Summary: The French Government, and its offical national space agency CNES, will restart its official UFO study program. The French gov't has had an offical program to study UFOs for several decades, called GEPAN / SEPRA. It was closed recently, but after an audit, it will now be restarted, with a new director, Yves Sillard.

The French Government, and its offical national space agency CNES, will restart its official UFO study program. The French gov't has had an offical program to study UFOs for several decades, called GEPAN / SEPRA. It was closed recently, but after an audit, it will now be restarted, with a new director, Yves Sillard. This program is an official French government project, and is conducted under the official French space agency CNES (the equivalent of NASA in the US). The new director was a former director of CNES, and has numerous other high positions and achievements to his credit. In an interview with him, he seems to express a very strong support for the subject of UFOs, and advocates the need for serious, rigorous scientific study of the phenomenon. Mr. Sillard's most recent position was Assistant Secretary General for Environmental and Scientific Affairs for NATO.

-------------------------------

Background on Yves Sillard, the new director of the French UFO study program.

Link to original page, including photo of Mr. Sillard:

http://www.nato.int/cv/is/asg-sa/sillar-e.htm

Mr. Sillard was born on 5th January 1936 in Coutances, France.

He joined the Flight Test Centre in 1960 as Ingénieur Général de l'Armement after studying at the Institut Polytechnique and the Ecole Supérieure d'Aérotechnique. In 1964 he took charge of the Concorde programme in the Civil Aviation General Secretariat. The following year, he was made responsible for the construction of the Guyana Space Centre and then for the development of the Ariane rocket programme and finally became general manager of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) from 1976 to 1982.

From 1982 to 1988 he was Chairman and Manager of the Institut Français pour l'Exploitation de la Mer. He then became Delegate General for Armaments (1989-1993), then Chairman and General Manager of "Défense Conseil International" (1994-1997). Since April 1997 he has been the official representative for space policy attached to the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Sillard holds an Air Force pilot's licence (1200 flying hours).

Mr. Yves Sillard was appointed as Assistant Secretary General for Scientific and Environmental Affairs with effect from 19th January 1998.

------------------------------

According to researcher Jacques Vallee, the former director of the program Jean-Jacques Velasco will no longer be with the UFO study program (GEPAN-SEPRA).

------------------------------

Information about a recent interview with the new directory of the French Gov't UFO Study program, from Patrick Gross (ufologie.net):

FRENCH OFFICIAL RESEARCH ON UFO REPORTS RESUMED?

An interview of Yves Sillard was diffused on Radio France International on September 29, 2005. Yves Sillard held positions within the CNES (Ntional Center for Space Studies, the smaller equivalent of NASA for France), the armament, he worked on the Ariane rockets. He had created GEPAN, the group which studied UFO reports within CNES, when he was its director, in 1977.

In the interview, he explains that UFOs are a matter which must be considered seriously, and that CNES now will reactivate its UFO research effort, following an audit of 2001-2002, and provide again reasonable means of operation to this effort.

He specifies that research on UFO reports within CNES "had given up a bit" to "incredible misinformation campaigns which are very often intended to destabilise, to even ridicule those who cover the subject seriously."

He informs that a committee was created, having representatives of the principal organizations "which in France are concerned with that." He lists the National Gendarmerie, the National Police force, Civil Safety, the Air Force, the Civil Aviation, National Meteorology and adds that there will also be initially four scientists specialists in fields which are more or less in connection with UFOs, such as for example "propulsion, electromagnetism, astrophysics and also the social sciences."

He indicates that GEPAN and the SEPRA, during the last years have collected cases "which are documented perfectly, with witnesses whose credentials have been checked, but which are unexplainable by phenomena known today" and that "in face of that one can only make assumptions, and only assumptions."

He adds: "... I think that the Americans practises on the subject to which they devote, I am persuaded of it, much higher efforts of investigation than those of any other country, they practise a deliberated policy and learnedly orchestrated misinformation. It is a total misinformation. What for? Is it the fear to see their supremacy challenged if one day they face a much more advanced external civilization? Is it their concern of keeping for them a potential of technology asset? Or... or any other explanation, who knows?"