France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years

[villager]

Source: AFP

France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years

by Marlowe Hood

PARIS (AFP) - France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades. The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.

<snip>

Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.

"Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper" are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.

But many others involving multiple sightings -- in at least one case involving thousands of people across France -- and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070322/wl_afp/sciencespaceufo_070322143210

[progressoid]

1. I saw something that looked like one of those green jello molds once

But without the mini-marshmallows. And not in France. And I might have been wasted.

[CoffeeCat]

3. Long night of doing Jell-O shots, eh?

I'm just asking. ;)

[tavalon]

24. I've often said LOL to various comments

but it's actually much rarer that I do actually laugh out loud. This one did it. Thanks.

[Tom Joad]

2. anything about that ufo sighted near a certain grassy knoll in texas?

[Octafish]

36. Hilarious.

If you want to learn, read Jacques Vallee.

[siligut]

40. Thanks for this

Just ordered Messengers of Deception, I am very pleased to see that other people are on to this cruel trick. You need to post more, you know, I had to do a search for you to find this important little tidbit.

[file83]

4. If UFO's are such a joke, why keep the files a "secret" for so long?

It's a curiosity.

[WindRavenX]

6. UFOs are most certainly real

The part where they're aliens is where it starts to break down.

[rinsd]

7. Beacuse they are most likely military experimental aircraft?

:shrug:

[villager]

9. let a thousand files bloom!

n/t

[file83]

28. Keeping that sighting of a X-jet secret for 50 years? I'm pretty sure

that the experimental jets from 1957 are pretty much "out in the open" by now.

[redqueen]

29. Heheheh... yeah, you'd think. n/t

[Vidar]

5. Good for France.

[Phoonzang]

8. Kudos to France.

I wish we would do this...

[lovuian]

10. Me too

why keep them a secret???

[Morgana LaFey]

20. Well, I saw a segment on TV yesterday with the former Gov of AZ

fessing up to seeing a UFO while he was governor -- along with others at the time, but pooh-poohing it at the time in order not to "panic" anyone. I thought that was pretty interesting.

[Phoonzang]

26. I saw that too...

Pretty amazing. The guy was full of shit about the whole, "didn't want to panic people thing" though. It was more like "was afraid I'd be laughed out of office" or "wanted to save my own ass".

[Baclava]

11. It's a sign...the deception is complete, the invasion has begun

I, for one, welcome our alien overlords

[FlaGranny]

12. What if you are dinner?

Remember the old TV show? - To Serve Man.

[Baclava]

15. I'm torn...resistance fighter or breeding pen slavemaster

tough choice

[ends_dont_justify]

31. Then I hope I'm not served at alien mcdonalds N/T

[newspeak]

33. or maybe more like "V"

remember that series? We already have our repitilian overlords--so, I say, "what the Hell, beam me up Scotty."

[lanlady]

38. Sir, don't board that spaceship

IT'S A COOKBOOK!

[frogmarch]

13. Please read my signature

heh. (It's meant to be tongue-in-cheek.)

[villager]

14. damn, your sig makes me mourn the loss of McKenna's library anew!

n/t

[nashville_brook]

16. OMG! i didn't know this. that's horrible...

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/22/terence_mckennas_lib.html

fucking Quiznos -- "mmm... toasty," indeed.

[3waygeek]

17. These files are obviously fake...

Any French UFO reports would have to include these guys...

[PittPoliSci]

22. LOL

i loved that movie.

[lovuian]

18. These files have been kept from the public for 50 years

50 YEARS why suppress these for 50 years unless there is something to HIDE
France thinks it time to share the knowledge

[Nevernose]

21. I can think of a few easily explanable reasons.

1. The knee-jerk secrecies that all governments seem to have. I have a friend who SWEARS that margarine was originally a highly classified attempt at creating an explosive (of course, I think he's referring to the silly putty urban myth, and he's a dumbass anyway, but the point is still valid :)).

2. NATO asked them to. It was the Cold War.

3. Once again -- it was the Cold War. Secrecy was the nom de guerre.

4. Technological malfunctions.

5. Natural phenomenon, explainable or not.

It could, indeed, be aliens. The odds are so incredibly against that, though (read Sagan's "Cosmos" if you don't believe me) that Occam's Razor comes into play. There are many, many simpler solutions.

Good fro France for releasing them, though. It could not only shine a light onto the cockroaches of UFOology and extraterrestrial studies, there's really no reason in keeping a lid on military secrets from the Truman administration.

Yeah, I'm a cynic :).

[sofa king]

25. Yeah, one really good reason:

It would be really bad form to have an ally's secret space-age technology described publicly. And you can't simply put the one-in-a-thousand sightings of probable secret aircraft in a "nope, can't see this" file because then the other guys know exactly which files to steal.

I will, however, point out one good reason for keeping something secret for a long time: if nobody's figured it out yet, it's still potentially useful to the people who have. The classic example is Greek fire. Nobody else ever figured out the recipe, and it stayed a useful weapon for hundreds of years (until the recipe was kept so secret it was forgotten).

Similarly, if you have a plane which can apparently defy the laws of physics, or the ability to create such an illusion, and nobody else has a clue how to do it, well, you're not going to tell anyone about it because it still might come in handy one day. (I'm not saying we have such a thing, I'm just offering an example.)

[lovuian]

27. I can think of Many Reasons why the government supressed it

1. Control of information
Knowledge is power
Government should only have access
2. Religions don't believe in aliens
and religions are one of the major control of humans
3. Think about how the whole human psyche changes
We are not alone and we are not as Powerful as we think
4. And we would have leading minds converse on how to communicate to the aliens
of which the government has had a monopoly on it

Think about how it would change our idea of our world and its place in the universe

One more thing
aren't the people who made fun of the people who believed in UFO's going to be looked at after the governments of the world acknowledge their existence

[sofa king]

34. You may have a point there.

I hadn't really thought about it, but whether or not aliens exist the mere thought that there could be aliens would be coloring outside the lines of the Christian "I'm so special I'm the center of the fucking universe and the Earth was made for me to wreck" ethos.

And yes, I realize that's not all of you Christians. Just the ones who tell everyone else what to think.

[olddad56]

19. I think that the aliens landed and took over the WH some time ago.

[IndianaGreen]

23. Even the much maligned Blue Book Project had a small percentage of UFO cases

that could not be explained away by the Air Force.

[groovedaddy]

30. Check out "The Disclosure Project"

Here's the real deal:

http://www.disclosureproject.org/

[ends_dont_justify]

32. I always found UFO debates funny in one way...

Why does it have to be aliens or weather phenomenon? Maybe it's something humankind has not yet tried to comprehend....and that may be the exact reasoning behind its secrecy. I don't think anyone can really say *what* that may be...but it's fascinating to think there may be new doors we haven't even tried to think of yet.

edit: spelling

[Psephos]

35. Either we are alone or we are not. Both possibilities are astonishing. n/t

[gorbal]

37. I can't seem to get the main website for the french intellegence to load

Perhaps they list the link incorrectly, does anyone have it?

[lanlady]

39. server overload

It hasn't been available for days.