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coordinated fashion. In addition to members of the civilian population, other witnesses included civil servants and official aeronautic experts at mt a, a woe . ean) Aeropuerto Chacalluta, the airport in that city. The news made its way to the press, and the Ministerial Department of Civil Aeronautics, DGAC, issued a public statement acknowledging and confirming these observations. This was the first time the Chilean government had publicly recognized the existence of unidentified objects in national airspace. Given the high profile of the case and the strong public interest in the subject, and discussions that had already occurred within the Air Force about addressing the UFO issue, General Gonzalo Miranda, the DGAC director, ordered the creation of a committee to study anomalous aerial phenomena. This group, the CEFAA, was charged with compiling, analyzing, and studying every incident involving anomalous aerial phenomena observed by any aeronautic personnel, civil or military. It began its work on October 3,1997. I was put in charge of the CEFAA from 1998 to 2002. As current director of the Technical School of Aeronautics, I had held other important educational posts in the Air Force, such as director of the School of Engineers and sub-director of the School of Aviation. I had been an active 1 re cout 1 + 1 and these statement phenomena. 1 analyzing, and anomalous every researcher of unidentified phenomena, especially when I served as aviation attache to England. It was during that assignment that I came to the conclusion that there was something happening in the world's skies, and that we didn't know what it was. My position as director of the CEFAA demanded that I keep a scientific view on this topic, but it also meant that I was willing to consider any hypothesis about the origin and nature of these phenomena. wr 1 My duties were, among others, to head the regular sessions of the staff and members of the group, to guide the research efforts, and to provide the logistical framework for implementing those efforts. In addition, I promoted cooperation with university and_ scientific organizations, both national and foreign. These included working with Dr. Richard Haines and NARCAP, and the French government's GEIPAN. Every day I would check the progress of these various investigations and would oversee the design of their procedures. At times I carried on research myself, and was actively involved with case investigations. Like America's FAA, the DGAC's legal mandate is to manage the national airspace and to ensure the safety of all civil, military, and commercial air operations. For the CEFAA, as well, working within this authority, aviation safety of commercial flights is the priority. Air operations demand careful preparation and execution, without any element of distraction for the pilots. The sighting of an unknown phenomenon is certainly a great distraction that could affect both the crew of the aircraft and the air traffic personnel in the control tower. It could potentially overload the radio communications for both the pilots and air traffic controllers if operators were to focus on the bizarre phenomenon, relaying and scientific