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Official, France:

In France, there is still no equivalent of the Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) as it is now applied to some official UFO information in the majority of other countries, USA, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy etc. In France, and only in theory, information is supposedly possibly accessible 60 years after its date. (Thus 2014 for UFO cases of 1954 etc). It is only if you are "Somebody of Importance" such as TV journalist Jean-Claude Bourret in the 70's, or if you have "Friends Inside", or if you beg enough, that you can maybe pick up some documents. So let me introduce to you my own small French FOIA...

Note: at last, 3 years after my first rant on the matter, in March 2007, the CNES website offered a first batch of documents. While the list underneath is my own list started before the 2007 publication amd will still be updated with material, I am going to review the documents released by the GEIPAN at the CNES as of 2007 here.

My own small private French FOIA:

CNESPress release. A new start?September 28, 2005
CNES - SEPRAPage 4 of a SEPRA introduction flyer.Undated
CNES - SEPRAUFOs by numbers.Undated
GEPAN - AIR INTERAirline pilot report, page 1.1995
CNESFrom GEPAN to SEPRA.1989
GendarmerieWitness' Polaroid pictures in Gendarmerie file.1978
GendarmerieUFO near Vergaville.1978
GendarmerieUFO takes off in the Sarthe.1977
GendarmerieReport on a series of multiple independent witnesses in the Yonne.1977
GendarmerieFamily home coeds see saucer in the orchard.1977
GendarmerieWitness report, Les Arprennières.1976
GendarmerieBlinding cigar with portholes, Echevis, the Drome.1976
GendarmerieGendarme stopped by a UFO, La Réunion.1976
GendarmerieUFO in Montbard.1975
GendarmerieUFO in the Yonne.1975
GendarmerieInvestigation on Antoine's close encounter of the third kind in La Réunion.1975
GendarmerieWitness report, case of Saint-Tudec, Finistère.1975
GendarmerieWitness report, case of Gondrecourt-le-Château, 1975.1975
GendarmerieWitness report, UFO near Carcès.1975
GendarmerieLuminous object reported on March 28.1974
GendarmerieUFO reported on March 15.1974
GendarmerieUFO reported on March 11.1974
GendarmerieWitness report, UFO above the car.1974
GendarmerieWitness report, UFO above the car, continued.1974
GendarmerieThe two first photographs of the alleged Marliens UFO traces.1967
GendarmerieFirst page of their investigation report on the UFO landing trave in Valensole.1965
GendarmerieObservation in Muncq-Mieurlet.1961
GendarmerieA witness of questionable credentials.1960
GendarmerieGendarmes report on their own sighting, October 30, 1957 in Novy-Chevrières.1957
GendarmerieFive flying saucers in Buzancy, August 5.1955
GendarmerieUFO in Agenviller, the Somme, July 23.1955
GendarmerieProbable meteor, May 20, 1955, Givet.1955
GendarmerieThe mayor and the flying saucer, January 30, 1955, Saint-Simon.1955
Air ForceRadar track above Morocco, December 2, 1954.1954
ArmyUFO paralyzes military man in La Fère.1954
Air ForceShipping form of the reports on the Orange-Caritat AFB sightings.1951
Air ForceReports on the Orange-Caritat AFB sighting.1951

About the non-declassification in France:

You need to read this.

You need to hear this (in French, so get a translator if you do not understand french).

Some quotes:

I asked french ufologists to think about the following. (Bolded parts are of mine.)

Newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, June 8, 2004::

"The whole of these facts, explained or not, stays from now on among the Sepra files that the ufomaniacs hope to consult as soon as possible since officially, the service does not exist anymore."

I'm the ufomaniac, and they are the ufomaniacs too: http://www.ovniland.com/article.php3?id_article=1.

Thierry Pinvidic signed the above petition and commented:

"I worked with the GEPAN and I had the opportunity to consult scientific documents which were not, contrary to the technical notes, handed out to the public. Among these very interesting documents were the annual reports of the scientific panel of GEPAN. That literature alone would deserve not to be destroyed. But as a vice-president of the SCEAU, and incidentally a poor idiot taxpayer, I wish that ALL is preserved and placed in a structure with a conservatory missions.... I got information in connection with these annual reports of the scientific council of the GEPAN: there are 5 or 6 volumes, adding up approximately 500 pages each. That is, overall 2500 to 3000 pages!"

Claude Poher explains in connection with a case into which he inquired when he was the head of GEPAN (http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/universons/ovni_gbFr/cussac_fr.html):

"Thus, my objective here is really "to help our contemporaries to make their opinion by themselves on the facts of Cussac". Because I thinks that the stake is important. It indeed seems to me that I have some reasons to provide a knowledgeable opinion, because it was me who founded GEPAN within CNES in 1977. It is me who carried out the official field investigation, in Cussac, in 1978, during two days, with three other people. It is me who presented the analysis of the testimonys of Cussac to an official scientific committee composed of eight people, in 1978. Finally it is me who decided to leave the direction of GEPAN in 1979, quite simply because CNES intended "to prevent us from publishing our work", for reasons "obviously scientific", as would state publicly Mr Curien 25 years later, to a journalist of "Ciel et Espace" in 2004, "That formed part of the contract. We did not wish to publish so that we do not enter a public polemic."

More than about the absence of publication of the sighting reports, among which most are of course explained by commonplace causes, Claude Poher protests against the refusal of publication of the studies which had been completed at this time.

Jean-Jacques Vélasco, of the official ex-SEPRA, deplores that the Mexican Air Force "dissimulates" radar data (while at the same time it is them who made the case he refers known publicly). Some paragraphs further, he finds perfectly normal that French military documents relating to UFOs remain secret, reason: it is not desirable that our enemies know anything about our radar capacity. See www.lejdu.com/archives/2004/aout/jjv-interview/index.htm For the remainder, he acknoledges being restrained by very strict rules of his employer organization CNES, which prevents the publication of SEPRA UFO documents.

In the eighties, Pierre Guerin, astrophysicist and ufologist, r.i.p, told journalist Robert Roussel:

"You tell to me that according to Alain Esterle [directed the GEPAN after the departure of Claude Poher], it is not in the intentions of GEPAN to keep secret its conclusions or discoveries. Wrong! There are already things which they keep secret, in particular the studies carried out by Claude Poher, signed by all the investigators, including Alain Esterle and in which already came to the conclusion of the artificiality [of reported UFOs]. ... GEPAN is subjected to the secrecy, which appears unbearable to me and had made me hesitate to get on board. I had to sign, for my part, a paper forcing me to release no documents and to have everything go through the press service of CNES. Esterle takes us for idiots if he talks about transparency. "They" are too much afraid that this all leads to nonhuman machines to let it all out."

In France, there are people who think that we, the French public, do not need to judge by ourselves what this UFO phenomenon is all about. They prefer to keep it all secret, they think it is better, they think it is more "scientific" like that. They think that they know better than all of us. THEY THINK THAT WE DO NOT NEED TO KNOW.

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This page was last updated on February 24, 2007.