UFOs - Leslie Kean [112]
However, at an earlier time, in a relatively simpler world, an approach was made at the United Nations for just this purpose. Seven years after Project Blue Book was shut down, J. Allen Hynek and others attempted to establish an international investigative body within the halls of the UN.
In 1978, Sir Eric M. Gairy, then prime minister of Grenada, proposed to the United Nations General Assembly that the UN establish “an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, coordinating, and disseminating the results of research into Unidentified Flying Objects and related phenomena.”1 With his associates Dr. Jacques Vallée and Lieutenant Colonel Larry Coyne, a U.S. Army pilot whose helicopter almost collided with a UFO in 1973, Dr. Hynek requested—in a UN hearing—that the United Nations provide a framework in which the many scientists and specialists around the world working on the UFO phenomenon could share their studies. He pointed out that UFOs had been reported in 133 member states of the UN and that there existed over one thousand cases where “there appears physical evidence of the immediate presence of the UFO. In significant numbers, these reports had been made by highly responsible persons—astronauts, radar experts, military and commercial pilots, officials of governments, and scientists, including astronomers.”2
Despite these concerns, State Department teletypes show that the United States delegation at the UN was dismissive of Gairy’s effort, calling it a “blitzkrieg sales pitch”3 and attempting to prevent his resolution from ever passing. A confidential message sent to the U.S. Secretary of State from the UN mission made an “action request” seeking “instructions on U.S. position to be taken in this matter as well as desired level of visibility. Last year Grenada requested our support and Misoff had to scramble hard behind the scenes to water down the resolution and, in effect, delay a vote for one year. Another consideration is whether to issue a disclaimer on statements made by U.S. nationals on the Grenadian delegation.”4
Later, U.S. members conducted “negotiating sessions” with delegates from other missions, “in an attempt to arrive at a mutually acceptable compromise solution to the problem.” The plan was devised to refer the Grenada resolution to the Outer Space Committee without a mandate to engage in a study. This would alleviate “the need to vote on a resolution and gamble on the results.”5 Despite U.S. efforts to block the vote, the General Assembly eventually adopted a draft resolution submitted by Grenada. It all fell apart in 1979, when Gairy was ousted during an internal communist takeover that tragically led to his execution.
Hynek had also informed the UN committee about a study inaugurated by CNES, the French national space center, carried out by scientists from many disciplines. He remarked that the resulting case studies were “exemplary and far superior to the previous studies in other countries … the implications for science and the public at large of this French investigation are profound.”6 The official French government agency GEPAN had just been formed within CNES under the direction of Yves Sillard, as part of a natural and logical response to a scientific, space-related problem that needed more research. At the same time, efforts were also under way in America to create a new UFO investigation within our own national space agency, NASA. But in America, it wasn’t so simple—even when the request came to NASA from the very highest office in the land: the president of the United States. Unbeknownst to most Americans, even President Carter could not get the publicly funded agency to look at the UFO evidence and see if perhaps, just maybe, an investigative body within NASA was warranted.
Carter had had his own UFO sighting in