Article/Document:

SEPRA Going Slowly Down, France 2004

UFOs at Close Sight / La Dépêche du Midi, June 8, 2004

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Summary: Article in French newspaper reporting on the closure of the SEPRA program. "The rare Aerospace Phenomena Expertise Service (SEPRA), based at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) in Toulouse, has been closed. While it does not appear in the new CNEW orgchart, activity is continued."

[The article underneath has been published in the daily newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, on June 8, 2004.]

SPACE. THE RARE AEROSPACE PHENOMENA EXPERTISE SERVICE (SEPRA), BASED AT THE NATIONAL CENTER DOR SPACE STUDIES (CNES) IN TOULOUSE, HAS BEEN CLOSED. WHILE IT DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE NEW CNES ORGCHART, ACTIVITY IS CONTINUED.

UFOs: minimal service

While erasing SEPRA (service of expertise on the rare aerospace phenomena) from its flow chart, the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) of Toulouse, which recalls that its primary vocation "is to carry out the space policy of France", paradoxically became more down to earth.

The service - at the origin, Group for the Study of the Unidentified Space Phenomena (GEPAN) during its creation in 1977 - was devoted mainly to the study of the unidentified flying objects, counting and analyzing testimonys of the hundreds of people who saw, or believed to see, an unexplained phenomenon.

The CNES did not justify its decision, evoking "a simple reorganization of the services". Actually, SEPRA made the expenses of the budgetary restrictions which have touched the space agency a few months ago. Nevertheless, the UFO research activity is not stopped. It will continue, "but in another form", it was specified. Its emblematic director, Jean-Jacques Velasco, a recognized scientist dubbed "France's Mr. UFO", did not wish to comment on the decision of the CNES. From now on an "expert attached to the assistant direction of the CNES in Toulouse", he will direct a simple cell and not what was formerly the equivalent of a subdirectorate.

But after his retirement, will any extraterrestrial form of life remain at the CNES? Aged 58, Jean-Jacques Velasco must retire in four years. It will thus be necessary to find and train a substitute, which does not seem to be, for the hour, a priority of the French agency.

In addition, some consider that the last book by Velasco, "UFOS, the evidence", that he however dissociates from his professional activity within SEPRA, had been worth some inimitable with the CNES, in particular because of a thesis which shows a concentration of UFOS near strategic nuclear sites...

6 000 witness reports

However, since 1977, by applying to the analysis of the phenomena known as extraterrestrial the rigour of the scientific method, SEPRA contributed to demystify a subject which remains sensitive. "When one speaks about unidentified flying objects, the scientific approach must be rigorous", stresses Jean-Jacques Velasco, who vomits the sects and their Martian wild imaginings. "Their significance can be acknowledged only if the presence of an object is simultaneously observed by a witness and measured physically, using radar for example."

To this end, CNES made agreements with the gendamery (which in particular noted 2 200 official reports in less than thirty years), civil aviation, the Air Force and the French Weather Services. To date, the Toulouse "men in black" collected approximately 6 000 testimonys (between 10 and 20 each year during the last years), including 5 850 terrestrial. On the number, only 13 % remain unexplained after investigation.

As in 1981, in Trans-in-Provence: a witness observes a phenomenon of ovoid shape, emitting a light whistle, which lands brutally on the ground where he rests more than one minute before taking off again. An analysis underlines a biochemical modification of the plants and a heating of the ground between 300° and 600°. This case remains one of the rare unexplained phenomena of the SEPRA.

Usually, the service concludes with weather balloons, planes, rockets, remains of satellites, lightning etc. In 1990, a farmer locates a crater of great dimension in his cornfield. It was in fact a bomb buried since the Second world war which waited 45 years to explode... The whole of these facts, explained or not, is now recorded within the SEPRA files which UFOmaniacs hope to read as soon as possible since officially, the service does not exist any more.

Sébastien Marti

Read more articles on this topic:

GEPAN / SEPRA / GEIPAN (France)