European UAP Sightings in 2019-2024: Towards a Broader and More Inclusive EuroUFO Barometer

[This is the original version of the article, published on December 24th, 2025. An updated version was published on January 27th, 2026 on UAP Check web site]

The annual survey of European UFO sighting reports had a significant improvement in 2024: five additional national organizations joined the initiative and two international collections contributed to reaching a total of 29 European countries monitored.


Scope, Sources, and Objectives of the 2025 Update

This updated report represents a significant step forward compared to the previous edition published in June 2024 [1].  While last year’s work focused on raw reporting data from eleven European countries, the present update considerably expands both the geographical coverage and the institutional basis of the dataset. For the first time, this annual overview can rely not only on long-standing national civilian organisations and official bodies, but also on newly established or revitalised networks and an unprecedented level of international data sharing. Two major developments have shaped this year’s update.

The first is the integration of five additional European countries for which reliable national-level inputs could be obtained through the creation, reactivation, or continuation of local organisations. In the Czech Republic, the former Projekt Záře has been successfully revitalised under the new name Tým Záře, restoring national data-collection efforts that had stalled after 2020. In Greece, the establishment of GRUFON (Greek UFO Network) in September 2025 marks the first attempt in decades to structure a sustained national framework for UAP reporting and analysis. Spain has also made important progress with the inclusion of Project CUCO (created in 2002), which finally extends systematic data collection beyond the long-standing but geographically limited activity of the CEI (Centre d’Estudis Interplanetaris), focused on Catalonia. In Portugal, the creation of CTEC Stellar in 2023 has reintroduced a national structure for the systematic collection of UAP reports, filling a long-standing gap in the Iberian peninsula. Finally, despite extraordinary circumstances, Ukraine has managed to contribute updated, though necessarily partial, data through SRCAA Zond, an organisation operating under the Aerospace Society of Ukraine. ZOND continues a scientific tradition initiated in the early 1980s under the National Academy of Sciences and has pursued the investigation of anomalous phenomena continuously since 2004, including throughout the ongoing war.

The second major development is methodological and arguably even more consequential. For the first time, the world’s largest civilian UFO organisation, MUFON has agreed to share its European data with EuroUfo.Net. This cooperation makes it possible to incorporate reports from European countries where no national civilian or official UAP organisation currently exists, thereby addressing one of the most persistent structural weaknesses of continental-level analyses. Founded in 1969, MUFON is the oldest and largest civilian UFO investigation and research network in the world.

Thanks to this cooperation, data from 21 additional European countries, previously missing from continental overviews, can now be included in a dedicated section of this report (see Part 3). For the 2019–2024 reference period, these MUFON-sourced inputs alone represent a total of 3,353 reported events across 29 countries, significantly broadening the empirical base of the EuroUFO Barometer.   

As a result, this year’s update goes well beyond a simple annual refresh. It now combines the original core group of European countries with long-standing national UAP organisations, newly integrated countries with direct organisational contacts, and a large additional set of countries represented through MUFON’s standardised reporting system. Taken together, these sources allow for the most extensive and inclusive overview of European UAP reporting activity assembled to date.

To account for this diversity of data sources, the analytical framework of the report is deliberately differentiated. Graphical analyses and longitudinal comparisons are limited to countries with resident organisations and continuous national data collection, while MUFON-sourced data are presented separately in tabular form only. On this basis, the report is organised into two main sections. The first examines the evolution and characteristics of UAP reporting in countries with established national organisations. The second presents UAP reports submitted to MUFON’s Case Management System from European countries without national collection structures, as a descriptive overview highlighting baseline reporting activity and future potential.

As in previous editions, it is important to emphasise that the figures presented in this report primarily reflect reported observations, rather than confirmed anomalous phenomena. It is well known among researchers and investigators across Europe that the vast majority of these testimonies ultimately correspond to misidentifications of natural or human-made phenomena, including satellites (notably Starlink constellations), the International Space Station, drones, aircraft, atmospheric effects, and common celestial objects such as stars and planets. While such cases dominate national datasets, their systematic collection remains valuable for understanding reporting dynamics, public perception, and the recurring sources of confusion that shape UAP statistics.

Only a very small fraction of cases remain unresolved after investigation, and even these rarely display strong evidential consistency. For example, within the French GEIPAN framework, the most recent case classified as an “unidentified phenomenon” of moderate consistency dates back to 2020, with the previous comparable case recorded in 2018. A dedicated, cross-national analysis focusing specifically on the small subset of unresolved cases over the past five to ten years would therefore constitute a particularly relevant avenue for future research, but lies beyond the scope of the present report.

At the same time, important structural limitations persist. Despite gradual improvements in data sharing and consolidation, Europe still lacks a harmonised institutional framework for UAP data collection and analysis. In many countries, national datasets depend heavily on the sustained efforts of a very small number of volunteers, rendering reporting systems vulnerable to temporary interruptions or discontinuities. This fragility is illustrated by the absence of consolidated national data for the United Kingdom in 2024, as well as by partial gaps in the Italian dataset for also 2024.

In this context, EuroUfo.Net plays a useful coordinating role by providing a stable platform for collaboration, information exchange, and methodological discussion among national organisations and independent researchers across Europe. Although EuroUfo.Net does not constitute a formal institutional body, it facilitates continuity by maintaining long-term points of contact, encouraging data sharing, and promoting comparative approaches to national statistics. This informal but persistent network contributes to greater coherence in European-level analyses and helps mitigate, to some extent, the structural fragmentation that characterises UAP data collection at the continental scale.

Nevertheless, the progress achieved since the previous report demonstrates that incremental, cooperative efforts, particularly across borders, can substantially improve the quality and scope of European UAP monitoring. The continued development of collaborative frameworks, both formal and informal, remains essential for advancing a more consistent and transparent understanding of reported UAP activity in Europe.     

1. Annual Volume of Reported UAP Events in Europe (2019–2024)

Before examining country-level distributions, it is useful to consider the overall evolution of reported UAP events in Europe over the 2019–2024 period. Over the six-year reference period, a total of 32,253 UAP-related events were reported across the European countries covered in this update. Annual totals fluctuate within a relatively narrow range, from a minimum of 4,833 reports in 2021 to a peak of 6,679 in 2020, with an overall average of approximately 5,375 reports per year. This general stability suggests that, at a continental scale, UAP reporting in Europe has remained broadly consistent over time, notwithstanding short-term variations linked to specific national contexts or external factors.

Table 1. Annual dataset values from 2019 to 2024

Note: 2024 data are incomplete for Italy and the UK, so total is underestimated.

Regarding the noticeable peak between 2019 and 2020, it has been previously noticed that the sharp increase could be attributed to three countries: Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. One strong hypothesis behind this increase is that that year was the beginning of the operational launches for the Starlink satellites by SpaceX. Confusion between these  satellites and UAPs  is common because newly launched satellites appear as eerie, bright, straight lines or “trains” of lights in the night sky, resembling unusual aerial phenomena, even for pilots, leading to numerous reports of UAP before they spread out into their operational orbits and become harder to see. These “satellite trains” are simply batches of 50-60 satellites released together, reflecting sunlight, and are easily visible during twilight hours, mistakenly identified as potential UAP.

In early 2020, another contextual consideration that was discussed by some researchers was the potential influence of COVID-19–related behavioural changes (such as changes in outdoor activity and sky-watching patterns during lockdowns) on the volume of UAP reports. However, empirical investigation into this hypothesis has not supported a causal link: for example, a study published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration found no evidence that pandemic-related behavioural shifts significantly affected UAP reporting rates in the United States[2]. While this context is interesting from a historical perspective, it should not be interpreted as a substantive explanatory factor for the 2020 peak in European data.

Of this six-year total, 28,900 reports (approximately 90%) originate from national civilian or official UAP organisations forming the primary analytical dataset, while 3,353 reports (around 10%) derive from the MUFON Case Management System (CMS). Although numerically smaller, the MUFON contribution plays a disproportionate role in extending geographical coverage. Thanks to this cooperation, reports from 21 additional European countries, previously missing from previous EuroUfo.Net continental overviews, are now included in this Barometer. As a result, the 2025 update incorporates data from 37 European countries in total, substantially expanding both the demographic and territorial scope of the analysis (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Basic Political map of Europe (for geographic orientation)  

The comparatively lower total observed for 2024 should therefore be interpreted with caution. As discussed earlier, consolidated annual data are still missing for three organisations that normally contribute substantial volumes, most notably in the United Kingdom and Italy. Based on recent historical levels, the inclusion of these missing inputs would likely add several hundred additional reports, on the order of 700 to 800 cases, bringing the 2024 total close to that observed in 2023. The apparent decline in 2024 thus reflects limitations in data availability rather than a meaningful reduction in reporting activity.

Beyond absolute numbers, the present dataset represents a major step forward compared with earlier European overviews. Whereas previous Barometers were typically limited to fewer than a dozen countries, the current compilation spans a large proportion of Europe’s population and geographical area, covering Western, Northern, Southern, Central, and parts of Eastern Europe. It should nevertheless be noted that MUFON-derived data likely represent only a fraction of the actual reporting activity in these additional countries, as they capture reports primarily from individuals who are aware of the US-based organisation and motivated to submit their observations through a foreign reporting platform rather than through local or national structures.

Even with this caveat, the expanded coverage substantially reinforces the value of the EuroUFO Barometer as an indicator of continental-scale reporting dynamics, while simultaneously underscoring the importance of continued institutional cooperation to improve completeness and representativeness in future editions.

Taken together, the 37 European countries included in this edition of the Barometer represent a clear majority of Europe’s population and geographical area. They encompass all major population centres in Western Europe, the Nordic countries, Southern Europe, and much of Central and Eastern Europe, while also including geographically extensive states such as Norway, Sweden and Russia. Although precise population-weighted comparisons remain approximate due to varying definitions of “Europe,” the countries covered in this report plausibly account for well over two thirds of Europe’s inhabitants and a comparable share of its landmass.

Nevertheless, important gaps persist. Several European countries still lack any identifiable national civilian or official structure for the systematic collection of UAP reports and are therefore absent from the primary analytical dataset. Notably, this includes Austria, Poland and Switzerland, three geographically and demographically significant European states whose absence highlights the uneven development of UAP reporting infrastructures across the continent. The lack of data from these countries should not be interpreted as an absence of UAP observations, but rather as an indication of ongoing structural and institutional limitations in European-level monitoring.         


2. Primary Analytical Dataset: Countries with Established National UAP Organisations 


The tables and charts in this section summarize the raw data on UFO/IFO observations reported to 23 organisations across 16 European countries, for which consolidated national statistics are available. Data for the UK in 2024 are currently missing but are expected to be released next year, and information from one major Italian association is also not yet available. These countries share a key structural feature: the presence of resident civilian UAP associations or official bodies that have maintained continuous, long-term data collection and stable points of contact with EuroUfo.Net over several years (Table 2).

In these countries, UAP reports are collected within a well-defined national context, using established reporting channels and investigation procedures, and are supported by local archival practices and institutional memory. This continuity allows for the examination of interannual variations, longer-term trends, and cross-country comparisons with a reasonable degree of methodological consistency. For these reasons, only this subset of countries is included in the graphical analyses and trend-based interpretations presented below.

The data presented here have been compiled through the voluntary contributions of member organisations within the EuroUfo.Net virtual community, supplemented by publicly available statistics published by national institutions of GEIPAN in France and the Aeronautica Militare in Italy. Although differences in reporting practices and public visibility persist between countries, this primary analytical dataset represents the most robust and internally coherent foundation currently available for assessing the evolution of reported UAP activity across Europe.          

Table 2. National organisations contributing data to the primary analytical dataset, with year of establishment and online reporting resources.


As in previous editions, it must be emphasised that these figures reflect reported observations rather than confirmed anomalous events. The vast majority of cases ultimately correspond to misidentifications of natural or human-made phenomena. Nevertheless, the systematic collection and comparison of such reports remain essential for understanding reporting dynamics, identifying recurrent patterns, and isolating the small subset of cases that may warrant deeper investigation.

With respect to the most difficult-to-explain cases, a separate analysis focusing specifically on currently unexplained events reported over the past five to ten years would be particularly valuable. At present, such an analysis is only realistically feasible for France, where the GEIPAN makes detailed case classifications publicly available. Based on these published data, the most recent cases classified in the unexplained categories (D/D1/D2) date from 2022 (three cases), with earlier occurrences recorded in 2020 (two cases) and 2019 (one case).        

Preliminary data for 2024 seems to indicate a slight decline in the total number of reported UAP observations across the 16 countries included in this analysis, with 4,695 reports compared to 5,069 in 2023. This apparent decrease should be interpreted cautiously, as contributions from two UK organizations and one Italian organization are still missing. Given the historically high reporting levels in these countries, the actual number of observations for 2024 is likely to be in fact higher.

Compared to last year, the dataset has also expanded in geographic scope. While the 2023 report included 11 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands), the 2024 dataset encompasses 16 countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the Netherlands). This larger set of 16 countries continues to represent a substantial majority of Europe’s inhabitants. The added countries: Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, and Ukraine, contribute notable population shares in their regions, further broadening the geographical and demographic scope of the EuroUFO Barometer. From a numerical standpoint, the 16-country dataset now includes over 31,503 reported cases from 2019 to 2024, compared with approximately 23,800 cases from 2019 to 2023, reflecting both the inclusion of additional countries and the accumulation of new annual reports.


Table 3. Country-level totals of reported events per year

Among countries with complete data, reporting levels in 2024 vary considerably. Germany continues to show elevated activity, with reports increasing from 1,148 in 2023 to 1,436 in 2024, reflecting well-established reporting lines and clear institutional associations, while Belgium and France recorded decreases, reaching 222 and 175 reports, respectively. Denmark and Finland saw modest increases, with 121 and 99 reports, while smaller reporting countries, including Greece, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the Netherlands, remained largely stable.

As in previous years, it is important to consider contextual factors that may influence reporting levels. For example, the Netherlands reports observations exclusively via the website of the only currently active organisation in the country. The Netherlands also has one of the highest population densities in Western Europe, with over 500 people per square kilometer. By comparison, Belgium has 380, the United Kingdom 280, Germany 240, Italy 200, and France 120 people per square kilometer. These factors, population density and the organization of reporting channels, certainly contribute to the observed differences in the number of reports between countries.

Overall, the preliminary 2024 data highlight the continuity of high reporting activity in some countries, such as Germany, and moderate declines in others, including Belgium and France. Smaller reporting countries remain largely stable. The expansion of the dataset to include 16 countries, together with the cumulative total exceeding 31,500 reports, underscores both the persistence of organised reporting efforts and the value of a broader European perspective in understanding trends in reported UAP activity.

Table 4. Participating countries and reporting organisations included in the dataset


Interannual Variations and General Pattern

To limit the risk of over-interpretation, the analysis of interannual variations in this report focuses primarily on year-to-year changes between 2023 and 2024. Longer-term evolutions are discussed qualitatively, as differences in reporting structures, public awareness, and investigation practices constrain the interpretability of percentage-based comparisons over extended periods.

At the European level, the preliminary 2024 data suggest a modest decline in the total number of reported observations compared to 2023. This decrease must be interpreted cautiously, however, as the 2024 dataset remains incomplete. Consequently, comparisons involving these countries are not directly comparable to previous years.

Among countries with complete data, several patterns can nevertheless be identified. Germany continues to display consistently high reporting levels and shows a further increase in 2024, reinforcing a long-term pattern of sustained reporting activity. By contrast, a number of countries that experienced elevated reporting around 2020, such as Belgium, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands, show more moderate levels in recent years, suggesting a stabilisation following earlier peaks. Other countries, including Denmark, Finland, and Romania, exhibit gradual increases from relatively low baselines, likely reflecting improved reporting visibility or organisational continuity rather than abrupt changes in observed phenomena.

Overall, these patterns point to the predominance of structural and contextual factors, such as population density, reporting channels, and organisational capacity, in shaping national reporting levels. While short-term variations provide useful indicators of reporting dynamics, the data do not support simple interpretations in terms of changes in underlying UAP activity. It is also noteworthy that, at the European level, no sudden or general peak in reporting has been observed since the Belgium UFO wave of 1989-1990, highlighting the relative stability of reporting patterns in the decades since.      

Table 5. Country-level totals of reported events and interannual variation (2023–2024)

Notes:
1. Incomplete data: 2023 and/or 2024 data are incomplete;
corresponding percentage variations are therefore not shown.
2. Low-count countries: Percentage variations based on very small absolute numbers

should be interpreted with caution and are not shown.       
3, MUFON data availability: MUFON Spanish data are included for 2024 only;

percentage variations are therefore not shown.

3. Complementary Dataset: UAP Reports Submitted to the MUFON Case Management System (CMS)

In addition to extending coverage to countries without resident national UAP organisations, MUFON CMS data have also been integrated, where available, into the datasets of eight countries that already possess established national reporting structures (see Table 5). In these cases, MUFON inputs serve as a supplementary source and are included alongside national statistics, without replacing them.

Beyond these integrations, MUFON CMS data provide a standalone complementary dataset covering 21 additional European countries not represented in the primary analytical sample. For the 2019–2024 reference period, these MUFON-only inputs amount to a total of 750 reported events, offering a broader, though necessarily more heterogeneous, geographic perspective on UAP reporting activity across Europe.



Table 6. MUFON CMS–sourced UAP reports in European countries
without resident national reporting organisations (2019–2024) 
           

This section presents a complementary set of UAP reports submitted to the MUFON Case Management System (CMS) from European countries where no long-standing national UAP organisation currently exists, or where no consolidated national statistics are publicly available. Unlike the primary analytical dataset examined in the previous section, these data originate from a centralized international reporting framework rather than from resident national structures embedded in local social, cultural, and institutional contexts.

All reports included in this dataset follow MUFON’s standardized intake and investigation procedure. Witnesses submit detailed reports through the MUFON CMS, after which each case is assigned to a trained field investigator who is required to establish contact with the witness within 72 hours. Additional information is collected, and the case is reviewed, classified, and closed, typically within a 60-day timeframe. This uniform process ensures a high level of procedural consistency across countries, even in the absence of local organisations.

However, important structural differences distinguish this dataset from the primary one. Reporting volumes in MUFON-only countries are influenced by factors such as public awareness of MUFON, language accessibility, internet usage, and media exposure, rather than by sustained national outreach or locally anchored investigative activity. Annual case numbers are generally low and discontinuous, making longitudinal trend analysis or graphical interpretation statistically fragile and potentially misleading.

For these reasons, the MUFON-sourced data presented here are limited to tabular form and are provided strictly for descriptive purposes. They are not included in the charts or comparative analyses applied to countries with resident organisations. Their primary value lies in extending the geographic coverage of the EuroUFO Barometer, offering baseline indicators of reporting activity, and highlighting regions where the development of local data-collection structures could significantly enhance future monitoring efforts.

Despite their descriptive nature, several broad observations can be drawn from the MUFON-sourced dataset. First, reporting volumes remain very low in most countries, often limited to single-digit annual figures, underscoring the absence of sustained national reporting infrastructures. Within this context, Russia stands out with consistently higher numbers across the reference period, a pattern that can largely be attributed to the presence of an established civilian reporting channel, complemented by a smaller number of submissions via the MUFON Case Management System. This concentration effect, rather than any inference regarding underlying phenomena, accounts for the higher aggregate figures observed for this country.

The table 6 also highlights notable structural gaps in central and eastern Europe. Countries such as Austria and Switzerland, located at the geographic core of Europe and characterised by high levels of technological development and public connectivity, continue to rely exclusively on external reporting mechanisms. Similarly, Poland, one of Europe’s largest countries by population and territory, shows recurrent but discontinuous reporting activity, reinforcing the need for locally anchored organisations capable of providing continuity, outreach, and national-level aggregation. In this respect, the MUFON dataset serves not only as a complementary statistical input, but also as an indicator of regions where the establishment of resident data-collection structures could substantially enhance future European-wide monitoring efforts.    

4. Conclusion

The 2025 update of the EuroUFO Barometer represents a clear step forward in both the breadth and depth of continental UAP reporting. Compared to previous editions, the dataset now integrates a larger number of countries, including newly established or revitalised national organisations, as well as a complementary set of reports sourced from MUFON’s Case Management System covering nations without resident UAP structures. Taken together, these developments provide the most comprehensive overview of European UAP reporting activity compiled to date, spanning 37 countries and over 32,000 recorded events from 2019 to 2024.

While these figures mark an important advance, it is crucial to interpret them with caution. Reporting levels remain strongly influenced by structural and contextual factors such as the presence of national organisations, population density, public awareness, language barriers, and local reporting channels. Some national datasets are incomplete, and a small number of duplicate or backdated reports may exist. Moreover, the vast majority of cases correspond to misidentifications of natural or human-made phenomena, with only a very small fraction remaining unresolved after investigation. As such, inter-country or interannual comparisons should be treated as indicative rather than definitive.

Despite these limitations, the update underscores the value of incremental, cooperative efforts, both formal and informal, in enhancing the quality, resilience, and scope of UAP monitoring across Europe. Networks such as EuroUfo.Net and UAP Check play a vital role in fostering continuity, methodological exchange, and collaboration, helping to overcome the fragmentation and gaps that have historically limited continental analyses. The report also highlights regions, including central and eastern Europe, where locally anchored data-collection structures remain absent, pointing to opportunities for further institutional development.

Overall, the 2025 update demonstrates that a broader, more inclusive EuroUFO Barometer is both feasible and already taking shape. Continued cooperation, transparency, and sustained effort by national researchers and volunteer organisations will be essential to consolidate this progress, improve data completeness, and deepen our understanding of the long-term dynamics of reported UAP activity in Europe.

In this perspective, it is worth noting a recent initiative emerging within EuroUfo.Net that directly complements the annual statistical work presented in this report. Following discussions among European researchers at the SOL Symposium in Baveno in 2025, EuroUfo.Net and UAP Check launched a joint pilot project aimed at creating a public “Euro UFO Index”. The objective of this initiative is not to provide an additional analytical dataset, but rather a simple, transparent catalogue listing basic data or reported UFO/UAP observations, such as date, location, and broad sighting type, while linking each entry to the original source organisation for further details.

As a first, deliberately limited experiment, participating organisations have been invited to contribute a small subset of records for the year 2024 only, thereby minimising the workload and allowing a practical assessment of feasibility and willingness to cooperate. At the time of writing, a beta version of the Euro Ufo Index is already online[3] and includes approximately 1,500 reports contributed by several national partners, out of an expected total of around 4,700 entries for the pilot phase.

Although the Euro Ufo Index is not intended as a research tool, it offers a clear continental overview of when and where UFO/UAP reports are being submitted in Europe, and it provides a concrete foundation for future cooperation. Together with the annual statistical barometer, this initiative illustrates how modest, cooperative steps can gradually strengthen European-level visibility, continuity, and transparency in the documentation of UAP reporting activity.         

[This is the original version of the article, published on December 24th, 2025. An updated version was published on January 26th, 2026 on UAP Check web site]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author sincerely thanks all national coordinators and researchers who, on a yearly basis, make their data freely available for this study and whose sustained dedication and voluntary efforts form the foundation of European-level UAP research. Their long-term commitment to data collection, investigation, and transparency is essential to the continuity and credibility of this work.        
Special thanks are extended to Edoardo Russo (CISU), founding member of EuroUfo.Net and UAP Check board member, for his valuable assistance and continued support in the preparation of this annual report. The author also gratefully acknowledges Robert Spearing, MUFON Director of International Investigations, for authorising the use of MUFON Case Management System (CMS) data, thereby significantly expanding the geographic scope of this research.     
The author further wishes to thank Giorgio Abraini for reviewing the manuscript and offering constructive comments and suggestions that helped improve the clarity and overall quality of the report.
     

As a result of an unprecedented international cooperation, this article is also published on the participating organizations’ websites in their own  different languages.
    
 


[1] Philippe Ailleris (2024, June 30), European UAP sightings in 2019–2023: Raw data by country and year, EuroUfoNet.

[2] Cockrell, R. C., Murphy, L., & Rodeghier, M. (2023). Social Factors and UFO Reports: Was the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Associated with an Increase in UFO Reporting? Journal of Scientific Exploration, 36(4), 641–656. https://doi.org/10.31275/20222681

[3] https://www.euroufo.net/euroufo-index/

Philippe Ailleris is a Senior Project Controller at the Space Research and Technology Centre of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. He works in the Earth Observation Projects Department, specifically for the Sentinel-1 and CO2M satellite missions of the EU Copernicus Programme. A French citizen, Ailleris has been interested in the UAP topic since the creation of the French UAP research and information group (CNES/GEIPAN) in 1977. His research focuses on the scientific examination of UAP observations and the creation of a systematic and rigorous science of the UAP phenomena. In 2009, he founded the UAP Observations Reporting Scheme Project. Since 2015, he has been actively involved in the UFODATA project, developing a large international network of automated surveillance stations to monitor the skies for UAP. His latest research focuses on using Earth Observation civilian satellites to detect anomalous aerial events.

A book by GEIPAN Chairman, Xavier Passot

passot-livre

Xavier Passot‘s book has now been  published, about his five years direction of GEIPAN (Groupe d’études et d’information sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés), the UFO sightings collection and analysis office within French “Center National d’Etudes Spatiales” (CNES), the only non-military government UFO office active for over 40 years all over the world.

passot-torino

We have often written about GEIPAN, and Mr. Passot himself was a guest and speaker at CISU national conference in Torino, in October 2017, where he presented us his experience in such unique position as an “official ufologist”.

The book is titled “J’ai vu un OVNI: Perceptions et réalités” (“I saw a UFO: Perceptions and Realities”, Cherche Midi Pub., 142 pages), with a foreword by sociologist Pierre Lagrange.

 

It is not the first book written by a former GEIPAN director: he was preceded by Jean-Jacques Velasco (“Ovnis: La science avance”, 1993; “Ovnis: L’évidence”, 2004 ) and Jacques Patenet (in the collective book “Phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés, un défi à la Science”, 2007). In fact each director of the GEPAN (later renamed SEPRA, finally GEIPAN) has given his own mark to that office, and it is therefore interesting to know each one’s perception “from within”.

Following on the footprints of his predecessor Jacques Patenet, Passot’s  years marked the phase of GEIPAN’s maximum openness both to the public (with the gradual publication of its whole archive of UFO reports) and to private ufologists (at least to those of scientific orientation), culminating with the Paris congress CAIPAN (Collecte et l’Analyze des Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés) in July 2014.

The book is not addressed to ufologists but to a general public, it is written in simple language, with a pedagogical intent, and is divided into three parts.
The first section (“GEIPAN Files”) reports a dozen significant case histories investigated, also reporting the conclusions where it was possible to reach one.
In the second part (“Investigation Complements”) the author delves into the complexity of UFO investigation, by quickly reviewing conceptual components of the problem: what is (and can be seen) in the sky, the weight of cultural factors, the role of the witness at the heart of the investigation, the concept of evidence and the role of photographs, the role of the investigator.
The third section (“The UFO Challenge”) examines the most widespread interpretative hypotheses, the interaction with the tools of science, the relationship with the mass media, the aspects related to defense, the role of beliefs.
The book ends with a chapter of conclusions, a critical analysis of the “COMETA Report” and an annotated essential bibliography.

If Passot’s purpose was to resume his five years in chair of GEIPAN and report his personal experience in the UFO world, even if brief his text makes an effective synthesis of the UFO problem and of its study today.

CNEGU 40 years

cnegu-logoby Bruno Mancusi

On May last weekend, the Comité Nord-Est des Groupes Ufologiques (CNEGU) celebrated its fortieth anniversary at its 120th quarterly meeting held in Chaux-la-Lotière (near Besançon).

CNEGU was indeed create in October 1978 in Nancy, as a federation of UFO associations from north-eastern France and Luxembourg. The founding groups were GPUN (Groupe Privé Ufologique Nancéien), CVLDLN (Cercle Vosgien Lumières dans la Nuit), Groupe 5255 (52 = Haute-Marne, 55 = Meuse), CLEU (Commission Luxembourgeoise d’Etudes Ufologiques). Other associations active in that northeastern quadrant of the “Hexagone” joined the committee in later years.

Over the years all those groups have disbanded and no longer in activity, but the Comité Nord-Est des Groupes Ufologiques is still well and alive (without a real formal structure) as a committee formed by individual ufologists who survived the dissolution of each one’s groups.

revmde11.

Among the main achievements of CNEGU, beside many field investigations, archival research, catalogs and several monographic publications, a special mention goes to the annual magazine Les Mystères de l’Est (published between 1996 and 2012) and the  VECA (Voyage d’Etude des Cercles Anglais) initiative to investigate crop circles in the UK.

 

Members of the Committee took part in almost all the most important initiatives of French ufology in these 40 years, from the European coordination (CECRU, EuroUfo) to the establishment of SCEAU (the Association for the Safeguarding and Conservation of UFO Studies and Archives), from the first intervention team on behalf of GEIPAN to the participation in the CAIPAN colloquium, keeping on a serious and real activity, preserving a wealth of skills and experience matured in four decades, based on the commitment and work of dozens of people. cnegu-partecipanti

In the top picture: the 3rd meeting of CNEGU, held in Luxembourg in May 1979.

In the bottom picture: the main activists celebrating CNEGU forty years (from left: Raoul Robé, Michel Piccin, Gilles Durand, Thierry Rocher, Gilles Munsch, Jean-Claude Leroy, Eric Maillot).

Francine Fouéré (1927-2018)

The doyen of French ufology, Francine Fouéré, died in Paris on May 26, 2018. She had just turned 91 years old.

foueresA high school teacher, interested in ufology since 1954, in 1962 she and her husband Réné Fouéré were among the founders of the Groupement d’Etude de Phénomènes Aériens (GEPA), an association of technicians, scientists, military representing for 15 years the main attempt in France to make ufology a scientific study, clearly separating from “flying saucers” sensationalism. For their joined involvement as a married couple in that UFO organization, they were considered “the French Lorenzens“.

collecionphsp

After her husband’s death in 1990, Francine had remained actively engaged in studies on the subject, attending meetings and conferences, editing the re-publication in five volumes of the complete collection (and supplemented by various unpublished articles) of GEPA magazine “Phénomènes spatiaux”, in 2008.

 

2005-francine-fouere-et-joel-9c2bf2e5
In 1982 I had the opportunity to meet her at GEPA headquarters in Paris, and in 2005 we had the surprise to find her at the Chalons-en-Champagne UFO Congress, where she ran a stand with the old publications of her association [photo SPICA].
An autobiographical interview of her was collected by Gilles Thomas in 2009 and can be heard here.

[Communication by Pierre Lagrange]

Top picture: © Yves Bosson / Agence Martienne

Geneviève Béduneau (1947-2018)

by Bruno Mancusi
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French researcher Geneviève Béduneau died on April 5 for a heart attack in the Paris subway, a few days after she turned 71.

Doctor in orthodox theology, teacher of the history of religions, an expert on esotericism and secret societies, history and altered states of consciousness, she joined ufology in the early 1980s, participating in the activities of the CIGU (Comité Île-de-France des Groupements Ufologiques), writing on Annuaire du CIGU, Lumières dans la nuit and Ovni-Présence magazines, attending meetings and UFO congresses under the pseudonym of Anne Véve.

In the following years she came out into the open with her real name, publishing articles in magazines such as La Gazette fortéenne and UFOmania and participating in conferences and mailing lists, with interventions combining her great erudition with an unconventional approach to the subject.

beduneau-livresAuthor or co-author of several books, she had also signed the post-face to the collected letters by Aimé Michel “L’apocalypse molle” (2008), was editor of the magazine Historia occultae and kept the blog Réflexions sur les temps qui courent peut-être .

Another UFO Thesis in France

by Bruno Mancusi
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A new French thesis on UFOs: the dissertation entitled “Le soucoupisme français: 1945-2012” (French Saucerism: 1945-2012), by Thomas Margout, who obtained a doctorate in history at the University of Western Brittany in Brest (France), on December 8th, 2017.

Just a year after that of Manuel Wiroth, this is the second university thesis on the history of the UFO movement in France.

Margout is not unknown in the UFO environment, since for the writing of his thesis he had asked the help of our colleagues from the SCEAU (Sauvegarde et Conservation des Etudes et Archives Ufologiques) and had also attended GEIPAN scientific conference on UFO CAIPAN in July 2014, with a poster illustrating his work.

So it was a surprise to read an interview he gave to daily newspaper “Le Télégramme de Brest” on 11 December 2017, in which he stated, among other things: “The overwhelming majority of ufologists are perfectly serious people, who saw a phenomenon that they cannot explain”, thus confusing ufologists and witnesses.

From the text now available it has been possible to understand that the confusion between ufologists, witnesses, contactists and sect followers was not a mistake but a choice of his. In fact, Margout himself explains: “In most cases, these investigators were also witnesses, they are here in the role of gathering and collecting testimonies similar to theirs”. So an ufologist would simply be a witness who questions other witnesses, although the author is not giving any statistics that prove his statement.

Thomas Margout’s thesis is divided into two volumes, available for free from here: vol. 1 and vol. 2. The first contains the thesis itself and the second contains data and statistics largely obtained from the UFO journal “Lumières dans la nuit”. The first volume is divided into four “generations”:
1. the birth (1945-1977)
2. the new ufology (1977-1993)
3. the X-Files generation (1993-2000)
4. independence (2000-2012).

Some choices of data and interpretations by the author are indeed questionable, and that is worthy a more detailed review.

[Pictured above: Thomas Margout during his speech at CAIPAN 2014]

Goodbye to J. Costagliola and J. Tomlinson

Two French ufologists died within few days in February.
On February 16, Jacques Costagliola died in the Paris region. Born in Algeria in 1927, a doctor and biologist, he had long been animator of the so-called “Groupe de Science Ouvert” (Open Science Group) in Versailles, France.

Expecially interested in the potential health risks of what he called “toxic close encounters”, he was best known for his 1988 book “Epistémologie du phénomène ovnien” (Epistemology of UFO Phenomenon).

Together with former Admiral Gilles Pinon, in 2008 he was among the promoters and signers of an open letter to the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, asking him to apply the precautionary principle to UFO phenomena and thus to order “an exhaustive study of the UFO phenomenon in application of a hypothetical-deductive method, bringing together competences in the political, military, scientific, sociological, philosophical fields, having as its object to confirm or deny the extraterrestrial interpretation”.

On February 21st, at the age of 50 years, John Tomlinson died in Nice, France, after a long illness. Born in the USA, he had grown up and lived in France. In 2008 he was appointed MUFON representative in that country and soon began an active role in establishing contacts for a better international UFO coordination.

tomlinson2013At the same time Tomlinson he worked on setting up a French branch of the Mutual UFO Network, finding a hand in veteran French ufologist Gerard Lebat, at that time coordinator of “Repas ufologiques” (UFO dinners) network. Thus MUFON-France was born and after Dave MacDonald was elected as MUFON International Director, John organized MacDonald’s trip to Paris in January 2013, for a conference and meeting with several MUFON representatives in Europe, as well as the signing of a cooperation protocol between the Mutual UFO Network and the GEIPAN (the UFO study group within the French space agency).

The ambition to create a MUFON-France that overcame the long-standing rivalries and envies among the various ufologists and associations of that country unfortunately collapsed in a short time, despite both Tomlinson and Lebat stepping backwards and leaving group management to others. Disappointed by the UFO people, John left active ufology shortly before discovering the disease that killed him in a few years.

[In the above photo: Jacques Costagliola (right) with Claude Lavat and Gilles Pinon.
In the lower picture: John Tomlinson in Paris in 2013, with MUFON director Dave MacDonald, GEIPAN director Xavier Passot and MUFON-France director Jacky Kozan.]

Cataloguing Local Reports, in Austria and France

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In December and January two books were published in two different European countries, notably standing out from the average of what may usually be found about UFOs in bookstores: in both cases it is a collection of case histories, a catalog of UFO sightings in a specific area.

The first book is titled “UFOs über Österreich” (UFO over Austria) and the author is Mario Rank, since 2012 director of the Austrian branch for the German organization DEGUFO (Deutschsprachige Gesellschaft für UFO-Forschung).

In 200 pages, Rank presents a quick overview of both the UFO problem in general, and especially the specific situation in his country, with chapters dedicated to the history of Austrian ufology, the role of the authorities and the most interesting sightings in Austria. As with many European countries, the problem of the language barrier unfortunately remains, but it is not excluded that this book may come to have a version in English, as was recently the case for similar works on UFOs in Poland and in Romania signed by two members of the EuroUfo.net collective, respectively Piotr Cielebiaś and Dan Farcas.

While Rank’s book is only partially a national case catalog, Les Ovnis du Centre – Val de Loire is exactly a regional catalog of UFO reports, collecting and systematically presenting all known case histories (470 sightings in 380 pages) from the six departments of France central region, along the same line already expressed in the past for other French regions.

The curious fact is that, unlike other similar works published in that country, the author is not a long-time ufologist, but an enthusiast who only recently (under the pseudonym Jean de Quercy) took the initiative to write this catalog in book form and publish it by himself: the usual format of a chronological presentation for each case with a detailed summary and an analytical indication of known sources, is just the same for regional catalog publications published by CISU in Italy.

A University Thesis on the History of French Ufology

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European UFO historiography is enriched with an important piece.

After the first volume (of 513 pages) published in June, the second volume (209 pages) was published in October 2017 of the book “Ovnis sur la France, des années 1940 à nos jours” (Ufo on France, from the 40s to today”), which is a revised and abridged version of a dissertation in contemporary history.

The author is Manuel Wiroth, which graduated in October 2016 at the University of Lyon, France, with a thesis titled “History of ufology in France (from the first individual research on the discs flying to the constitution of UFO study networks, from the 40s to the present”), before a commission that included among others scientist-ufologist Jean-Pierre Rospars.

For years a UFO buff Wiroth was able to base upon the impressive documentary collection of the French archive UFO group SCEAU ( Sauvegarde et Conservation des Etudes et Archives Ufologiques), directed by Gilles Durand.

The big dimensions of the dissertation forced JMG publishing house to divide it into two volumes, the first dedicated to “Testimonies and private researchers”, the second to “The scientific and military investigation”.