In March 2007, Jacques Patenet gave a number of interviews, in which he warned that we are not going to find any new important (but previously unknown) cases. The best, such as Trans-en-Provence in 1981 (allegedly, the brief landing of a small UFO, with traces left on the ground), are known already. However, there is some new information worth mentioning:

The number of unidentified cases afte r serious study (the "PAN D" category) is now estimated at 25 to 28 % (depending on the day of the interview, apparently). On the web site of GEIPAN, the percentage is, indeed, 28%. Here is the repartition in the four key categories used by the project:

Please note that it would not be appropriate to add PAN C and D, which would make for 58% of unknowns, as some have claimed recently in Canada (The National Post, for example). The percentage of unidentified is more than has been previously published. In recent years, the percentage of unknown phenomena was still given at around 13 % or 14 %. Actually, in the book just published, Phénomènes spatiaux non identifiés, Yves Sillard gives the following percentages:

For his part, Jean-Jacques Velasco, in his book, which was reissued recently under the title Troubles dans le ciel (Troubles in the Sky") still gives the previous figures, very close to those of Yves Sillard:

So, how do we explain this?

It appears that GEIPAN has (very recently) re-evaluated the percentage of unknowns. Interestingly, this new percentage of unknowns (28 %) is more in line with the very first results of GEPAN, which had been established by Claude Poher, based on the analysis of 678 reports.

Actually, the unknowns were much higher:

PAN A and B together: 26 %
PAN C: 36 %
PAN D: 38 %!

Jean-Jacques Velasco also compares, in his book, the percentages of French UFOs with those found in the fifties in the USA by the Batelle Memorial Institute for Project Blue Book. These findings were kept confidential at the time, but published later in the famous Special Report 14.

Their findings, based on the statistical study of 1,959 usable reports from the period 1952-1954, were, using the equivalent categories:

PAN A + B: 49, 6 %
PAN C: 18. 9 %
PAN D: 21. 5 %

However, the most publicized percentage of unknowns, established globally in 1969 on the complete files of the Blue Book commission of 12,618 cases was 5.5 %. But we know that the U.S. Air Force had made every effort to reduce that number (and the percentage has increased since then as others, including Alan J. Hynek, re-evaluated the case files).

So, the percentage of unknowns apparently remains, even today, a rather uncertain and debatable statistic. But it seems to be much higher than the classic, oft-cited 5 %.

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