From 1979 to 1983, however, GEPAN was quite active, led by a young engineer, Alain Esterle, and the staff expanded to 10 at one time (for the early history of GEPAN, see Gildas Bourdais, "From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO Studies in France", IUR 25:4, Winter 2000-2001). The project had the good luck to come across several very interesting cases. Most prominent among these were those of Trans-en-Provence in 1981, and of "L'Amarante" in 1982.

GEPAN published its findings on these cases in Technical notes, numbers 16 and 17. They drew a lot of attention, even abroad, but, apparently, the scientific establishment did not welcome them because, shortly afterwards, the activity of GEPAN was drastically reduced. Esterle left and his assistant, Jean-Jacques Velasco, took over the operation of GEPAN. Velasco managed to keep the activity alive, but with very reduced means.

In 1988, the name GEPAN was even dropped and the project was renamed SEPRA, a curious name meaning Service d'Etude des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques (Department for the Study of Atmospheric Re-entry Phenomena), which did not refer directly to UFOs any more. The Scientific Council was essentially closed, and no more technical notes were published.

After a period of great confusion about the fate of French UFO studies, the service was eventually reactivated at CNES, in July 2005. Here is how it happened.

Toward the end of the 1990s, the SEPRA had a very limited activity, and some people would probably have liked to kill it for good. But others claimed that it should be reactivated and granted more resources for a new beginning. This was the opinion of the Cometa Report in 1999 (see www.cufos.org/cometa.html), written by an independent group comprised of senior officers, both military and civilian (Note: An English version of the entire Cometa Report is online at www.narcap.org). By the way, the entire Cometa report has been put on the GEIPAN web site!

I would like at this point to correct a mistake, seen in the Sunday Times article of March 25, "Spooky... They Start a UFO Website, Then it Crashes." It mentions the Cometa Report (without naming it) as a French government publication, released by the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale). This is incorrect. The report was written by a private group, the Cometa (even if it is true that it had been encouraged at the beginning by the head of IHEDN, General Bernard Norlain). But it has probably been influential in the reactivation of French UFO studies.

At CNES, the new director Gérard Brachet decided in 2001 to audit the UFO project. It was conducted by an outsider, François Louange, an expert in photo analysis who had participated in UFO studies at CNES. In 2002, Louange gave (like the Cometa but quite independently) a favourable report that recommended the reactivation and the new development of SEPRA. This was echoed in the French press, notably in an important article published in the major newspaper, Le Figaro, in November 2002:

Surprisingly, in January 2004, CNES then decided to close SEPRA.

What had happened?

Most likely, some influential people were opposed to the reactivation of SERPA. But it is a fact that the man in charge of SEPRA, engineer Jean-Jacques Velasco, after some twenty years at the "UFO desk," had made up his mind to come out and give his personal opinion about UFOs. Mr. Velasco was just completing a book, published in April 2004, under the rather provocative title OVNIS: L'évidence ("UFOs: The Evidence").

There is a play on words in this title because the primary meaning of "evidence" in French is "obviousness". Velasco meant that the reality of UFOs is obvious, and he worsened his case by adding that their ET origin is very probable, as well, just like the Cometa Report did in 1999. Presumably, his book also weighed heavily in the decision to close SEPRA. The conservative magazine Ciel et Espace announced in June 2004:

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