Documents
50 years of UFO disclosure:
Rocket engineer Claude Poher, PhD, GEPAN Director:
Taking into account the facts that we have gathered from the observers and from the location of their observations, we concluded that there generally can be said to be a material phenomenon behind the observations. In 60% of the cases reported here, the description of this phenomenon is apparently one of a flying machine whose origin, modes of lifting and/or propulsion are totally outside our knowledge.
Source:
- Dr. Claude Poher, Ph.D. in astronomy, founder and first director of GEPAN, the UFO investigative office under the French government's National Center for Space Sciences which analyzed reports from the Gendarmerie from 1974 through 1978, writing in the GEPAN Report to the Scientific Committee, June, 1978, Vol 1, Chapter 4.
1978 GEPAN report, extract:
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- * Phenomena of type A: totally identified phenomena;
- * Phenomena of type B: phenomena not identified with exactitude whose characteristics described by the witnesses make it possible to compare it to a well-known phenomenon;
- * Phenomena of type C: phenomena that remain unidentified for lack of sufficient information;
- * Phenomena of type D: phenomena not identified in spite of the precision of the observation report.
Only the observation reports of type D are then analyzed by the G.E.P.A.N. Thus, the observation reports of phenomena not identified by the witnesses but identified by experts are no part of our work.
- G.E.P.A.N. is thus interested exclusively in the observation reports concerning of aerial phenomena that the experts cannot identify, even and especially when the observation reports are extremely well informed. This clearly distinguishes G.E.P.A.N from former scientific groups that have leaned on the problem. [*]
One could object that a better conducted expertise, more deepened, could reduce to zero the remainder reports of this type. Experience shows that it is not so.
[*] Claude Poher has the "Condon Report" in mind here.
Photograph below: On July 14, 1978, United Nation hearings on UFO matters, initiated by Granada. From left to right: Dr. Claude Poher (GEPAN, France), Sir Eric Gairy (Granada, initiator of the hearings), Kurt Waldheim (Austria, at the time Secretary General of the UN), Gordon Cooper (US astronaut, UFO witness as pilot in the 50's) Dr. J. Allen Hynek (former USAF UFO consultant, astronomer and ufologist), Dr. Jacques Vallée (French ufologist).
Sources:
- Dr. Claude Poher, Ph.D. in astronomy, founder and first director of GEPAN, the UFO investigative office under the French government's National Center for Space Sciences which analyzed reports from the Gendarmerie from 1974 through 1978, writing in the GEPAN Report to the Scientific Committee, June, 1978, Vol 1, Chapter 4.
- www.universons.com, Claude Poher's webiste, 2004.
