains every little detail about the sighting, no matter how<br \/>\nunbelievable the sighting may have been. Many of the UFO sightings will<br \/>\nbe easy to dismiss or explain, but there are still a number of calls<br \/>\nthat have stumped scientists for years. <\/p>\n<p>Jaques Patenet, an aeronautical engineer that heads the<br \/>\n&quot;office for the study of non-identified aerospatial phenomena&quot; has<br \/>\nsaid, &quot;It is a world first.&quot; He then went on to discuss some of the UFO<br \/>\nsightings found on the website. One of the most outlandish reports<br \/>\nPatenent mentioned is &quot;the lady who reported seeing an object that<br \/>\nlooked like a flying roll of toilet paper.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>There was one case that at first seems quite interesting. This<br \/>\nis because the UFO sighting had thousands of witnesses around France.<br \/>\nThe incident occurred on November 5, 1990 and witnesses described<br \/>\nseeing flashing lights in the sky. However when the sighting was<br \/>\ninvestigated it had a simple explanation. It had apparently been rocket<br \/>\nfragments entering the earth&#8217;s atmosphere and burning up. <\/p>\n<p>One of the most intriguing and mystifying UFO sightings in<br \/>\nFrance happened on January 8, 1981 near the southern village of<br \/>\nTrans-en-Provence. A man who was out working in his field reported the<br \/>\nincident. The man states that he heard an unusual whistling sound and<br \/>\nthat he saw a saucer shaped object. The man estimated that the object<br \/>\nwas about eight foot wide and that is had landed about 50 yards from<br \/>\nhim. The man said that the UFO was dull-zinc grey in colour and that it<br \/>\ntook off again within seconds of landing. The UFO left burn marks in<br \/>\nthe man&#8217;s field. On receiving the sighting report investigators took<br \/>\nsamples for analysis from the site and also to photos of the burn marks<br \/>\nleft by the UFO. <\/p>\n<p>When Patenet was questioned about the government having<br \/>\nknowledge about extra terrestrial life he gave an answer that does not<br \/>\nanswer any questions. Patenet said, &quot;We do not have the least proof<br \/>\nthat extra-terrestrials are behind the unexplained phenomena.&quot; &quot;Nor do<br \/>\nwe have the least proof that they aren&#8217;t.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>Each year France gets around 50 to 100 UFO sightings reported<br \/>\nto the police. Around 10 percent of these sightings are subject to on<br \/>\nsite investigation. <\/p>\n<p>Many other countries systematically collect UFO information.<br \/>\nTwo of the biggest collectors are the United States and the United<br \/>\nKingdom. <\/p>\n<p>The website is currently extremely busy and the unexpected<br \/>\nlarge amounts of traffic cause the server to crash shortly after<br \/>\nlaunch. It has a wealth of information that would interest even the<br \/>\nmildly intrigued. Expect the site to be busy and a little slow until it<br \/>\ncan make adjustments to service the traffic. At the moment you visitors<br \/>\nto the site will be able to look at around 400 UFO cases. The rest of<br \/>\nthe files will be added over the next few months. <\/p>\n<p><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/\">www.cnes-geipan.fr<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Sources<br \/><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20070322\/wl_afp\/sciencespaceufo_070322143210\">http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp<wbr><\/wbr>\/20070322\/wl_afp\/sciencespaceuf<wbr><\/wbr>o_070322143210<br \/>\n<\/a><br \/><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/news_005727_France_Opens_Its_Official_UFO_Archives.html\">http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/news<wbr><\/wbr>_005727_France_Opens_Its<wbr><\/wbr>_Official_UFO_Archives.html<br \/>\n<\/a><br \/><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eux.tv\/article.aspx?articleId=5107\">http:\/\/www.eux.tv\/article.aspx<wbr><\/wbr>?articleId=5107<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>More resources \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/\">www.cnes-geipan.fr<\/a> <\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>===<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/news_005727_France_Opens_Its_Official_UFO_Archives.html\">http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/news<wbr><\/wbr>_005727_France_Opens_Its<wbr><\/wbr>_Official_UFO_Archives.html<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"160\" height=\"120\" border=\"1\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/scitech\/gimages\/cnes22032.jpg\" alt=\"France Opens Its Official UFO Archives\" title=\"France Opens Its Official UFO Archives\" \/><\/div>\n<div><strong>France Opens Its Official UFO Archives<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <\/div>\n<div>France on Thursday became the first country to open its official<br \/>\narchives on unidentified flying objects (UFO), said Jacques Patenet,<br \/>\nthe head of the UFO study group at the National Centre of Space Studies<br \/>\n(CNES). <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#8217;s a world first,&quot; Patenet said. &quot;It&#8217;s true that in the United<br \/>\nStates you can ask for information on a case-by-case basis. But we have<br \/>\ndone the opposite by putting all the information at the disposition of<br \/>\nthe public.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>The archives are available at <a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr\/geipan\/\">http:\/\/www.cnes-geipan.fr<wbr><\/wbr>\/geipan\/<\/a> and currently contain 400 files, about one fourth of the approximately 1,600 UFO sightings reported in France since the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p>All of the files are scheduled to be <a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/scitech\/#\" style=\"border-bottom: 0.07em solid darkgreen; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; padding-bottom: 1px; color: darkgreen; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: underline;\"><br \/>\nonline<\/a> by the end of the year, Patenet said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;We<br \/>\nare working on the principle that there is nothing we will not put<br \/>\nonline with one exception: protecting an individual&#8217;s privacy,&quot; he<br \/>\nnoted. <\/p>\n<p>The files comprise principally witness statements taken by police officers, with personal <a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/scitech\/#\" style=\"border-bottom: 0.07em solid darkgreen; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; padding-bottom: 1px; color: darkgreen; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: underline;\"><br \/>\ndata<\/a> erased. <\/p>\n<p>Patenet cautioned that &quot;ufologists will not find any scoops or unknown cases in this <a onclick=\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.playfuls.com\/scitech\/#\" style=\"border-bottom: 0.07em solid darkgreen; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; padding-bottom: 1px; color: darkgreen; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: underline;\"><br \/>\ndatabase<\/a>.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2007 DPA<\/p>\n<p>URL of this article: <a href=\"http:\/\/exopolitics.blogs.com\/exopolitics\/2007\/03\/france_updates_.html\">http:\/\/exopolitics.blogs.com\/exopolitics\/2007\/03\/france_updates_.html<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FRANCE Updates: New Scientist: France becomes the first country to open its files on UFOs http:\/\/space.newscientist.com\/article\/dn11443-france-opens-up-its-ufo-files.html France opens up its UFO files 20:57 22 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service New Scientist Space and AFP France became the first country to open its files on UFOs on Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omniversity.us\/exopolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}