GEIPAN

GEIPAN (Groupe d’Etudes et d’Information sur les Phenomenes Aerospatiaux Non identifies) is France’s official government body for investigating UAP reports, operating under the national space agency CNES since 1977, making it one of the longest continuously operating official UFO study agencies in the world.^[1]

History

The agency was founded in 1977 as GEPAN by engineer Claude Poher following a wave of French sighting reports, and was later reorganized as SEPRA (1988) and, since 2005, as GEIPAN, with an expanded remit and a formal case-classification methodology.^[2]

Methodology

GEIPAN investigates civilian UAP reports submitted through French police (gendarmerie) channels and classifies each case into one of four categories, ranging from Class A (fully identified) to Class D (cases with strong, well-documented characteristics that remain unidentified despite thorough investigation), a graduated system regarded by many researchers internationally as a model for methodical, non-sensationalist case handling.^[3] Notable Class D or near-equivalent cases investigated by the agency’s predecessors include the 1981 Trans-en-Provence Case, in which physical ground traces were scientifically analyzed.

Standing and assessment

GEIPAN’s case files are publicly published online, a level of transparency uncommon among government UAP bodies, and the agency is generally regarded by both skeptics and UAP researchers as a credible, methodologically serious model, even though the large majority of the cases it reviews receive conventional explanations.

See also

• Trans-en-Provence Case
• Claude Poher
• Jean-Jacques Velasco

References

1. ^ GEIPAN official case archive, cnes-geipan.fr.
2. ^ Velasco, J.-J. Former GEPAN/SEPRA director, public interviews and case reports.
3. ^ GEIPAN classification methodology documentation, CNES.