Trans in Provence, a 1984 reportage
Trans in Provence, 25 years ago.
October 5, 2009
ufo-science: the struggle continues
The Bremen Colloquium on Hypersonic Aerodynamics, October 19–21, 2009
Geipan, the march of immobility, incompetence in action
Xavier Lafont just informed me that someone had recovered the investigation conducted on behalf of the Temps X television program about the Trans en Provence incident, back in 1984—three years after the event. It's amusing to see these images again.
****http://www.dailymotion.com/user/videodocu/video/xam9ho_jeanypierre-petit-dans-temps-x-1984_tech
The author, a few years younger. With the witness, Renato Nicolaï
Professor Michel Bounias, in 1984. First experiments in controlling ionization via HF
Of course, we had not been informed about the on-site investigation at the time of the event. The Gepan–Sepra–Geipan has always operated behind closed doors. It wasn’t until 1984 that I urged the Bogdanoff team, producers of the Temps X program, to make a reportage on the site. At the time, computer-generated imagery did not exist. I was teaching sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Aix. So I proposed that a reconstruction of the object be attempted in the school workshops, then directed by my old friend Jacques Boullier, known artistically as Vasselin. This was done in just a few days, in a rush, based on rather schematic information transmitted by phone. Still, the night before the broadcast, around 10 PM, the filming crew approached the school as closely as possible to load the object. But for those familiar with the site, the entrance is inaccessible to a flatbed truck, hired for the occasion to transport the saucer made of plywood. We had to carry it through the city streets, shoulder to shoulder.
I’ll let you imagine the expressions of some Aix residents we encountered, seeing me and some Beaux-Arts students at night carrying this "object from elsewhere," silver-colored, through the streets.
The next morning, having located the site and confirmed the witness’s identity, we arrived at his property with the crew, the truck, and the saucer, which was brought precisely to the landing site—the "restanque" where Nicolas had seen it.
In the final photo, a small 7 cm diameter model is shown during low-pressure tests conducted in the vacuum chamber located at 9 Rue Aude in Aix, in a small attic room, powered by HF generated by a simple Ruhmkorff coil. You can see these images again, along with many others, once Julien Geffray finishes assembling the test bench alone, without help, in his 18-square-meter garage in Fontenay, just a 15-minute walk from a metro station.
A laborious venture called UFO-science
The "UFO-science laboratory," in Fontenay, a 15-minute walk from a metro station
This crazy endeavor continues solely because of Julien Geffray, a 30-year-old webmaster. If he hadn’t been holding this project together, working hard on weekends and in his free time, I would have sold the 5,000 euros worth of MHD equipment acquired in 2007–2008 for building this test bench on eBay in an auction. Those who have followed the trajectory of our association, UFO-science, founded in 2007, know it went through a major crisis during the summer of 2008. At the time, we reconstructed at my home in Pertuis the entire analytical technique used by Professor Michel Bounias during the 1981 Trans en Provence UFO landing. This technique was based on thin-layer chromatography.
For this, we spent 5,000 euros on equipment, including a precision balance accurate to one-tenth of a milligram (1,200 euros), a centrifuge (700 euros), and a laboratory freezer capable of storing samples at minus fifty degrees (2,500 euros), plus numerous accessories and reagents needed for the project. To this, we added a 4,800-euro "UFO-science grant" that was imprudently paid in full to its recipient in February 2008. In total, we spent 10,000 euros to discover that "it was simple and relatively inexpensive."
At the same time, we had prepared a print run of a thousand copies of a book titled UFOs and Science: The Adventurers of Research, written and illustrated by me, published at the association’s expense and sold exclusively for its benefit.
Also at that time, two videos we had produced together with my friend Denis Roussel in Brussels had already been viewed by tens of thousands of internet users. Here they are, which, as I write this, have been viewed respectively by 65,800 and 49,000 people:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5eye6_ufoscience_tech
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pu2t_ufoscience-livre-jpp_tech
Priced at 20 euros, the book earned us 15 euros per copy sold. Just as the project was about to materialize, a small group of association members—no more than half a dozen—who had connected via our forum, suddenly became inflamed, imagining that selling "the book" (in fact, my book) would bring a fortune. The supposed hero of this biological adventure already pictured himself as a salaried employee of the association. We knew sales would have nothing to do with the video view counts. It’s easier to click a link than to take out a twenty-euro bill.
Within weeks, we faced a revolt we hadn’t even imagined. A small group of fools loudly demanded a general assembly to "democratically decide how the book’s proceeds would be distributed." A book I had gifted to the association, since it had been agreed that all profits would go 100% to the association’s coffers.
We had to act quickly. A first print run of 1,000 copies had already been made, for 2,500 euros, including the names of the rebels—some of whom were even... lawyers, who might later have pursued legal claims. In August 2008, we sent these barely dried copies to the shredder, rewrote the book with modified content, and pasted pseudonyms on certain unflattering figures (Messmaker means "shit-stirrer" in English). A new print run of 1,000 copies was produced for the same cost, and sold, netting 15,000 euros. But I opposed any further printing.
Many have experienced the turmoil of associations under the 1901 law, which are often breeding grounds for petty power struggles, where a large part of the energy is spent "managing human problems." We endured this bitter experience, led by people who had paid 20 euros in membership fees and were determined to assert their rights. The result was that they brought our entire organization to its knees within a few weeks during the summer of 2008. Since early 2009, we have refused all membership fees and monetary donations. With the money earned from book sales, we even reimbursed some donors who had sent... thousands of euros.
In September 2008, already in poor health and facing this utter mess, I managed to salvage the situation by attending two international conferences—on crutches—first at Imperial College (London, Cosmology), then in Vilnius (MHD, Lithuania). These successes allowed us to conceal, from the public and our 300 members and donors, the complete collapse of the association’s biological analysis activities during 2008, despite excellent work carried out in the first months of that year.
Today, the association survives thanks to the efforts of a few active members—no more than the fingers on one hand. Geffray is struggling alone to finalize the MHD test bench. Jean-Christophe Doré is completing "UFOCATCH," an automated UFO tracking station with automatic pointing and spectroscopy, in a... corner of his kitchen. I continue to distribute network caps (in slide form) to book buyers. They are also sold through the association.
As soon as possible, we will resume the project of having adhesive caps manufactured in China, designed to be quickly applied to smartphone lenses, transforming them into spectroscopes. Once we have manufactured, say, a thousand units and started distributing them, we will provide the contact details of the Chinese manufacturer to anyone who wants them (for example, French or foreign ufology associations), to accelerate the global spread of these tools. When enough exist worldwide, they may finally yield the first UFO spectra—scientific data that can actually be analyzed (while Geipan continues to collect testimonies gathered by the gendarmerie).
The Bremen Colloquium on Hypersonic Aerodynamics
****http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=230&lumeetingid=2238
We had planned to present a paper at the international colloquium in Bremen, Germany, in October 2009 (specifically on Wednesday, the 21st). It was a conference on future hypersonic vehicles, organized by the AIAA (American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics). I had therefore written, co-signed by Julien Geffray, a 25-page paper, richly illustrated and presenting recent, original experimental results. In the meantime, my health had seriously deteriorated. Those following my website know that my wife and I had to leave Brussels and move back to my house in Pertuis, where I built a 4-cubic-meter aquagym pool inside the house—now fully operational and used for one to two hours daily. Cost: 6,500 euros, fortunately covered by the timely sale of my book.
Health-wise: it’s not guaranteed. Three relapses after minimal effort (lifting a 15-kilo box into my car trunk, using a vacuum cleaner, freeing a saw stuck in a log). I haven’t left home since June (four months).
*- Carrying capacity: one kilo
- Walking distance: 100 meters — Car travel: 2,000 meters — Prolonged standing: excluded
- Sitting: limited to two consecutive hours.*
Otherwise, immediate return to starting point.
The phrase "prompt recovery" remains a pious wish, an empty expression. If I emerge from this crisis, it will take time, as it did after my 1976 workplace accident—the starting point of these health issues.
A few days ago, Geffray called me:
*- There’s a problem: the Bremen conference secretariat did receive our paper. But the congress only records papers that are actually presented in person.
- That means if I don’t go there, all this work will have been for nothing.
- That’s right...
- Well, then, since UFO-science has money, let’s go together. In Paris, rent a folding wheelchair so we can bring it on the plane as checked luggage. The main thing is that I can present the work on Wednesday. As for the rest, it won’t matter much whether it’s London or Vilnius, where I’ve already spent most of my time lying in my hotel room.*
You’ll act as my nurse. If I can’t eat with the attendees because it upsets my stomach, just bring me a tray in the room.
- OK, you decide.
I’m doing this to prevent all this work from being wasted, but it won’t be a pleasure trip. I won’t repeat this again.
Geipan, the march of immobility, incompetence in action
Sabine Hossenfelder published in August 2008 in the journal Physical Review her first article on the "bimetric" theory (also known as the "geminal" theory). Promptly questioned by a French colleague (I don’t have only enemies, even if I have many) about her failure to cite my numerous works in the field, she replied that these works had only a "very superficial" connection to hers.
Sabine Hossenfelder: We have the same hairdresser...
With the help of titled colleagues, I managed to compel her to acknowledge my cosmology works—preceding hers by fifteen years—in a new article titled "Antigravity," accessible via this link. This idea of the bimetric/geminal theory is gaining ground, like a tooth growing, and will eventually prevail, though no one will clearly know who will ultimately claim the crown. It will still take time (my first works date back to 1977). But revolutionary ideas take time to be accepted, and often pioneers die before their theories gain traction in the scientific arena.
Who survives will see.
In the current issue of Science et Vie, you’ll find mention of the work of two researchers, Gabriel Chardin and Luc Blanchet, who advocate the virtues of matter repelling our own, which they equate with the mythical cosmological concept of antimatter. This leads them to explain the universe’s lacunar structure—organized around vast voids spanning hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter. Compare this to the illustration on page 57 of the magazine:
Compare this with the numerical simulations I published in 1995 in Astrophysics and Space Science (cited by Sabine Hossenfelder):
Interpretation of the lacunar structure: matter repelled by negative masses ("alias geminal matter")
My readers ask me what I think of these researchers’ work. The second one belongs to the same lab as Alain Riazuelo, the intellectual leader of the Paris Institute of Astrophysics.
Alain R. (in Wikipedia)
There is a geometric meaning to antimatter. I touch on this in my comic strip "The Geminal Universe." It unfolds on the theme "Tell me how you move, and I’ll tell you what you are." Particles with electric charge don’t move through a four-dimensional space, but through a five-dimensional Kaluza space (a fiber bundle). The fact that this fifth dimension is closed on itself implies that the associated charge (electric charge) is quantized, taking only integer values.
The didactic, somewhat crude image is that of a trajectory wrapped around a cylinder. The direction of wrapping depends on the sign of the electric charge. The transformation of matter into antimatter (in the Dirac sense) corresponds to reversing the "Kaluza coordinate" (the direction of wrapping on the cylinder). The photon is identical to its own antiparticle: all "quantum charges" are zero. Thus, its trajectory in Kaluza space can be represented as a generator of the cylinder ("a circle bundle").
The authors of this paper confuse antimatter with particles possessing negative mass and energy. This is entirely different. Antimatter in the Dirac sense has positive mass and energy. The Aegis experiment, scheduled for CERN in 2012, will be nothing but another waste of time and money. Hence the skepticism of its head, Michael Doser:
Michael Doser, head of the Aegis experiment at CERN
The author of the article in Science et Vie goes wrong when discussing the photon’s behavior, claiming that since it is "both matter and antimatter," it should be insensitive to gravity. But this is false: gravity causes gravitational lensing. Therefore, the theory of these two "zebras" doesn’t hold up. But I believe cosmology and them are two separate things.
That concludes this scientific update. Otherwise, we have confirmation: the new Geipan director, Yves Blanc, will be no more energetic than his predecessor, Jacques Patenet. Everything gets filed away: lenticular clouds, Thai lanterns. But the worst is that Geipan practices information retention—not out of malice, but pure incompetence and indifference. Blanc is there only to follow CNES’s DG instructions:
Above all, no disturbances
Geipan is in contact with the Italian-Norwegian team focusing on the Hessdalen region. There have been several incidents involving close encounters. The Norwegians encountered an object resembling a glowing sphere the size of a football, at a distance of a few tens of meters. By shining a light brush of varying intensity on it, they observed the object responding by modulating its light in phase.
Even more striking was the experience of three Italians: a distinguished professor, a physicist, and his wife. This time, a similar object went so far as to rub against the professor’s neck in a very familiar way, purring. When the astrophysicist considered touching it, his colleague—deeply traumatized by the experience—strongly dissuaded him. After observing it from a distance of a few tens of meters (the object had gradually receded), they took photos against a backdrop of tree foliage, which I’ve seen: unremarkable. Then, after 20 minutes, they courageously decided to approach it with their vehicle, where they had reboarded. Just as the bumper nearly touched the sphere, it shot straight up into the sky at high speed.
We learned this story from a Geipan collaborator, and consider his firsthand account from the witnesses to be reliable.
So, can we collaborate with people who practice information retention (and there’s more than just this story), who do nothing or anything at all? From Patenet’s retirement in December 2008 to Yves Blanc’s "appointment" in 2009: no detectable activity by Geipan, as far as those who are supposed to collaborate with it could tell. Except for the publication of a colorful brochure for the general public, prepared by Patenet—his testament, so to speak.
Otherwise, the DST sends its agents to mingle with the "IPN" (first-level interveners), volunteers recruited by Geipan to assist gendarmes during investigations, in order to better control them. We learned from one of them that, in general, the gendarmes hardly ever used them, not knowing how to operate them.
To be continued.