GEIPAN (an acronym in French for , or Unidentified Aerospace Phenomenon Research and Information Group) () is a unit of the French space agency

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

based in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

, whose brief is to investigate unidentified aerospace phenomena (UAP) and make its findings available to the public.

History and developments

GEIPAN was founded in 1977 as GEPAN (, Study Group for Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena). Claude Poher was the inaugural director, of then director general of CNES Yves Sillard. GEPAN was renamed to SEPRA (, Atmospheric Re-entry Phenomena Expertise Department) in 1988, and then to ("rare aerospace phenomena expertise department") in 2000. In 2005, the research unit was renamed to GEIPAN. The French

Gendarmerie A gendarmerie () is a paramilitary or military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (). In France and so ...

was instructed to channel data from reports of

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

sightings to SEPRA, which therefore was in a position to draw on a large database of such events. In cases where physical traces appeared to be present, SEPRA could call on the technical resources of

to perform a thorough scientific investigation. A famous example of such an investigation was the Trans-en-Provence Case. Ufo reports in france by year according of GEIPAN archives 1

Ufo reports in france by year according of GEIPAN archives 1

In March 2007, GEIPAN started to make it
archives available online
to the public. The same year, French skeptics criticized the quality of their investigative work, arguing the sightings were too quickly filed as unidentified. On March 26, 2007, the CNES' own report said that 28% of sightings remain unidentified. More recent reports of GEIPAN estimate the unidentified sightings at around 3%.

Directors

GEPAN period

* 1977 - 1978 Claude Poher * 1979 - 1983 Alain Esterle * 1984 - 1988 Jean-Jacques Velasco

SEPRA period

* 1988 - 2004 Jean-Jacques Velasco

GEIPAN period

* 2005 - 2009 Jacques Patenet * 2009 - 2011 Yves Blanc * 2011 - 2015 Xavier Passot * 2016 - 2019 Jean-Paul Aguttes * 2019 - 2020 Roger Baldacchino * 2021 - 2023 Vincent Costes * 2024 - now Frederic Courtade

References

External links

*
GEIPAN official site

Goals and history of GEIPAN
on the

website.
''From GEPAN to SEPRA: Official UFO studies in France''
(International UFO Review, winter 2000–2001), the earlier years of GEIPAN related by Gildas Bourdais. {{Authority control CNES Government responses to UFOs 1977 establishments in France Organizations established in 1977 Space program of France UFO organizations UFO sightings in France