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the European space community. He founded what has become the world's most effective agency investigating UFOs more than thirty years ago, and still plays a leading role in directing that agency today. Most important, he has successfully bridged what is usually a gap between scientific space research and UFO investigations, thereby assuring their coexistence within the framework of the French investigations, ework of the assuring their within the framework government's national space agency. In 2007, Sillard consolidated his ideas in the landmark book Phenomenes aerospatiaux non identifies [7]: Un defi a la science (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: A Challenge to Science), written under his direction in collaboration with other scientists. A year later, in 2008,1 had the privilege of meeting with him at CNES later, in 2008,1 had the privilege of meeting with him at CNES headquarters in Paris. Mr. Sillard has provided the following commentary, composed specifically for this volume, summing up the current situation. We must all recognize the power carried by these concise, pointed words, which are highly unusual given the stature of Mr. Sillard in the world community. The objective reality of unidentified aerial phenomena, better known to the general public as UFOs, is no longer in doubt. The data recorded by GEIPAN are based on rigorous methods of analysis and control. The aeronautical cases come from competent witnesses, trained to cope with unexpected situations and react calmly. The climate of suspicion and disinformation, not to mention derision, which still too often surrounds the collection of reports, illustrates a surprising form of intellectual blindness. This is obviously the reason for the silence of many witnesses who do not dare to come forward, and is particularly true for pilots, civilian or military, who fear jeopardizing their careers by speaking out. We must be very open with information, in order to minimize the drama and make it easier for witnesses to file reports. In addressing UFOs, we must consider the future. One day, through the conquest of space, we will be able to journey outside our solar system, something that is conceivable to us now, through simple extrapolation of our existing technical capacities. For the first time, this potential opens the door to a credible vision of contact between faraway civilizations, 4 tooo aad waeoaoad considered in the past to be unthinkable. In spite of some spectacular progress in recent years, today's science will appear very humble when looking back a few centuries from now. The development of science even in the next decades will certainly lead to ou ° 14 oo4 wn many new concepts, totally unforeseeable today. What appear to be insurmountable obstacles to more advanced civilizations traveling from exoplanets to Earth will probably appear in a very different light then, and completely new hypotheses, linked to still unborn cosmological theories, will likely have been proposed and realized, completely changing how we view the physical world and the surrounding universe. Even now—though so far the idea is only hypothetical— what if some unidentified phenomena are discovered to be automatic or inhabited