Page Content (OCR)
found a way to solve these cases, which, it stated, did not represent a national security threat. It did acknowledge, however, the obvious: that any "legitimate threats'—cases involving military pilots, air defense installations, or objects tracked on radar—would still be dealt with accordingly. [1] The UK had also already begun the lengthy process of releasing all the files accumulated during the years the UFO desk was in operation. roa toa . mad ian air defense In South America, Chile and Peru set up new government agencies tasked with studying UFO cases in 1997 and 2001, respectively. The Brazilian military has conducted UFO investigations since the late 1940s. Russian cosmonauts, scientists, and high-ranking military officials have spoken publicly about UFO events there. And for the first time, the Mexican Defense Department provided data on an unsolved sighting by an Air Force crew to a civilian researcher in 2004, an important step in government openness within that country. The French government is generally recognized for maintaining the most productive, scientific, and systematic government investigation of UFOs in the world, continuing without interruption for over thirty years. The agency, now called GEIPAN [2] (Group for the Study and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena), is part of the French national space agency known as CNES, [3] the French equivalent of our NASA, and serves as a model for other nations that have consulted with it over the years. Particularly remarkable is the network of scientists, police officials, and other specialists that are linked to GEIPAN, ready at a moment's notice to assist with the investigation of any UFO case. Its purpose has always been purely as a research agency, not primarily concerned with defense issues as was the MoD in England or with aviation safety like Chile. It was set up seven years after the close of Project Blue Book, and states its mission as simply to investigate "unidentified aerospace phenomena" and make its findings available to the public. «yr 4 an aAroa4awn an wre tA 1 Jean-Jacques Velasco of France, Nick Pope of the UK, and General Ricardo Bermudez of Chile have all headed small government agencies within their own countries that worked full-time on investigating UFO cases. They, among others writing in the pages that follow, describe their innovative work on behalf of their governments, and the impact such close- up work with the UFO phenomenon has had on their lives. In countries around the world, witnesses and investigators such as these are very aware of the need for greater participation by the United States, and are now coming together to address that problem. Whether they have set up specific offices for UFO investigation or not, many governments have accumulated massive amounts of UFO case documentation over the decades and the public has placed great emphasis on gaining the release of these official files. 6 : ce . a. 1 In recent years, as if part of a trend toward greater transparency, unprecedented numbers of these documents have been declassified and government openness within that country.