Many of you have probably heard of Project Blue Book; the US Government Report that detailed the systematic study of the UFO phenomenon. The report began in 1952 and was supposedly stopped in 1970, concluding that the vast majority of UFO's were explainable phenomenon.
You may be less aware that the United States was not the only major Western country to study the UFO phenomenon. Indeed, most, if not all of the Western governments have conducted their own studies of UFOs. All of those studies have one thing in common--a desire by the State to find out who, or what, is violating their airspace.
Almost all of them share the same generic conclusions that 95% of UFO sightings can be explained by common, scientific, explanations like weather balloons, atmospheric phenomenon, faulty equipment, swamp gas, deluded observers, etc. The other 5% of unexplained cases? Well, quite unusually, the studies are very dismissive and don't really seem all that concerned with them.
The British study known as Project Condign, undertaken with input from the Russians and the Chinese, simply concluded that the 5% of unexplainable sightings were, "most likely, not connected to visitations by extraterrestrial beings."
That's it.
That's where these government studies, conducted to understand, who, or what, is breaching their sovereign airspace, indubitably end.
Nothing to see here, folks. Everybody move along.
The French study, known as the COMETA Report was conducted for similar reasons, namely the desire to understand better a phenomenon that constituted a potential threat to French National Defense.
Conducted from 1990-1999 (now available in English translation and linked below), the COMETA Report is remarkable for a number of reasons.
First, it was composed of an independent, extra-governmental, committee made up of former "auditors" from the Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense, or IHEDN, and by qualified experts from various scientific fields touching on the phenomenon.
Second, these auditors and scientific experts did not waste their time with demonstrating explanations for 95% of UFO sightings, rather they focused specifically on the 5% of sightings that were absolutely without a doubt within the realm of the inexplicable.
What really sets the French COMETA report apart from those done by the US and Britain, however, is its extraordinary conclusion. After four years of exhaustive research the committee concluded in a report sent to then President Jacques Chirac in 1999, that UFO's (known as OVNI's in French) are "real," and the only logical explanation is that they are of "extraterrestrial origin" and, indeed, they do represent "a possible threat to the French National Security."
The report got very little press in the English-speaking press when it was released, especially in the US.
You can now read the full COMETA report here in English Translation, entitled: "Les OVNI's et La Défense: À quoi doit-on se préparer?" Translation: "UFO's and the National Defense: What should we be prepared for?"
Watch a documentary on the COMETA Report: