UFOs Aerospace Phenomena Science

Troubles in the Sky - Reading Note

March 25, 2007 - revised March 28, 2007

Jean-Jacques Velasco has just presented his latest book "Troubles in the Sky" during the program "L'Arène de France" on March 21, 2007, where the host, Stéphane Bern, introduced him as a "physicist".

cover_trouble_dans_le_ciel

The passages cited in the book will be in italics. Those indicated in red will be commented on later. In English, these passages would be called "questionable", that is, "discutable".

Let's first see what the back cover says:

Do UFOs exist? What are they? What link can be established between them and us?

At the CNES, for nearly thirty years, Jean-Jacques Velasco has examined the most strange cases of unidentified aerospace phenomena, questioned hundreds of witnesses and conducted the most advanced scientific analyses ever carried out.

He presents in this book, written on his own, one of the few global investigations devoted to unidentified flying objects.

The author has analyzed thousands of pages of declassified American military and civilian historical documents, relating to the passage of UFOs detected by civilian and military radars and draws the conclusions that are obvious. He notably highlights the relationship between nuclear tests and the appearance of these strange devices.

Born in 1946, Jean-Jacques Velasco was in charge, within the CNES, of GEPAN, which became the Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes Rares Atmosphériques (SEPRa), from 1983 to 2004. Among other things, he is the author of:

UFOs, the Science Advances (Robert Laffont, 1993).

Investigative journalist, Nicolas Montigiani is the author of books relating to the strange and unexplained, such as Crop Circles, Maneuvers in the Sky (Carnot 2003) and Project Colorado: The Existence of UFOs Proved by Science (JMG editions, 2006)

We will make some comments, with examples, on the way these "most advanced scientific analyses ever conducted" were carried out and how, on this point, the analyses conducted within GEPAN, then SEPRa, were often conducted in spite of common sense, thereby losing, through incompetence, precious data.

In this back cover, we will immediately note that there has been a change in the reading of the initials SEPRa, changing from "Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de rentrées Atmosphériques" to "Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes Rares Atmosphériques". This change occurred in 1999. The explanation is simple. In the only case where J.J. Velasco was involved and which was a real atmospheric re-entry phenomenon, on November 5, 1990, he gave, following his "expertise", based on the coordinates of the points of passage before re-entry, provided by NASA, a perfectly fanciful trajectory, indicating an error of 200 kilometers, probably obtained using a globe and a string and not an orbitography software. This point was highlighted many years later, in 1997, by the Marseille ufologist Robert Alessandri, who used, himself, this type of software. Stunned by the inconsistency of this expertise produced by Velasco, he titled an article in a confidential magazine, which he only produced three copies of, "When the CNES Hires Charlatans". Velasco then sued this journalist for defamation, which he won at first instance, then on appeal, obtaining 5000 euros in damages and interest. As soon as the judgment was published, he had his bank account seized. The fine was covered by a subscription launched on my website. The CNES, fearing that the public would really realize that this service for the expertise of atmospheric re-entry phenomena was not really one, preferred to discreetly change the name of SEPRa.

Introduction. Pages 9 to 14, signed by Nicolas Montigiani

Page 11, it is recalled why Velasco was integrated into the GEPAN team, at a time when it was still directed by its first head, the engineer Claude Poher, former director of the "rockets-sounding rockets" department at the CNES (meteorological rockets). It was to develop an apparatus called "Simovni". This was inspired by the headset initially invented by the Lissac glasses house. In this case, it is adapted to the head of a client and different lenses of varying curvature are slid in front of his eyes, in order to determine the correction to apply to improve his visual acuity. The Simovni was a similar headset. The witness directing his gaze in the direction where his observation was made, the operator was supposed to slide different slides in front of his eyes, superimposed on the background, until he said "yes, what I saw was like that".

Page 12:

In November 1978, Claude Poher left his position.

He was succeeded by Alain Esterle, a polytechnician engineer. With him, the group worked within a more elaborate methodology. Prejudices fell one after another (...).

In 1983, Esterle was called to other responsibilities within the CNES.

In November 1978, Claude Poher left his position.

He was succeeded by Alain Esterle, a polytechnician engineer. With him, the group worked within a more elaborate methodology. Prejudices fell one after another (...).

In 1983, Esterle was called to other responsibilities within the CNES.

Esterle was in fact transferred, following a report made by René Pellat, who had come to check on site the incredible mess resulting from his attempt, with the help of engineer Bernard Zappoli, to develop ideas that I had brought in, but without me, within the Cert de Toulouse (Centre d'Etude et de Recherches Techniques). Refer to "Investigation on UFOs", page 88, downloadable free at:

http://www.ufo-science.com/fr/telechargements/enquete_sur_les_ovni.html

In this book, whose first publication date is 1988, the "UFO study group" is the GEPAN. By slipping over Esterle's transfer within the CNES, Velasco contradicts himself. It is sufficient to refer to his previous book, UFOs, the Evidence, still written with Nicolas Montigiani. page &&& (a reader will send me the exact page, I don't have the book at hand, and the passage in question) Velasco mentions the visit of a high-level scientific personality (it is in fact René Pellat, as director of scientific projects at the CNES, sent on site by the director of the CNES, at that time Hubert Curien). After this visit, Esterle was not in his element and explained to him that he would have to succeed him (&&& I don't have the exact text at hand, a reader will send it to me).

Page 13, the introduction specifies that the purpose of this creation of a group within the CNES was to conduct a research *scientifically. *

Further on, in the same page, Montigiani writes:

Today, SEPRa no longer exists.	Velasco was called to other functions within the CNES

Today, SEPRa no longer exists.	Velasco was called to other functions within the CNES

What functions? The answer is provided by Yves Sillard, former president of the CNES in 1977, in a long telephone conversation from January 2006. He told me that "Velasco was now in charge of youth clubs, which, under the patronage of the CNES, conduct launches of mini-rockets".

The rest of this introduction indicates what "took over" from SEPRa:

On September 22, 2005, the first meeting of the organization succeeding it was held. Its name: the GEIPAN - for Groupe d'étude et d'information sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés. As in the time of GEPAN, a steering committee will supervise and control the activities of this service, directed by engineer Patenet.

The president of the committee is one of the "fathers" of the Ariane rocket, former general director of the CNES, former general delegate for armaments: Yves Sillard. Who would dare to claim, after that, that the phenomenon is not in the domain of seriousness?

It is said on the web that Patenet was in the 1970s a collaborator of GEPAN. He would have applied in 83 to take over from Esterle, but the CNES management would have preferred to entrust this task to Jean-Jacques Velasco. He therefore reappears a quarter of a century later to take over the reins of the house, a few years before his retirement.

Regarding Yves Sillard, with whom I had a long telephone conversation in January 2006, we should note that he has written his own book on the UFO theme, which should be available soon. Here are the references:

TITLE: "

Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena

PUBLISHER: "Le Cherche Midi"

ISBN-13: 978-2749108926

PRICE: 17 euros

I will dedicate a reading note to it as soon as I have the book in hand. If readers can find it, they can deposit a copy at UFO-science, 83 avenue d'Italie, 75013 Paris ---

Chapter 1. Pages 15 to 38

Velasco first gives a classification of the "PANs", of type A, B, C, D

Page 21:

In general, the scientific method gives a large part to deduction, which in turn reinforces the observation. Any scientific fact is reproducible at will. Finally, in science, there are only measurable facts.

And, precisely, our PANS are resistant to any reproduction by scientific experiment.

A beautiful epistemological flight. Unfortunately, it is completely false. All the MHD work we have done tends towards a partial understanding of the behavior of UFOs. It is thus possible that, during their intra-atmospheric evolution, some of their movements correspond to an MHD propulsion mode. This passes through the creation of a plasma around the machine. See below the appearance of a plasma, an ionized environment created in the air by HF. As a bonus, what was not expected, we observe HF arcs that would explain the "truncated rays" observed by some witnesses.

arcs_hf

HF arcs created by HF

Those who are well acquainted with the UFO dossier will remember the photo of the UFO from Albiosc:

**UFO from Albiosc. Night of March 23 to 24, 1974 **

We are on page 21. After having seen that Velasco glosses over some unglamorous episodes in the history of GEPAN. In this continuation of the book, the word "scientific" is frequently used and sounds like a sort of exorcism.

After reporting some historical facts, mentioning the role of Robert Galley, the Minister of Defense, Velasco cites, page 26, an excerpt from the report of June 20, 1977 of the IHEDN, the Institute of Advanced Studies on National Defense. If you want to consult the unedited version of this report, go to section 8.13 of Investigation on UFOs, in the downloadable pdf or page 183 of the paper edition. You can read in particular (page 186 of the paper edition):

b. Scientific research.

The opinion of some scientific circles that many other problems are to be studied and that all credit devoted to UFOs would miss more urgent research, where it is clearly the outcome, is certainly understandable. However, it remains that a serious study of the phenomenon is desirable and useful, in so far as the scientific and technical results of the research on UFOs (Jean-Pierre Petit's magneto-hydrodynamics, for example) may prove important for a budget that is not exorbitant.

..........

Page 32

End of this chapter. Velasco declares:

I am now in a position to reveal decisive and often unpublished documents which are the result

of a long scientific study

of unidentified aerospace phenomena, over a fifty-year period, a wide period of collection, investigations and analyses (France and United States)

I am now in a position to reveal decisive and often unpublished documents which are the result

of a long scientific study

of unidentified aerospace phenomena, over a fifty-year period, a wide period of collection, investigations and analyses (France and United States)

A sentence that tends to convince readers that, on the scientific level, everything was done according to the rules of the art, under the direction of Mr. Jean-Jacques Velasco.

Appendix to Chapter 1: To go further, the GEPAN investigation method

Here, page 34, Velasco reproduces what represented the main contribution of the polytechnician Alain Esterle during his time at the head of GEPAN, when he specified the methodological foundations of the investigations. It is the "tetrahedron method", which was the subject of many conferences for him.

tetraedre

It is Esterle's answer, a "polytechnician's answer" to the question: "What is the UFO phenomenon?"

We have:

The testimony
The witness - The psychosocial environment - The ground traces

The analysis of these four "components" should allow, he claimed, to trap the UFO phenomenon in an inescapable way. Thanks to this "methodological trap".

Chapter 2, pages 39 to 60, titled " **The Word to the Statistics **..."

In this chapter, Velasco emphasizes the role played by public services, such as the gendarmerie. But he omits an important fact. In 1977, when Claude Poher was at the head of GEPAN, he immediately had an excellent idea and had the French optical company Jobin and Yvon study some "hats", made up of a simple "grid" (a plate made of a transparent material, bearing very fine lines that act as a prism by transforming any light signal into a "spectrum"). These hats were very cheap and could have been produced in a very large number of copies, to equip different types of cameras. It was decided at that time that only the cameras belonging to the gendarmerie brigades would be equipped with them. Thirty years later, Patenet told me on the phone, confirming what engineer Louange, from Fleximage, a CNES consultant and long-time collaborator of GEPAN-SEPRa, had told me, that he had found no photographs of the spectrum type in the archives, except those referring to the system calibration. In the brigades, these hats were lost, misplaced. No one knows what happened to them. Now, the way the gendarmes conducted their investigations was managed for 27 years by Jean-Jacques Velasco. The quest for these spectra, which could provide crucial information on the chemical nature of the source, its temperature (broadening of lines by the Doppler effect), the value of the magnetic field (Zeeman effect) was essential.

Jean-Jacques Velasco will have difficulty convincing us that he "directed the gendarmerie investigations in a scientific way". The fact of entrusting this task to the gendarmes was in itself a major mistake. Today, we will try to take up this idea again. But instead of entrusting the task of obtaining these photos to gendarmes, we think, on the contrary, that the entire population and even populations should be able to have access to this simple and inexpensive technology. The idea would be to equip, in a standard way, not only digital cameras but also mobile phones with such a device, which the user could set up with a simple thumb movement.

I leave the reader to form his own conclusion.

Pages 46 to 58

We learn that the statistical studies carried out by GEPAN-SEPRa coincide with those carried out thirty years earlier by the Swiss Institute Batelle for the account of the American government.

Chapter 3, pages 61 to 84, titled " On the Wave ..."

Velasco mentions the time spent exploring the strange cases recorded during the 1954 wave, consulting the gendarmerie reports.

Page 74 to 84

Evocation of the Belgian wave, from November 1989 to November 1990. Let us first recall the answer given by Velasco in the media (there must be a trace in the television archives). When this wave was at its peak, he was questioned by viewers and replied:

*- The SEPRa does not have the mission to study UFO cases that are outside the hexagon. *

It turns out that this is a case I followed quite closely. I was present at this presentation made before about fifty people, in Brussels, by members of the Sobeps. This organization found itself, by force of circumstances, at the heart of this story, where more than a thousand people were witnesses, including gendarmes and military. Sobeps is above all a place, a house belonging to a private individual: Lucien Clairebault. He makes available to an association the first floor of his house, which allows it to be equipped with a meeting room and a library. Sobeps publishes a magazine: Inforespace. It also finds support in the person of Auguste Meessen, professor at the University of Louvain, a physicist. The physicist Brenig, also a university teacher, participates in the meetings that take place periodically at the Sobeps headquarters, that is, at Clairebault's home. It is a rather unique situation where university teachers provide their scientific endorsement to a movement interested in the UFO phenomenon. Velasco writes in his book that the association was vegetating, before this wave. This wave placed its members in the spotlight and brought Meessen and Brenig onto television. On March 31, 1989, the SOC (Combined Operations Service, under NATO, commanded by Colonel de Brouwer) received a call from the Belgian gendarmerie, reporting the evolution of a UFO south of the Brussels area. After a while, de Brouwer considered it his duty to order the two F-16 fighters, which are always on "readiness" (ready to take off), responsible for monitoring the Belgian airspace, to take off. A ballet follows that I describe in more detail in the investigation on UFOs in Appendix 4. It is a press agency dispatch that catches my attention. After taking some information, I manage to convince the journalist Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, who works for Paris-Match, to use the contacts of her journal so that we can have an interview with de Brouwer.

He actually receives us at the headquarters of his HQ. We start discussing. When he learns that I am a pilot, that I was a lieutenant in the French air force and that I have directed radar calibration operations, he suddenly says:

*- I don't have the green light from the Minister of Defense, but I take it upon myself to show you the black boxes of the F-16s. *

And we are, Marie-Thérèse de Brosses, her young nephew (photographer and sound recorder) and me, descending into the basement of the HQ where de Brouwer shows us, on screen, with sound, the entire sequence. We see what the person in charge of following the events on the on-board radar saw on his screen. We hear the conversations of the pilots, in English with a Belgian accent. I say to the nephew: "Take photos, for God's sake, record!". But the young man does nothing, simply replying "it won't give anything".

Those who have followed the story know that we published a full double page in Match, with two photos of the radar screen. These photos, it was I who took them with the camera that, by chance, I had brought with me. As I was leaving, I scolded the nephew, who stammered "but I didn't know...". The article, of course, I wrote it myself, that same evening, on the Macintosh that Marie-Thérèse de Brosses had brought with her. For the content, I refer you to the appendix of my book. The article made a bit of noise. The magazine Science et Vie retaliated, using the photo provided by the American army, showing for the first time, in its June 1990 issue, the F-117, from the front. The magazine's cover title: "The UFO is him!".

science_et_vie_juin_1990

article_thouanel_1990

At the same time, shortly before the magazine was published, using a CAD software I designed, and based on a sketch found in a US magazine, I reconstructed the F-117 A, quite faithfully, and to counter the Science et Vie article, I presented a model I made at the J.T. invited by Poivre d'Arvor.

In Brussels, the people of Sobeps showed us an amazing photo, taken by Patrick Ferryn, a professional photographer. It was the time when a UFO appeared with surprising regularity, in a narrow strip of 20-30 km long and 5 km wide. When visitors go to Belgium, the Belgians tell them:

*- It's about time. It won't be long before it passes. You just have to wait here. *

During one of these trips between the north of Eupen and the German border, Ferryn took several photos. It was not the famous triangular object, but a kind of dark crêpe that pointed in front of it what looked like "four truck headlights" arranged in a line. After taking his photos, Ferryn, a professional, decided to go to the nearby airfield and finish the film by taking the landing lights of airplanes, as a comparison. Then he returned and developed the film himself. And there, surprise: if the airplane lights were very visible, "those of the UFO" seemed to have disappeared. By "pushing" his development, he would see four faint red spots appear. I have seen the photos. Messen then had an interesting idea. He did some tests and showed that visible images can be "inhibited" if the source emits infrared. As proof of his demonstration, he photographs a colored spectrum in two cases: with or without emission of an infrared source placed next to this source. The photos show that infrared is capable of erasing a large part of the colored spectrum. This would explain why people who have photographed UFOs have returned empty-handed, convinced they had... dreamed. Simply because with a good dose of infrared, the UFO would have erased its own image.

Below is a drawing corresponding to the description that Ferryn gave me at the time:

ovni_ferryn

**The UFO seen by Patrick Ferryn, as he described it
whose image almost completely disappeared on the film. The object is heading towards the observer. **

Velasco mentions a session where Sobeps will present the results of its studies on this wave. Meessen presents his analysis of the data recorded by the F-16s, which the Belgian military provided to him. The latter claims to have analyzed all of this on his small Macintosh and, with images, embarks on explanations that seem very confused to us. It is far from as clear as his story about infrared erasing images on film. I confide my confusion to Colonel Schweicher, present, a teacher of radar techniques at the Royal Belgian Military School. Later, we have a phone call. He tells me that the headquarters is not satisfied with the examination made by Meessen and has decided to remove the file from him and entrust it to a young military engineer. This one writes a thesis (military) on this subject. Schweicher gives me this document during a new meeting in Brussels, introducing me to its author. The radar recordings are fully decoded, for one of the nine passes of the UFO. The trajectories of the approaching plane and the UFO that escapes it are in practically orthogonal planes. The F-16 banks to pursue the object, but its pilot quickly gives up the pursuit upon seeing that this chase brings him too low, where the UFO quickly escapes from his on-board radar. The game will be repeated nine times with three successful radar locks on its target. Below, from memory, the result of the very careful study made by the Belgian military engineers

ovni_F16

Belgium, night of March 30 to 31, 1990: the UFO dives towards the ground to escape the F-16

In his book, Velasco expresses the greatest reservations about this Belgian wave, based on "his knowledge of aeronautics". Everything indicates that he has not studied the entire file and its various facets and expresses, what he criticizes in others, superficial criticisms, made without a real examination of the facts and the entire (astonishing) set of observations reported. No, it couldn't have been a "stealth". There was no such device at the time, and there still isn't today, capable of escaping F-16s by accelerating at 40 g and flying towards the ground at 2800 km/h, without making a bang, while being able to hover in complete silence. These hasty and even outright absurd conclusions discredit the expert he claims to be.

Chapter 4, pages 85 to 107, titled " I Open My Files "

This other chapter, as well as some others that precede it, gives the whole book an anecdotal character. For example, here you will find four of the most colorful, ultra-classic cases, for those who are fond of this kind of thing (Soccoro, Valensole). But through reading his book, the author does not manage to convince us of the excellence of his methods of approaching the phenomenon. At least not for me. My opinion does not change from what I had after reading "UFOs, the Science Advances (...)", written in 1993 with journalist Jean-Claude Bourret, then "UFOs, the Evidence", dating from 2004. The next chapter, when one knows the reality of the facts and takes the trouble to read the text, shows how GEPAN-SEPRa, after having captured, thanks to the skills of a talented biologist, exceptional information, would completely let this chance slip away to finally put the UFO phenomenon "between blade and blade".

Chapter 5, pages 109 to 140, titled " The Rare French Cases Classified as UFO "

Right away, the "main course": the famous case of Trans-en-Provence, 1981. See note GEPAN number 16, republished on the GEIPAN website, downloadable in its pdf form.

Page 110, Velasco takes all the credit for this exceptional result, the fruit of the greatest of accidents.

Once again, the exemplary work of the gendarmes, the investigation conducted by GEPAN, the rigor of the analyses carried out on samples by several scientific laboratories .......

Once again, the exemplary work of the gendarmes, the investigation conducted by GEPAN, the rigor of the analyses carried out on samples by several scientific laboratories .......

To our knowledge, only one laboratory was involved in this case, that of Michel Bounias, at the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Avignon.

Page 113, it reads:

The action of the gendarmerie

According to the "gendarmerie booklet", the site will be isolated, the trace will be observed and examined, photos will be taken, samples will be collected. The CNES is alerted (by telex on January 12). The witness is questioned.

The action of the gendarmerie

According to the "gendarme manual," the site will be isolated, the trace will be examined and documented, photographs will be taken, and samples will be collected. The Cnes is alerted (by telex on January 12th). The witness is questioned.

Some things need clarification. The Gepan did indeed give instructions to the gendarmes. Regarding interventions in the case of "UFO landings," it had specified, "investigators should only intervene if there is more than one witness and it has not rained (...)". Velasco's account tends to suggest that the success of this investigation resulted from the procedures implemented by the Cnes, following the methodology of the "tetrahedron." The reality is quite different. Nicolaï does not come forward on his own to the gendarmerie. He is contacted by a gendarme, following confidences made to his neighbor by Renato's wife. We owe this entirely exceptional analysis to the initiative of this gendarme, who, on his own, carried out a sampling of the lucerne plants, in the trace and outside, taking with these plants their earthy substrate, fortunately moist due to the rain that had fallen after the event. The samples will reach the workbench of Dr. Michel Bounias twenty-one days after being collected. Velasco describes him as "the head of the plant biology laboratory at the National Institute of Agronomy" (INRA of Avignon). It turns out that Bounias did his thesis at the CES, studying the effect of ionizing radiation on plants. He carried out a rapid analysis and noticed a significant difference in the pigment equipment of the lucerne plants, sampled inside and outside the trace. He then requested that new samplings be carried out at increasing distances. In "UFO Investigation," all this is mentioned, in the printed version on page 120 and following, and in the PDF version on page 75 and following. Here is the typical appearance of the analysis results, extracted from a Gepan note.

analyses_trans

Analyses carried out by Michel Bounias, 1981. At the top, the sampling of lucerne plants. At the bottom, the importance of the variation in the pigment equipment of the plants

One thing should be noted. The samplings were carried out in a single direction, along the restanque. We will never know what the parameter values of the lucerne plants in another direction could have been. See the diagram.

trans_le_site

The Trans site in Provence. The impact point. Thick circle: the trace. Dark line: the place of sampling of the lucerne plants

Explanation: the portions of land located on the other restanques are "outside the tetrahedron." Yet, on page 118:

Samples of vegetation (collected according to a rigorous protocol) were handed over to Professor Michel Bounias, head of the plant biochemistry laboratory at the National Institute of Agronomy.

Samples of vegetation (collected according to a rigorous protocol) were handed over to Professor Michel Bounias, head of the plant biochemistry laboratory at the National Institute of Agronomy.

Page 120:

Michel Bounias applied the procedures elaborated (...) and approved by the Gepan scientific council. However, they are based on the experimental method "double blind." Samples are collected on the area of interest according to a geometrically elaborated distribution. Naturally, a set of control samples is also taken outside this area. The laboratory had no precise knowledge of the sample or the area where it had been collected.

These lines give the impression that Bounias would have followed the Gepan's instructions. But it is exactly the opposite. I have never heard Michel talk about the double-blind technique. Regarding this, I quote a remark from a reader, familiar with these methods used in biology:

About the double-blind method

Double means that neither the doctor (analyst) nor the patient (the one who provides his feelings) knows whether or not they are taking active medication...

In the case of the lucerne... I don't know if the lucerne knows or not if it has been touched... and if it expresses its feelings...

Unless the second blind is the one who interprets Bounias's report... that is, the Cnes via Velasco/Esterle

About the double-blind method

Double means that neither the doctor (analyst) nor the patient (the one who provides his feelings) knows whether or not they are taking active medication...

In the case of the lucerne... I don't know if the lucerne knows or not if it has been touched... and if it expresses its feelings...

Unless the second blind is the one who interprets Bounias's report... that is, the Cnes via Velasco/Esterle

This entire discourse is incoherent. Note "geometrically elaborated distribution." These are just words, smoke and mirrors. The gendarmes returned to the site and took samples on the restanque because they had no desire to complicate their lives, to draw concentric circles with a string and carefully note the position of the samples. Moreover, the sampling at increasing distances from the center of the trace, aside from the fact that the gendarmes had carefully limited themselves to the "restanque," the horizontal earth platform, were carried out only in a single radial direction. It would have been wise to also sample lucerne plants at the same distance in the opposite direction, which would have allowed, by comparing the values obtained at two points located at the same distance from the epicenter, to make comparisons and improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

This makes me think of the story of people who are told "to guard the entrance of the tunnel" and who don't think that a tunnel has ... two entrances.

In conclusion, "this tetrahedral methodology," this "rigor," these "procedures" are just smoke and mirrors. One would have to be a double blind to not realize it.

On page 118, it reads:

Two years after the Gepan investigation, the INRA will carry out another series of samplings on the site. When analyzing them, it will be noticed that the effects have practically disappeared.

Two years after the Gepan investigation, the INRA will carry out another series of samplings on the site. When analyzing them, it will be noticed that the effects have practically disappeared.

This is not "the INRA" that carried out these samplings, but Bounias himself, on his own initiative. At the time, he was surprised that the Gepan no longer showed any interest in following up on this matter. But he had already been turned away, like me, by the Cnes, after we had jointly proposed a reenactment of the observed effects by subjecting control lucerne plants to pulsed microwaves, using a small table-top source.

Page 116: Velasco writes:

The scientific analyses and their results

When I examined the trace on the ground, I noticed the soil compaction, the presence of streaks in two opposite places on the crown. I made a topographic survey, took photographs, and collected samples (soil and wild lucerne) ...

The scientific analyses and their results

The text gives the impression that the author conducted "scientific" analyses. The reality is quite different, but Bounias, who has since died, is no longer there to contradict it. In fact, when the Trans in Provence incident (1981) occurred, the head of the service, the polytechnician Alain Esterle, was still in office. Jean-Jacques Velasco does not associate his name with this incident. Esterle left the service only in 1983, as recalled in the book on page 12. Velasco is maneuvering to take all the credit for this incident, which is the only one in thirty years of the Cnes service that has provided a result that can be called scientific. In 1981, as a simple technician, he was only Esterle's assistant and seems to have forgotten it today. Before leaving the Gepan, in the midst of its collapse, Esterle left a final technical note, number 17, thanks to which this incident became known. In 1981, the Gepan was about to sink, Esterle and his assistant Zappoli having completely failed their attempt to implement MHD research at the Cert in Toulouse, based on my ideas and work.

Before moving on to this second part of the chapter, let us recall that after this Trans incident, where Bounias spoke imprudently in the media, he found himself under the crossfire of his superiors, quickly lost his staff, his funding, research means, and his premises. He ended up, as Velasco describes him, "the head of the plant biology laboratory at the National Institute of Agronomy," confined to a simple office in the Avignon University premises. He died prematurely of cancer in 2005, and I claim that this is not unrelated to the treatment he received for having violated the taboo. A quarter of a century later, Velasco crowns himself, without a trace of remorse, without the slightest decency.

When I mentioned, in January 2006, this tragic outcome to Sillard, on the phone, he told me he had not been informed of all this and was "sorry."

Eighteen months later, in October 1982, a second close encounter occurred, very close to the ground, the one called "Amarante," which took place in the Nancy region. See pages 121 and following in Velasco's book. A biologist saw, in broad daylight, a strange object, which, like that of Trans, had the shape of a Camembert box with bulging bottoms. The proximity of the object was astonishing: one meter. The observation lasted twenty minutes. The witness did not dare to touch the object, but approached it to half a meter. Let us quote a passage from the book:

A little psychology ...

The witness cooperated with the gendarmerie. For the Gepan investigation, Mr. Henry (pseudonym), punctual at our meeting, expressed his satisfaction with the investigation, his surprise at the speed of the intervention. He wanted to cooperate as much as possible with us (a service between scientists, he said).

A little psychology ...

Efficiency, speed of the intervention. The reality is quite different.

Let us be logical. The previous case, that of Trans in Provence, showed something unexpected and astonishing: UFOs leave biological traces, not only important but permanent. The samplings carried out by Bounias himself showed that the site took months to return to a normal state. It took that long before this biological trace disappeared, incredibly well correlated with the distance. Everything indicates that this phenomenon was created by a radiation emanating from the center of the trace, at least according to what can be concluded from measurements that are only made in a single radial direction. Bounias does not see what kind of radiation could have caused such pigment alterations. Based on studies done at the CEA, he specifies that to obtain such modifications with ionizing radiation, it would have to reach a value of 100 megarads. He sees no chemical agent.

Bounias had indicated the procedure to follow for any such case in the future. First of all, it was necessary to preserve the information and, for this, to collect the samples by immediately freezing them in liquid nitrogen. We will see later how things went.

How did the Gepan handle this new UFO case, where Velasco says he intervened very quickly? Let us refer to the content of technical note number 17, published on March 21, 1983, by the Gepan, and today downloadable from the Geipan website. The note, titled "Amarante," is 70 pages long. Let us go straight to the essentials, the sampling of plant samples, described on page 45:

** **

** ** **

On the morning of October 22, 1982, the Gendarmerie collected the entire top of the stems (stem, leaves, flowers) concerned. The samples were immediately packaged, that is, placed in airtight plastic bags, sealed and sealed.

We assigned these samples the reference number 24.

Other plants, damaged, were simultaneously collected and placed in plastic bags, but open. We packaged these samples on October 29 (a week later) and assigned them numbers 21 and 22.

Outside of this area where the samples were collected, the Gendarmerie carried out other samplings in the flower bed, choosing undamaged plants. Samples numbers 23 and 25, collected on October 27 and placed in sealed plastic bags. VII. 2 COLLECTING THE SECOND SERIES OF SAMPLINGS A) Samplings related to the mechanical behaviors observed on the grassy surface of the garden.

These samplings were carried out on October 29, 1982 at 2 p.m. The grass samples are packaged in numbered airtight plastic bags.

VII.3 TRANSPORT AND PACKAGING The first series of samplings of October 22 and 27 were packaged in plastic bags and stored by the Gendarmerie in a refrigerator (vegetable drawer) at a temperature of +4 to +5° The second series, collected on October 29, 1982, packaged in airtight plastic bags, was placed directly into liquid nitrogen bottles to facilitate its maintenance at low temperature during its transport to Toulouse.

On the morning of October 30, all the plant samples were placed in a freezer and kept at a constant temperature of - 30°

Page 61 of GEPAN note number 17, the results of the analysis carried out at the Center for Plant Physiology of the University of Paul Sabatier (Toulouse Rangueil). The following text was written by two researchers, Messrs. ABRAVANEL and JUST.

... Not having control over the sampling and, to best capture the transient phenomena that may have influenced the plant's metabolism, we limited our analysis to the two samplings carried out by the Gendarmerie on October 22, 1982 (24 hours after the observation) in a field of amaranth, part of which showed signs of withering.

(that is, see above, the elements that were immediately packaged in sealed airtight bags) These samples are in the form of stem tips bearing the flowering stalk, the roots being excluded.

The condition of the samples prevented us from carrying out a quantitative analysis.

.........

IX . 3 DISCUSSION :

The results presented call for a number of observations :

As in any analysis, mastering the sampling and conservation of the samples is essential to ensure the value of the conclusions drawn from the analytical results. In our case, taking into account the methods we commonly use, we chose samples 22 and 23 because they seemed the closest to the phenomenon in time and we hoped to highlight significant differences (between plants near the object and those at a distance). In reality, it has long been known that conservation at +4°, followed by freezing at -30°, is insufficient to stop enzymatic activities and thus fix the sampling. Therefore, we suggest two methods (there are others) that we consider to present all the guarantees of scientific rigor, despite the constraints they represent.

Immediate freezing in liquid nitrogen (what Michel Bounias had stipulated after the Trans in Provence incident) followed by lyophilization of the sample. This way, metabolites and enzymatic activities are preserved.

Sampling a cube of soil containing the plants (what was done in Trans) and shipping in a packaging model used by nurseries. This method, which includes the control sampling, has the advantage of keeping the plant alive and allowing possible cellular-level studies.

In the current state of sample conservation, it is not possible to use plant biochemistry to explain the difference in appearance between the control plant and the "wilted" plant

It would have also been logical to ask Michel Bounias, a specialist in plant trauma, to personally intervene on this site. As can be seen, this task is entrusted to the gendarmes who cut the stems with scissors, enclose the samples in airtight plastic bags, sealed! The samples will arrive completely decomposed at the plant physiology center of the University of Paul Sabatier (Toulouse Rangueil).

Why such a change in the destination of the samples? Because of an uncomfortable approach we took in 1981, Michel and I, towards the Gepan scientific council, asking to be heard. We proposed to attempt to reenact the effects observed at Trans by bombarding control lucerne plants with pulsed microwaves, delivered by a small table-top source. A simple experiment, a such a source could easily be borrowed from the biologist. But we were turned away. The reason is simple. Pulsed microwaves do not exist in nature. Bounias went too far. He spoke, gave interviews, appeared in the media. He and I are too noisy, too visible. The Cnes decided that he would be excluded from future cases of this kind. Deprived of his instructions, the Gepan will then completely miss this second case. I discussed this with Sillard, who admits he did not follow, neither closely nor from afar, the activities of his child for three decades. The Amarante case occurred during the interim. The Gepan was decapitated. Esterle, engineers Zappoli and Caubel were transferred to different corners and asked to be forgotten. Velasco, a simple technician, was placed in charge of a service literally pulverized. I told Sillard:

- I imagine that at the time, when he saw these samples, collected by gendarmes, he must have directed them to the first analysis laboratory, the nearest university.

Sillard's response:

- I think that's probably how it happened.

One can also look for the comment of Patenet, Velasco's successor, in an interview given to Ciel et Espace in April 2006, to journalist Jean-François Haït.

http://www.cieletespace.fr/archives/3047_ovnis,le,cnes,ouvre,ses,dossiers.aspx

In this interview, he says, about analysis techniques and investigation:

- It's about resuming collaborations that had been strained.

And a little further on:

- The samples from Amarante were not collected or preserved in good conditions. I doubt they are exploitable today.

Twenty years later, Velasco rewrites the whole story, without the slightest self-criticism.

Writing these lines, I may be accused of wanting to settle scores. I just say that Velasco's book is just smoke and mirrors. But does it really matter? No, because now everything is ruined. During this long phone call with Sillard, I was able to really measure the extent of this failure, spread over three decades. He told me:

- I do what I can. At the Cnes, the situation is very difficult. There are very strong oppositions. There are a lot of people within this house who are very actively fighting to prevent anything from developing on this UFO file.

In this case or in this series of cases, the behavior of the institutional leviathan is in the background. There are, and we agreed on this point, Sillard and I, in any institution:

20% of people who are firmly opposed to any research on the UFO file and who actively work to prevent anything from developing.

The source of this behavior is completely irrational, but the suppression strategy, stemming from a psycho-socio-immunological mechanism, is merciless.

79% don't care at all, don't know anything about the subject or follow it with a vague curiosity.
1% think "maybe we should do something."

Some people might wonder what the source of such hostility could be. During the Stéphane Bern show, a psychoanalyst spent her time repeating "that we do not take into account the fact that it could be hallucinations," while adding:

- I wouldn't mind at all shaking the hand, paw, tentacle or antenna of an being from another planet.

On the set, I made the following comment, which was cut during editing, like 80% of my interventions:

- Madam, if you were faced with such a situation, you would be scared to death, like everyone else.

This is what I called in a book the Cosmotrouille. And it goes far beyond simple fear. The prospect that there could be beings far ahead of us is extremely destabilizing, for scientists, but also for military, politicians. These 20% of actively hostile people only express a powerful psycho-socio-immunological reaction of our planetary society to the idea of extraterrestrial visits. This hostility is present everywhere, at the Cnes, at the CNRS, in the Army, in the political sphere. Nothing has changed in thirty years.

Back to Velasco's book.

Chapter 6, pages 109 to 140, titled " The proof by radar "

Another anecdote, and an evocation of the recordings made with the radars. Velasco reuses large fragments of the article written by Donald Keyhoe in the American magazine True in 1952, where the essential aspects had already been analyzed with a lot of relevance. For those who know nothing about the subject, Keyhoe's text refutes the interpretations of the "debunkers" like the astronomer Menzel, who tries to attribute the recorded echoes to "temperature inversions," the consequences of a meteorological phenomenon.

We continue with the anecdotal. The classics: the RB-47 case (1957), the Tehran case (1976), the encounter made by pilot Gorman, in his Mustang (1948). As a good ufologist, Velasco draws from the archives, old or more recent (Japan Airlines flights, 1986, United Airlines 94 of 1977, Swissair flight 127 of 1997).

After having participated in numerous disinformation operations, for example by explaining during an episode produced with the Bogdanoff brothers in the early 1990s "that there were only a small number of unexplained cases, but which would eventually be brought back to known phenomena," Velasco changes his attitude and becomes a fervent advocate of the extraterrestrial visitation theory. He had already outlined this position in his 2005 book: "UFO, the evidence," just before his transfer. I got this information from Yves Sillard: he now takes care of the youth clubs that fire mini-rockets, under the patronage of the Cnes. Having nothing more to lose, he "lets go." He mentions the role played by American organizations in disinformation, lists the different organizations around the world that pretend to be interested in the issue, but ignores our work over thirty years, especially because he is not equipped to understand its details and implications.

Chapter 7, pages 195 to 228, titled " Censorship maneuvers and forgotten report ... "

Another return to the anecdotal. The Kenneth Arnold case, June 1947. The death of pilot Mantell, at the controls of his F-51 (1948). Blue Book and Condon reports. Then Velasco mentions the Pocantico conference, 1997, where astrophysicist Peter Sturrock brought together "Velasco from different countries." Contrary to what this exotic sound might suggest, Pocantico is the name of a property belonging to the Rockefeller family, north of New York.

Pages 222 and 223

Velasco therefore participated in a conference organized by the plasma physicist Peter Sturrock, sponsored by a Rockefeller and his muse, Madame Galbraith, wife of an American ambassador to Paris. He reproduces the interview of Sturrock by the aeronautical journalist Bernard Thouanel:

Thouanel:

What was the impact of the Pocantico conference?
Sturrock:
Remarkable. It had a huge impact on the public and in the media (...).
Thouanel:
Have you been contacted by colleagues, officials?
Sturrock:
Not at all. I remind you that we have not given any recommendations to any government agency. It was not our objective (...).
Thouanel:
What do you plan to do next?
Sturrock:
Nothing more (...). We have taken the first step. The second must be taken by the scientific community.
Thouanel:
What is your personal conclusion?
Sturrock:
The main message to convey is that the UFO issue deeply interests people. However, scientists continue to ignore it. We must bring it to the public sphere so that the scientific community will look into the answers the public is entitled to expect .....

Thouanel:

What was the impact of the Pocantico conference?
Sturrock:
Remarkable. It had a huge impact on the public and in the media (...).
Thouanel:
Have you been contacted by colleagues, officials?
Sturrock:
Not at all. I remind you that we have not given any recommendations to any government agency. It was not our objective (...).
Thouanel:
What do you plan to do next?
Sturrock:
Nothing more (...). We have taken the first step. The second must be taken by the scientific community.
Thouanel:
What is your personal conclusion?
Sturrock:
The main message to convey is that the UFO issue deeply interests people. However, scientists continue to ignore it. We must bring it to the public sphere so that the scientific community will look into the answers the public is entitled to expect .....

And Velasco continues by writing:

I must admit that, upon returning to France, I felt a kind of unease, as if someone had "cut the water with a sword".

First of all, because there was too great a gap between the investigators and the scientists on the panel (he includes himself, of course, in this second group).

It seemed to me that the presentation of some cases - in my opinion, far from the best - did not meet scientific expectations and lacked methodology. I then regretted the lack of numerous and reliable data, like those we developed within the framework of the Cnes database. ....

Sturrock showed that the position of the Cnes - and particularly that of the Sepra - was undoubtedly the path to follow and to imitate for future events.

I must admit that, upon returning to France, I felt a kind of unease, as if someone had "cut the water with a sword".

First of all, because there was too great a gap between the investigators and the scientists on the panel (he includes himself, of course, in this second group).

Sturrock showed that the position of the Cnes - and particularly that of the Sepra - was undoubtedly the path to follow and to imitate for future events.

I first heard of Sturrock in 1975. At that time, he was active and directed a plasma physics laboratory in the United States. In the spring of 1976, before being laid up by my work accident in October, I had the opportunity to go to the USA for the bicentennial of their Declaration of Independence, sent by the magazine Science et Vie. It was during this trip that I visited the scientific laboratories of Livermore and Sandia (read "Children of the Devil" downloadable for free on my site ). I took the opportunity to stop by Evanston, Illinois, near Chicago, where Allan Hynek had founded the Cufos (Center for UFO Studies). I imagined a real research center and was somewhat surprised to find only a small two-room office with a secretary. Hynek spent most of his time giving lectures and running a small magazine that included sections like "UFO of the Month". Velasco, who met him, writes about him, page 249 of his book:

Allen Hynek will remain in my mind as the indispensable man of the UFO dossier, the one who contributed significantly to giving this issue a real scientific dimension.

Allen Hynek will remain in my mind as the indispensable man of the UFO dossier, the one who contributed significantly to giving this issue a real scientific dimension.

At Evanston, Hynek had organized a conference that I found to be nothing more than a meeting of bandar-logs. A real scientist, at the end of this meeting, stood up, exasperated, saying:

"But where are your real scientists? Where are your physicists, your biologists, your astrophysicists? What is this new science you keep talking about and call 'Ufology'? I crossed the entire American continent to come to this conference and for days I have heard nothing but empty talk. The paranormal has seduced you, obviously. You bring everything back to this kind of phenomenon."

Scientifically, Hynek was not a light. When I came to the USA, I had hoped to meet Sturrock, to give him my MHD ideas, despairing of being able to negotiate them in France. But this meeting only took place a few years later, when he visited me in Aix-en-Provence. In the meantime, he had founded The Journal for Scientific Exploration with Jacques Vallée.

It took us quite a few years, my late Pierre Guérin and I, to understand the game played by people like Sturrock and Vallée, which was nothing other than disinformation. When they became editors-in-chief of this magazine, I sent them a long article on my conceptions regarding MHD aircraft. This paper was ... rejected, Vallée having played the role of expert, of ... referee. A few years later, Madame Galbraith contacted me about a book she intended to write, saying she wanted to "try to make things move forward, regarding the UFO dossier". I took the opportunity to propose including this paper in her book again. But she backed out, claiming "that it was premature at this stage".

I had to wait until the year 2000 to realize (read UFOs and American secret weapons) the fantastic advances of the Americans in the field of MHD in general and its applications to hypersonic flight in particular. I know that Bernard Thouanel qualified, at the time of the release of my book, my theses as "technological delirium". He presents himself as "very much aware of the American black programs". Regarding this, when we have the chance to start experiments in this small lab we are trying to rent in Paris, I will start hydraulic analogy experiments that will illustrate how the "MHD controlled" air intake of the hypersonic Aurora craft works.

If what I think is correct, the American advantage is considerable and took off as early as the beginning of the 1970s. Sturrock and Vallée, being aware, did their best, on order, as did Madame Galbraith and her great friend Rockefeller to keep all these small Europeans in their blissful ignorance.

The Pocantico conference goes in this direction and evokes these dinners where people amuse themselves by inviting guests they play with, without their knowledge.

Pages 224 to 227: A brief mention of the Cometa report. Velasco reports the comments of the Express. The newspaper talks about a delirious report, an updated version of the Gendarme and the aliens. Velasco qualifies these comments as "disheartening".

Chapter 8, pages 229 to 250, titled " Men Who Knew ..."

Page 231:

Velasco mentions "the formidable censorship procedure Janap 146 (Joint Army Navy Air Force Publication) put in place by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But he says nothing about the 1979 decree in France, which extended to sixty years the time after which ordinary citizens could claim access to reports and transcripts related to UFO matters.

In this chapter, nothing we did not already know, which can be found in many books published previously.

Chapter 9, pages 251 to 280, titled " Atomic Bomb and UFOs: A Species Under Surveillance? "

As the UFO phenomenon spread around the world, thousands of authors noticed, in all countries and in all languages, that this phenomenon, if it seemed to have already been observed previously (the "Foo fighters" surrounding the planes of the Second World War), had clearly developed rapidly after the explosion of the first atomic bombs, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This correlation is presented by Jean-Jacques Velasco as a major, original discovery, the result of a methodical and "scientific" analysis. In many books and articles published in magazines, the facts cited can be found. It has been known for ages that missile heads were neutralized by a UFO, which was playing around the missile silos. Velasco forgets what may be the most singular story, near the Kjwalen atoll in the Pacific. This is where the Americans test the re-entry phase of their multi-warhead systems. These are fixed on a "bus" that can be seen, in particular, in the movie "Abyss". In the re-entry phase, the heads separate from their support and converge towards their respective targets. It is then necessary to control their altitude so that they can be fired at the same moment, to the millisecond. During the Second World War, bombs, equipped with a detonator, were dropped in groups. The first one that exploded triggered the others. But with a string of nuclear heads, this does not happen. If one head explodes prematurely, it destroys the others. Therefore, simultaneity is required. However, during one of these tests, seven heads came down, drawing their trajectories in the sky. Six hit the ground. The sixth was simply ... taken by a UFO right in front of the observers!

All these stories are interesting but have been known for a long time. Velasco presents them as "the conclusions of patient and meticulous research in archives," which he affects to reveal to us.

Chapter 10, pages 281 to 294, titled " **Very Serious Hypotheses ** "

The Drake formula which says ... everything and anything. Some counter-remarks. There, the author reveals himself as a humanist, raises alarm cries.

Page 291:

How far will this dark destructive madness go?	Will we be stopped before it's too late?	Space, the future of Homo sapiens sapiens?	Can we bet that this people will become good and wise?

How far will this dark destructive madness go?	Will we be stopped before it's too late?	Space, the future of Homo sapiens sapiens?	Can we bet that this people will become good and wise?

Chapter 11, pages 295 to 314, titled " **Peaceful Coexistence and Technology Theft ... ** "

The former optical technician, who would not be able to tell the difference between an integral and a bicycle, gathers all his neurons and ventures into the field of scientific reflection. He first evokes totally inconsistent hypotheses, which can be called "historical".

Page 297:

A Frenchman named Marcel Pagès, a physicist engineer, filed a patent on January 5, 1960, for "Spacecraft Vehicles". According to Pagès, any craft capable of generating an electromagnetic field would reverse the gravitational force, and would be able to escape gravity to move without resistance. To achieve this, it would be necessary to cancel the weight of the "craft by rotating around it and at the speed of light, a charge of electrons (...). ... Another theory was proposed in 1953 by a young French army lieutenant. Jean Plantier proposed a craft that would move thanks to a force field created by the cosmic energy of space, by applying a force to all atomic nuclei of the bodies (...).

The ellipses are from Velasco. They abound in the book. Pagès, Plantier: we are in a bar discussion. But the worst is yet to come. Always "from his classics", Velasco reproduces the photo of the Avrocar aircraft, by John Frost, which I saw in his hangar, at the James Forrestal Center in Princeton, in 1961, when I was a young, curious student. Read the account in "Investigation on UFOs". This photo has been in thousands of books.

Page 300.

The author contradicts himself, now. He writes:

Some skeptics argue that UFOs are military prototypes. To answer them, I will take the example of the famous "stealth" bomber F-117 Nighthawk, also called "the flying bug"; several UFOlogists quickly claimed it was responsible for the UFO wave in Belgium in 1990 ...

The secrecy around this plane was well kept. Its unprecedented shape was surprising! The F-117 was at the Bourget Salon, near Paris. I was able to observe it from all sides and see it fly at the moment of its departure. I understood at that precise moment that it could not be the origin of the Belgian observations. Its aerodynamic qualities betrayed a total lack of stability at low speed. Its loud and powerful noise announced it from kilometers away ... No, the F-117 was far from silent UFOs at dizzying speeds.

I invite the reader to look with me at the work of our future aeronautical engineers ...

There must be something to understand in these ellipses that punctuate the book everywhere. Anyway, this speech is in complete contradiction with the statements made in chapter 3, where Velasco said he leaned towards the theory of the American stealth plane flying over the Belgian territory, in particular because "these aircraft seemed to stop dead at the French border".

Now Velasco becomes ... a research director. We are approaching the final bouquet. Without the least awareness of the ridiculousness, the author reuses the images he had already presented in his previous book "UFOs, the Evidence". Let him speak:

At the end of the year 2000, two students from the National School of Aeronautics and Space came to see me. They wanted me to direct a study project as part of their curriculum (...). My surprise was great: their aim was to model "aerodynamically" the behavior of a hypersonic flying disk! The challenge was interesting because, apart from the work of a French physicist, few engineers had looked into this fundamental question.

I suppose that "this French physicist" must be me.

Let's continue courageously.

Was the "saucer" shape simply adapted for flight?

Their professor accepted the topic and the two students quickly got to work. First, they had to define the data of the problem to be solved. What was the aerodynamic behavior of such a craft? Did the disc shape have real interest? It was about applying the theory of hypersonic flight and confronting it with the constraints encountered on a flying saucer type craft. In particular, on the side of the shock wave and the devastating consequences that could result (at the bottom of the page, Velasco gives his definition of a shock wave. According to him, "a shock wave is a type of wave, mechanical or of another nature (...), associated with the idea of a sudden transition".

It was also necessary to propose and find ways to control the terrible thermal effects that airplanes and rockets experience when moving through the atmosphere.

Based on studies carried out at the Sepra (...), particularly through the study of engineer Laurent Gonin on visual/radar observation cases, the two students selected some cases to illustrate their study.

....

They reviewed all the problems of hypersonic flight.

Their conclusion is as follows:

When one wants to create a craft that can fly at hypersonic speeds, the temperature surge caused by the shock wave generates phenomena that make the design of the craft and the prediction of its performance more difficult. Also, if we have not emphasized it, this very high temperature can damage the structure of the craft and hinder its operation. This is why we started looking for possible methods to eliminate the shock wave.

But first, how to highlight these shock waves with a flying saucer type geometry?

A wind tunnel study at such high Mach numbers is impossible. We naturally turned to a numerical study, that is, solving the Navier-Stokes equations using a mesh of the craft's geometry and the surrounding fluid.

Velasco's comment, page 302:

To carry out this study, our two brilliant students (...) chose a craft with characteristics as close as possible to real flying saucers, while respecting the constraints of the software used (computer-aided design software Catia, version 5).

The Bluebook project showed that the disc shape appears frequently. For reasons of simplification, we opted for a double trapezoidal configuration, with a central disc.

And here is the result of this brilliant "scientific" study:

soucoupe_velasco1

Velasco's comment:

This study mobilized computers for several days to evaluate the aspects related to the shock wave and the thermal incidents (...) that result from different hypersonic speeds. As an example, it was seen that at Mach 8 (see the diagram above), the effects of the shock wave form a "hump" which is certainly due to the interaction of the area of the disc's edge and that of the upper trapezoid. But the main point (...) highlighted by these models remains the temperature. The Rankine-Hugoniot mathematical relationship shows that at a high Mach number, a very high temperature is observed downstream of the shock wave.

We found that the possible damage to the surfaces of the flying saucer proved to be very serious, as we had predicted (...). The study thus shows that the shape of the flying saucer is not well adapted thermally to evolve in the atmosphere at supersonic speeds ... Considering this single aerodynamic aspect, we must recognize that the company Avro (the Avrocar of John Frost), even if they had overcome their "engine" failure, would never have been able to maintain the integrity of their vehicle at such speeds.

Therefore, it is necessary to circumvent the friction problem. Physically, engineers have found a way.

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) saves the situation ...

Therefore, it is necessary to circumvent the friction problem. Physically, engineers have found a way.

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) saves the situation ...

New ellipses.

Several clarifications. I published as early as 1975 at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, under the guidance of mathematician and academician André Lichnérowicz, my first works on what I called "magnetohydrodynamic aero-dynamics". This first note was followed by many other publications, in peer-reviewed journals, submitted to the referee system (such as the European Journal of Mechanics). There were communications at international MHD conferences (Tsukuba 1987, Beijing 1990) where I was unable to attend, due to lack of funds. It must be added that there was a doctoral thesis, conducted under my direction and defended in 1988, that of Bertrand Lebrun, showing through numerical calculations (less absurd than those mentioned here) that shock waves could be eliminated by Laplace forces, electromagnetic. Velasco pretends to ignore all this. But in fact, it's because he simply isn't able to read a single line. The heating due to the front shock wave is not related to "friction"; as he thinks, but to the abrupt compression of the gas.

I would call this chapter ... pathetic. What follows will be the final fireworks, the cherry on the cake. Before approaching it, I say to the students of the National School of Aeronautics in Toulouse that if their study direction gives its approval, I would be willing to give a MHD course at the school, focused on propulsion and air intake control of turbojets, works that we will undertake, through hydraulic simulations, as soon as we can have a 20 square meter space, or even fifteen. I would even be ready to take them on for a doctoral thesis, provided of course that they can benefit from a scholarship.

I don't know what the reaction of people who read this book will be. Some "may learn a lot of things". Everything is relative. Others will surely ask questions about how the study of the UFO phenomenon was managed at the Cnes for thirty long years.

What will Patenet, who already declares "he is not a physicist" (but Velasco was presented as "physicist" by Stéphane Bern during his show on March 21, 2007).

patenet1

**Jacques Patenet **

I listened to an interview with him. He talks "of a steering committee", composed "by some academics". He adds that "the GEIPAN will be in contact with the army, the gendarmerie, the civil aviation, the national meteorology". The data will arrive at the GEIPAN in the form of investigations conducted by the gendarmerie (...). The GEIPAN will then examine these reports and cross-reference them with information from the army, meteorology, and civil aviation". Throughout the interview, it becomes clear that the GEIPAN is actually composed of Jacques Patenet assisted by a secretary. Nothing has changed compared to the Sepra. Just a change of name. But "France is the only country that ... bla bla bla ...". Patenet refused to be in dupleix with me, on the radio. Probably to avoid too direct questions, which journalists will not have the impudence to ask, such as:

- Mr. Patenet, where are the thousands of networked caps that were distributed to the gendarmes?

What are the motivations of all these people? One can wonder. In 27 years, an optical technician, Jean-Jacques Velasco, later promoted to "house engineer," found himself by sheer chance (due to his boss Alain Esterle's transfer) thrust into the media spotlight. When he had the accounts of the ufologist Robert Alessandri seized, after successfully having him sentenced on appeal to 5,000 euros in damages and interest (Alessandri had called him a charlatan in his writings, based on his completely bogus analysis of the only atmospheric reentry phenomenon he had intervened in, that of November 5, 1990), bad luck, I found out and immediately published copies of the sheriff's report on my website (for those who doubt it, I can bring these pages back at any time). At first, the CNES renamed the "Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes Rares Atmosphériques" into the "Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes Atmosphériques Rares" (which would have given SEPAR).

Velasco, "called to new missions" for the last years before his retirement, is now taking care of young people who fire mini-rockets, under the patronage of the CNES. Benefiting from the CNES label, he published his third book, co-written with journalist Montigiani.

Now, we are waiting for the book by Yves Sillard.

Claude Poher, like Jean-Jacques Velasco, is a "man from the ranks." Poher, a simple technician, attended evening classes at Arts et Métiers and, like Velasco, became a "house engineer." There are autodidacts who manage to acquire remarkable knowledge, which graduates do not possess.

In 1975, Claude Poher, an engineer at the CNES, contacted me. He had heard about my work through my friend Maurice Viton, an astronomer at the Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale de Marseille, directed by Georges Courtès. So one day, he came to my home in Aix with Viton, after sending me a report of his own, in which he explained that the CNES was about to launch a large research program on the mechanics of UFOs. In this report, I was "in charge of the details." You will see how.

Like Velasco, Poher tried to imagine what a UFO might be, sustained by MHD. He included in his report a drawing worthy of The Little Prince (the one where the pilot draws a boa that has swallowed an elephant). It is the only illustration in this document.

soucoupe_poher

The MHD Saucer of Claude Poher

As he didn't know what to put inside his saucer, he placed two types of benches. Then he wrote:

"In an MHD craft, aerodynamic forces are created using Lorentz forces. These tend to concentrate the air under the machine, while stretching it on top. This results in a pressure difference. Air circulation then tends to form, going from below to above, which would reduce this pressure difference, thus eliminating lift. This is why saucers have a disc shape (...). Mr. Petit calculated the diameter needed to prevent this gas circulation:"

D =

And after the equals sign, he left a blank. When we were together at my house, I took Poher's report, opened it to that page, and wrote to the right of the equals sign:

D = infinite

Poher was taken aback. I tried to explain:

"When a pressure difference appears in the atmosphere, a phenomenon called wind occurs."

His eye didn't light up. I made another attempt.

"Listen, suppose we are in a boat shaped like a box, with a bow and stern that are flat, perpendicular to our course. You are at the front and I am at the back. At the front, you try to create a "depression" in front of the boat by vigorously pushing water with your oar. At the back, I also use an oar to try to press the water against the stern of the ship. In which direction does it move?" - "It moves forward." - "No, it moves backward." - "It doesn't matter, just change the signs."

That day, I realized that one of the qualities required to become the head of a department at the CNES (in this case, the rocket department) is unshakable confidence, the ability to remain self-assured in any situation, a kind of extraordinary professional composure.

Maurice Viton, a witness to this meeting, could confirm this anecdote word for word. I am not making anything up.

After resigning from the GEPAN in 1978, Claude Poher will be in charge of "advanced projects" for thirty years. After retiring, he published a book titled:

The Universons, the Energy of the Future

Note that if you are a collector, you can always buy both books, this one and Velasco's, to add to your collection. In this genre, Poher's book is a gem. Velasco reuses the main elements in his book, pages 310 and 313. I summarize briefly. Over three decades of deep reflection, Poher convinced himself that the universe is filled with invisible particles, which he decided to call "universons." Since he talks about particles, he qualifies his theory as "quantum." Every object in the universe is constantly hit by a flux of universons, in the same way that an object immersed in still air is constantly bombarded by air molecules, which hit it at 400 m/s (the thermal agitation speed of the air molecules you are breathing right now). But the resultant of these pressure forces is zero.

Put two objects in proximity. In relation to this universon bombardment, each will serve as a "parasol," an shield for the other. A high school student will then easily calculate that these objects attract each other with a force inversely proportional to the distance between them. Poher understood what Newton did not grasp, in stating his famous law. The gravitational force of 1/r2, postulated by the Englishman, is only the result of the "universon flux." And thus he embarked on this brilliant intuition, occasionally punctuated by publications in the form of "internal CNES notes." And this lasted thirty years. Asked, Poher will tell you that he has studied, "in the company of the best international specialists," the question of propulsion by antimatter.

What is extraordinary is that Poher started on this matter without even knowing that a Swiss had had this idea and that it had already been refuted a long time ago. We are in full pataphysics.

Going further than Velasco, Poher gives an explanation of the sudden takeoffs of UFOs. It is a safety measure. A farmer arrives, armed with a pitchfork. There is danger. Quickly, the UFO, by modulating a universon flux, accelerates at relativistic speed. In doing so, it leaves the "temporal bubble" of the farmer. When it turns around and returns, the man has been "ejected into the past."

But of course!

What Poher lacks, I believe, is a principle stated by Pierre Dac:

The more you go, the slower you go, and the slower you go, the faster you go.

Let's see how Jean-Jacques Velasco, in his book, page 310, mentions "the work of Dr. Poher." He begins by reproducing passages from Claude Poher's book:

After becoming aware of the different characteristics inherent to interstellar travel, we are confronted with its feasibility. Answering this question amounts to postulating that there exists, throughout the universe, a source of energy allowing a spacecraft to be greatly accelerated without having to use energy stored on board.

...

We must revise our concepts regarding gravity.

...

This suggested to me, as early as 1979 (when I left the GEPAN), the need to design a new model of gravity. Its basis rests on a quantum phenomenon (...) which explains the colossal energy exchanges involved in gravity.

The confrontation of the consequences of this new theoretical model with observation now confirms, after many years of solitary work (...), that it is acceptable as it is. It is based on the hypothesis that gravity is not a "force of attraction" between two masses of matter, as Newton thought, but rather a "pressure force" from the entire universe, coming from all directions of space, pushing the two masses against each other. Simplified like this (...), this notion is not sufficient. The only hypothesis of the existence of "something" capable of pushing matter, I called it "the flux of free universons." The "universons" belong to a new (...) concept, sort of tiny autonomous units, capable of providing kinetic energy, moving at the speed of light and briefly captured by matter. This interaction with matter is the gravitational interaction, exerting a weak pressure on matter. It is already possible to verify the validity of the universon theory through numerous experimental facts (...).

I was about to forget a "small detail": this theory also perfectly explains the facts reported in the thousands of UFO sightings around the world!

...

We must revise our concepts regarding gravity.

...

I was about to forget a "small detail": this theory also perfectly explains the facts reported in the thousands of UFO sightings around the world!

Velasco's commentary:

This theory constitutes the first approach capable of integrating complex physical principles with undeniable experimental data. I know, after having discussed it with him for a long time, that Claude Poher wants young theoretical physicists to take up his theory and discuss it scientifically.

This theory constitutes the first approach capable of integrating complex physical principles with undeniable experimental data. I know, after having discussed it with him for a long time, that Claude Poher wants young theoretical physicists to take up his theory and discuss it scientifically.

Scientifically.

The book ends with an interview of Jean-Jacques Velasco by Nicolas Montigiani, co-author of the book, dated September 2006 in the book. Pages 315 to 322. For Velasco, it is about justifying his departure from the SEPR. He begins by mentioning the content of an "internal audit" written by engineer François Louange, from the company Fleximage, a long-time GEPAN consultant. Velasco answers Montigiani:

Two extremely important decisions came out of François Louange's report. First, the continuation, in an institutional way, of the study of Pans, relying on the skills of civil and military organizations existing in our country. Second, the creation of a steering committee, the "copilpan," whose task is to supervise and control the activity of this study by practicing an active information policy.

From today on and henceforth, it will be exactly as it was before.

Velasco then addresses the painful question:

Some have suggested that I was "fired" because of my opinion on the phenomenon, as Science and Avenir did, without asking me. Nothing could be further from the truth. The current situation is rather the result of the accumulation of things.... Regarding the November 5, 1990 incident, everyone wanted the answer provided by the "official" service to match their own! This incident became so big that people or groups went beyond the limits, attacking my personal integrity... I was deeply shocked, as was my entourage, by the numerous excesses it caused. This is one of the reasons why I decided to leave this activity (...).

He presents himself as a victim. I briefly recall the facts. I had, just before Velasco left the SEPR and the disappearance of this service, produced all the judicial documents referring to this case. In 1990, Jean-Jacques Velasco, head of the "Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de rentrées Atmosphériques," the SEPR, was requested following the numerous observations made by thousands of witnesses during the night of November 5, 1990. It was the atmospheric reentry of a Russian rocket stage. NASA provided the coordinates of the three last points of passage. Using these data, Velasco produced a map of France showing the reentry trajectory, from southwest to northeast. The witnesses were surprised. Indeed, the answer provided by this "official" service, in this case himself, did not match their observations. Those who were supposed to be on this reentry trajectory saw the objects at a 45-degree angle, while observers who were supposed to be 200 km away from this line saw the objects passing over their heads.

Years later, an obscure ufologist, a rmiste, living in Marseille, took NASA's data and recalculated this reentry corridor, using a small orbitography software running on his PC. He showed that Velasco had made a 200 km error (I think he used a globe and a simple string in 1990). In a small ufology magazine printed in 200 copies, Robert Alessandri titled "When the CNES hires charlatans." Velasco immediately sued him for defamation and succeeded in having him sentenced to 2,000 euros in damages and interest in the first instance. Alessandri, appealing, was again condemned, the fine being raised to 5,000 euros this time. Velasco had the judgment executed and had the little money the ufologist had on his account seized. Informed, I published on my website the sheriff's report of the account seizure.

At the request of Mr. Velasco, we, the sheriff...

And I immediately organized a collection that would allow the ufologist to get out of this bad situation, at my own expense of 1,000 euros.

This is "this attack on Mr. Velasco's personal integrity." If necessary, I can put these documents back online.

This concludes this reading note of his book. I will wait for Yves Sillard's book to examine it as well.

In the meantime, Jean-Stéphane, Julien and I will continue to look for a 15-20 square meter space in Paris to set up research. We can afford 200 euros per month. We will also prepare, without delay, video documents, JPP conferences, plus archive images, drawings, animations, to present what an authentically scientific approach to the UFO phenomenon would be. I know that on this point, we can count on the help of many people in images. These video files will be available on the website http://www.ufo-science.com

I will also have to write a book where people who prefer to read can find a discourse that, situated at several levels, presents the different facets of the UFO phenomenon from the perspective of real scientists, not jesters. It could be a "book in htm" with links to different reading news.

There is no difference for me between the approach of the UFO subject and the evocation of the current convulsions of the planet, as well as the enumeration of solutions (non-polluting fusion, deserts considered as fantastic energy sources). We must each day tell ourselves that

The future is written nowhere --- ---

UFOs aerospace phenomena science

En résumé (grâce à un LLM libre auto-hébergé)

UFOs Aerospace Phenomena Science

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