UFOs - Leslie Kean [69]
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 fully 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.
In 1988, GEPAN became a new agency called SEPRA4 in order to broaden the mission to include the investigation of all reentry phenomena, including debris from satellites, launches, etc. When an unidentified object left traces or any kind of marked effect on the environment that could be recorded and measured by sensors or instruments, we referred to them as UFOs. Among the physical trace ground cases that have been thoroughly investigated, three have stood up to a rigorous analysis and could not be categorized as involving known objects.
In November 1979, a woman called the gendarmes to say a flying saucer had just landed in front of her house. The gendarmes went to the reported landing site immediately, and GEPAN came also with a multidisciplinary team of investigators. Another witness provided an independent account of an object alighting. The visible trace evidence included a grassy area flattened in a uniform direction, and plant physiology analysis was subsequently carried out by a respected university. Since this was the first time we had collected soil and plant samples from a presumed landing case, rigorous protocols had not yet been established for their analysis, and no significant results were obtained.
However, that changed with the Trans-en-Provence case, one of the best known cases in France. Around 5:00 p.m. on January 8, 1981, electrician Renato Nicolai was building a small water pump shelter in his garden on a sunny afternoon. He heard a low whistling sound coming from above. Upon turning around, he saw an ovoid object in the sky that approached the terrace