GEIPAN (an acronym in French for , or Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Research and Information Group) () is a unit of the French space agency CNES based in Toulouse, whose mission is to investigate unidentified aerospace phenomena (UAP)GEIPAN is clearly focused on UFO study, but UAP (PAN in French) is meant to cover a much broader area than UFO (OVNI in French), as "UFO" may imply the presence of a physical object despite any actual evidence of it. 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 was instructed to channel data from reports of UFO 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 CNES to perform a thorough scientific investigation. A famous example of such an investigation was the Trans-en-Provence Case.
In March 2007, GEIPAN started to make its 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.Rossoni, D., Maillot, E., & Déguillaume, E. (2007). Les ovnis du CNES – 30 ans d’études officielles. www.book-e-book.com. (extracts from the book in French) . Critical skeptical investigations of GEPAN's work. 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–present Frederic Courtade
See also List of UFO organizations
References
External links GEIPAN official site