Strange baguettes and the French X-files

The scene sounds like a French comedy. On a sunny winter afternoon,  Monsieur Blaise, a 35-year-old dairy inspector, drives home through the Languedoc countryside after visiting his aunt. A strange object appears overhead. Mysteriously, the engine of his Citroen stalls. Struck with terror, Blaise runs for his life. He later describes the mysterious craft to the gendarmes."It was a kind of cigar that I compared to a baguette of bread."  His Citroen refuses to start for another day.

M. Blaise's encounter of the after-lunch kind, which took place in January 1981, was meticulously recorded and analysed by a unit of the CNES, the French national space agency. It has now been put on line along with 400 sightings of suspected UFOs -- OVNIs in French -- from the official Gallic X-files.

Eventually some 100,000 documents, covering 1,650 cases going back to the early 1950s, will be available in the first such exercise in public transparency. Like the United States in the post-war years, the French state has taken its UFOs seriously and devoted resources to interviewing witnesses and analysing sightings scientifically. The fascinating thing is that a full 28 percent of the cases remain an absolute mystery. These are decribed as "inexplicable despite precise witness accounts and the good quality of material information gathered." 

Naturally UFO fans from around the world are now jamming the site of the GEIPAN, the agency's "flying saucer division", as sceptics call it. 

  [lightning that was mistaken for a UFO]

Jacques Patenet, head of the UFO cell (Group for Study and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena), says that a few dozen cases "are very intriguing and can be called UFOs." His agency put its X-files on line in the interests of scientific enquiry and to quash conspiracy theories, Patenet says. He keeps an open mind on the mystery cases. "We do not have the slightest beginning of proof that aliens are behind these inexplicable phenomena. But neither do we have any proof that they are not..." Patenet told le Figaro.   

Among the most celebrated French cases is the flying saucer of Trans-en-Provence, a village inland from the Riviera. On January 8, 1981 -- just a week before Mr Blaise and his flying baguette -- Renato Niccolai, 55, a stone mason, was working in his garden when he saw a strange object landing 50 metres down the hillside from him. He sketched the zinc-coloured, wok-like craft for investigators.

The object, about 2.5 metres wide, took off silently and disappeared. Geipan scientists found that the ground had been radiated with temperatures reaching 600 degrees. Surrounding vegetation underwent biological change. The object was estimated to have weighed several hundred kilogrammes. Twenty-six years later, Jean-Jacques Velasco, who headed the Geipan inquiry, told L'Express magazine that he has still not got over his shock. "I remain persuaded that no human material could have put such an imprint on the ground," he said last week. 

You have to admire France for the effort that it makes to detect possible aliens. Across the Channel, the British Government has stopped spending tax money on extra-terrestrial visitors. 

Nick Pope, a civil servant who ran the Ministry of Defence UFO project from 1991 to 1994, sounded the alarm last November saying that the Government had left Britain open to a possible alien incursion. "The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.

"If you reported a UFO sighting now, I am sure you would just get back a standard letter telling you not to worry. Frankly we are wide open -if something does not behave like a conventional aircraft now, it will be ignored."

Britons who spot anything mysterious in the sky or at the bottom of their garden might be advised to contact the French agency. They have useful instructions in English on what to do. Here they are:

If you observe a phenomenon you cannot explain, write down the details as quickly and accurately as you can. Include:
The date and exact time and duration of the event
Its precise geographic location and reference to landmarks, etc.
Its shape, size, colours, movements, etc.
Any noise it makes
Any other information you think could be relevant
If the phenomenon leaves any visible traces (e.g. tracks on the ground, damage to vegetation, etc.), do not enter the area.

No meaningful analysis can be performed on samples not taken according to established protocols.

In all cases, report to the nearest police station, which will take all necessary steps and record a formal statement that will be forwarded to Geipan.

Needless to say, the true UFO buffs are dismissing the Geipan archive as an obvious decoy.  Jean-Pierre Petit, a retired astro-physicist, said that the agency has concealed the true findings from its research and just released a collection of police reports.  "I am impatient to see if they include some cases that we are well aware of," he said.   

Comments

[John Gregory Flinn]

"...saying that the Government had left Britain open to a possible alien incursion. "The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said."

Really Mr Bremner, you are tempting fate with this remark... or is your tongue in your cheek...!?

[unkle]

Some warnings on JP Petit, who is not only a retired scientist...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ummo
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Petit#En_dehors_du_champ_professionnel

[christopher muir]

So Monsieur Blaise saw a flying baguette. I have, too, but where? Eventually I recalled that Rene Magritte once painted a suspended baguette against a blue sky with a wine glass in the foreground. My theory is that Monsieur Blaise may once have seen this quirky masterpiece. The image then became imbedded in his subconscious, only to rise later in the guise of a dramatic scene, this being the result of momentarily crossed wires in the brain. Magritte also offers a sort of UFO in his "Chemin de Ciel" which is housed in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (it's on the web, a legacy of the Shah's tastes no doubt). Having viewed several quite convincing videos of active UFO clusters on YouTube, I'm glad that France approaches these phenomena with some degree of serious interest.