France Joins the South American UFO Axis

Is there a "UFO Gap" between the U.S. and certain other countries? Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds magazine reports:

The Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France (3AF) has signed an agreement with Chile’s Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) to cooperate on the study of UFOs. 3AF posted an article on their website late last month explaining their newly founded relationship with CEFAA.

3AF is an important organization in France, and in Europe’s aeronautical industry in general. Similar to the United State’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics [AIAA], it is a society for those participating in, or interested in, the aerospace industry.

The great Meeting of the Minds about UFOs: 3AF and CEFAA.

At this junction I should point out that back in the late 1960s and early 70s, here in the U.S. the AIAA had its own flirtation with UFO sightings, and held one major UFO Symposium. This involved J. Allen Hynek, and (added only at the last minute) Philip J. Klass. I have some of Klass' correspondence about this on my web page on Historical UFOlogy. Since then, the AIAA has been wise enough to avoid the subject of UFOs.

Nor are France and Chile the only countries to show a recent interest in UFOs. Antonio Huneeus, Rojas' colleague at Open Minds, wrote in 2011:

I outlined the history and background of CEFAA in the current issue of Open Minds magazine in the article “South American Governments Open New Official UFO Agencies,” which also covers the Uruguayan Air Force project CRIDOVNI and Peru’s OIFAA. A second part covering the recent launching of the Argentinean Air Force commission CEFAE and the official studies undertaken in Brazil and Ecuador will be published in the next issue of Open Minds. It looks like most of South America is currently taking a very proactive official and publicly open effort to tackle UFOs.

If you believe UFOs are real, then this alliance gives you something to worry about: If these third-rate military powers should succeed in unlocking the secrets of UFOs' anti-gravity and infinite energy systems, they will be able to take over the world!! Returning to Rojas' article,

Surprisingly, 3AF also has a strong interest in the investigation of UFOs. Although, it might not be too surprising to those who know that the French government is one of very few that have an official organization that investigates UFOs. It is called the Study and Information Group on Aerospace Unidentified Phenomena (GEIPAN), and is part of France’s National Center for Space Studies (CNES), their version of NASA...

In May, 2010, the 3AF/SIGMA commission released a progress report. In it, they agreed with the conclusions of the Committee for In-Depth Studies (COMETA) Report of 1999. COMETA was a group of high-ranking retired French military and intelligence officers who conducted an independent study determining that UFOs were real and possibly of extraterrestrial origins.

Leslie Kean in Chile

 

Author Leslie Kean went to Chile twice in 2012 to meet with Generals, Pilots and Government Officials to discuss the Fly UFO Video and other important UFO cases.

Before UFO proponents get too excited, let me remind them that Chile's CEFAA was the source of that embarrassing and ridiculous Fly UFO Video that Leslie Kean, author of the 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record -  promoted breathlessly in 2012 as possibly "the case UFO skeptics have been dreading."  See my review of her book, ‘Unexplained’ Cases—Only If You Ignore All Explanations.

A strange metallic flying object - Lucilia Sericata, the common  Green Bottle fly

Kean must surely know by now that the famous video from El Bosque shows just bugs. But she won't admit it, giving the excuse that it's a mystery too deep for science to solve.  UFO photo analyst Bruce Maccabee says it's just a bug, but Richard Haines of NARCAP says it's a real unidentified. Kean can't admit she was wrong, for it would be too embarrassing to admit that so many Generals and Pilots and Government Officials could be so stupid.

 

Pre-fly UFO photo released by Chilean CEFAA.

 

And the Fly UFO video is not the only highly dubious piece of "UFO evidence" promoted by the CEFAA. In 2011 blogger Kentaro Omori noted how a UFO photo released by Chile's CEFAA, called by some Chilean UFOlogists "the world’s best UFO photo, " looks amazingly like a reflection of a light in a car window. "As a cooperation between CEFAA and the American NARCAP, Dr. Richard Haines evaluated the series of images and issued a report, translated by CEFAA to Spanish, and also reproduced by Leslie Kean in English." Yep, they found it to be a real UFO.

What about that COMETA UFO report written by French aerospace researchers, and endorsed by 3AF? Kean says her initiation into the ranks of UFO proponents occurred in 1999 when she was given a copy of the French UFO report called COMETA, which is usually described as a report commissioned by defense officials, but was in fact written by a private group. Like Bentham upon reading Hume, the “scales fell from [her] eyes,” and she suddenly realized the reality of UFOs as unknown flying vehicles. 

I'm a skeptic so some people wouldn't trust what I have to say about the COMETA report. But John Alexander is surely no skeptic. He believes in that preposterous UFO incident that Jim Moseley always used to call "Rendle-SHAM," and he's also very big on the phony (and dangerous) Brazilian "faith healer" called John of God." But John Alexander described the COMETA report as “an embarrassment… unsubstantiated data from questionable sources” in his book UFOs Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities.

Col. John B. Alexander (U.S. Army, Retired)

Congratulations, 3AF! You have signed up in an alliance with some of the least-credible UFO buffs around. Once this hits the tabloids (and the UFO shows on cable TV channels), for decades people will think "UFOs" when they see "3AF."