An interesting statistical paper on UAP was published in 2015 on the arXiv.org  University site.  Michaël Vaillant, a CNES/GEIPAN collaborator and two other persons from the Toulouse School of Economics, issued a serious analysis on the French UAP cases from the GEIPAN database. It should be recalled that GEIPAN is still currently the only official organism in the world in charge of collecting and assessing the UAP testimonies, and in a spirit of transparency makes available on line its information and updated statistics. http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=196

In that respect, the latest available yearly statistics show a reduction of the number of testimonies reaching their center during the last years: http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/?id=198.

 
2014= 368 ; 2015= 394; 2016= 126; 2017 (beg. November)= 42 (unless delay in processing files).

 

It is interesting to read in this paper about a strong relationship with the sites of nuclear activities and contaminated land. This analysis covered a total 1969 UAP cases, covering the period 1951-2013, and at that time in 2015 some 381 observations were still classified non-identifiable, hence falling under the category D. Already at the time it was stressed that the level of UAP classified as UAP D had substantially decreased during the previous 10 years.

 

Link to the online paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.00571

“…We model the unidentified aerial phenomena observed in France during the last 60 years as a spatial point pattern. We use some public information such as population density, rate of moisture or presence of airports to model the intensity of the unidentified aerial phenomena. Spatial exploratory data analysis is a first approach to appreciate the link between the intensity of the unidentified aerial phenomena and the covariates. We then fit an inhomogeneous spatial Poisson process model with covariates. We find that the significant variables are the population density, the presence of the factories with a nuclear risk and contaminated land, and the rate of moisture. The analysis of the residuals shows that some parts of France (the Belgian border, the tip of Britany, some parts in the SouthEast , the Picardie and Haute-Normandie regions, the Loiret and Correze departments) present a high value of local intensity which are not explained by our model.”

With the 70th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s sighting over a formation of crescent-shaped UAPs and of the Roswell “UFO crash”, I thought that this was a good time for providing a new blog entry with some reflections and links to some interesting information:

 

– PERSPECTIVES:
UFO researchers Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Thomas E. Bullard have issued a joint paper about their thoughts about the status of Ufology: “The nature of UFO evidence: Two views”, can be accessed from: www.academia.edu, at this link:
https://www.academia.edu/33352049/THE_NATURE_OF_UFO_EVIDENCE_TWO_VIEWS .
Milton W. Hourcade, responsible of the Unusual Aerial Phenomena Study Group, has also described the UFO theme in perspective, providing some relevant contextual background and views based on his long experience. To be read here:
http://www.uapsg.com/2017/06/70-years-after-arnold-case-ufo-theme-in.html

– UAP & THE HISTORIANS:
     Greg Eghigian, Associate Professor of Modern History at Penn State University, has written last April an interesting article in which he rightly asks: Why have academic historians all but neglected this subject ? Surely a significant phenomenon this large should warrant our attention…
https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2017/04/ufos-and-the-historians/

Talking about historical documents and correctly describing the UAP events, I strongly recommend the website of Jan Aldrich, founder and coordinator of the following website: (http://www.project1947.com/), which represents a gold mine of relevant information. Still many information are still missing and all researchers hope that they will eventually surface one day, allowing to shed further light on UFO history. Jan Aldrich and Barry Greenwood have recently nominated their 10 most wanted articles which have yet to be recovered. Here is their list:
http://www.project1947.com/folio/index.htm
http://www.project1947.com/folio/folio.htm

 

– UAP CASES:
     Missing relevant information pertaining to interesting UAP cases do not only relate to the beginning of the modern UFO history (1940s-1950s). For example, Dr David Clarke, Research Fellow in Journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, has last month uncovered, within the release by Britain’s Ministry of Defence of 15 of its last remaining UFO files at the UK’s National Archives, details about of a stunning Cold War close encounter witnessed by the entire crew of a US Air Force spy-plane during 90 minutes. A film of the 280 SU radar pictures and the tape on which radio transmissions were recorded, were made available for a study. The details of this October 1982 incident can be found here:
https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2017/06/30/ufo-files-exclusive-cold-war-spyplane-incident/
Clearly there is a lot of information missing on this case, but it is interesting that this case was not known by anyone until 1 month ago. As usually done in such case, the interested researchers will need to submit official requests for attempting to recover any further information. (in that case through a FOIA towards USAFE (European section of the USAF), the AF Office of Intelligence, the Dept of Defense, and the Air Force Historical Center). 

 

– UAP & SCIENCE:
     It is obvious that the UAP field has principally relied on witness testimony for almost all of its data about UAP, and progress in understanding the phenomenon has therefore been stalled. To move forward, as in other areas of science, UAP studies require the collection of systematic, detailed physical data. Investigators have studied UAP in the field before, with the most prominent example being in Norway, at Hessdalen. A variety of scientific data have been recorded in the endeavors, but while quite valuable, this research has been sporadic due to a shortage of funding and a limited number of qualified and interested scientists and engineers. Witness testimony, photos and videos, and government documents have taken us only so far; instead, we need to record and study UFOs directly, as other sciences do with their own specific objects of interest. Of course, this is a daunting task, but it is made conceivable by advances in technology, software, communication capabilities, and power sources.
In that respect and after several years of preparation, the UFODATA team (with which I’m contributing) has taken this first step in creating a systematic science of UFO phenomena. (www.ufodata.net). 
The soon-coming new update note to its supporters on the UFODATA mailing list (and Facebook) will mostly cover the technical side of the project in 2017, focusing on the first developments in developing a prototype for a remote measuring station (RMS)—the working name for the UFODATA stations.

 

– RECENT INTERESTING BOOKS:
     Finally and in time for the summer, several new good books have appeared on the shelves during the last months. My personal preferences are for these three:
* The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs, by Mark O’Connell. (The biography of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who invented the concept of “Close Encounters” with alien life, inspired Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster classic science fiction epic film…);
* Unidentified: The National Intelligence Problem of UFOs, by Larry Hancock. (The book approaches the sightings of UFOs in the way an intelligence agency or military body would examine the information at hand. Is there a threat ? Are these reconnaissance flights ? What type of information could they be gathering ? This makes the reader consider the UFO issue from a completely different light…);
* UFOs: Reframing the Debate, by Robbie Graham. (This book represents a collection of original essays exploring alternative perspectives on UFOs and how we might more usefully study the phenomenon in the 21^st Century. Critical but constructive, this challenging volume represents a range of differing (even conflicting) alternative viewpoints on UFOs and related phenomena…).

The 2015 Canadian UFO Survey has now been published.

Since 1989, Ufology Research (formerly Ufology Research of Manitoba) has solicited UFO case data from known and active investigators and researchers in Canada. The goal has been to provide data for use by researchers trying to understand this controversial phenomenon. 2015 marked the 27th year of collecting and analysing Canadian UFO report data by Ufology Research. 

 

This good Canadian report gives a good picture about the latest status of sightings, which are not diminishing contrary to what some media state. Survey, Tables and charts at:
http://www.canadianuforeport.com/survey/essays

For the past couple of years, a small team of scientists and professionals (including myself), has been planning an innovative approach to the scientific study of UFOs.

Our goal is simple: to build a network of automated stations with a variety of scientific instruments to capture comprehensive, scientifically valid data on the UFO phenomenon. We have named the organization UFO Detection and TrAcking (UFODATA for short), and several members of our team are well known to the UFO community as pioneers in the study of UFOs in the field, including Erling Strand, Massimo Teodorani, and David Akers. The project was conceived by and is led by Mark Rodeghier, scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies, and Alexander Wendt, a political scientist at Ohio State University.

 

Our website (www.ufodata.net) contains details on the technology we plan to use in our stations, a listing of team members (including silent advisors who because of their position do not wish to be identified), an FAQ answering many common questions we anticipate about our plans, and an extensive set of resources on the scientific study of UFOs and what we currently know about the phenomenon.

 

It has become clear that any breakthrough in our understanding of the UFO phenomenon will require a break from the past. Witness testimony, photos and videos, and government documents have taken us only so far; instead, we need to record and study UFOs directly, as other sciences do with their own specific objects. Of course, this is a daunting task, but it is made conceivable by advances in technology, software, communication capabilities, and power sources.

 

Even though all of us are volunteers, the cost of hardware, programming, and infrastructure for the stations will be substantial. And that is where we plan to use another recent social innovation—crowdfunding—which has been used successfully for many types of projects, from commercial to scientific. UFODATA is incorporated as a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization to allow for fundraising, which we will do in at least two stages.

 

We are now beginning Phase One of the project with the launch of the UFODATA website and outreach efforts, including communications like this. We hope to raise sufficient funds in this phase via direct donation (www.ufodata.net/donate.html) to build a prototype station and develop necessary software and testing routines. We also, importantly, will be looking for technically-qualified volunteers in several areas, listed on the Volunteer page on the website.

 

We believe that the current scientific, technical, and social environment is primed to support such an endeavor as UFODATA. We expect to build on the best work of the past and do what the scientific community as a whole has failed to do: take UFOs seriously and study them rigorously.

 

If you would like to contact us directly for additional information, you can email the team at admin@ufodata.net and we’ll respond to your note as soon as possible.

A recent serious article about the interest of performing some scientific investigation:

https://www.mariecuriealumni.eu/blog/scientific-investigation-unidentified-anomalous-phenomana

 

About 5% of the reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — or so-called UFOs — can’t be explained and should be thoroughly investigated by mainstream scientists according to Etienne Caron (Canada). Together with Massimo Teodorani, astrophysicist at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), he tells us why, how and where mainstream scientists can play an active role in understanding the anomaly. In essence, they are not saying that UAP/UFOs are carrying intelligent beings from outer space, but do recognise the importance of monitoring the events in a more rigorous and deterministic way. 

 

The so-called ‘UFOs’ have been widely reported around the world and even throughout human history (1-4). The anomaly appears to be transient and unpredictable, iridescent and hypnotic, liquid and floating, harmonic and ethereal, symmetric and asymmetric (5). When such reports are not fakes, hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural and/or manmade phenomena, they come from witnesses whose emotional state often alters what really happened (6).

 

In contrast, measurement sensors are able to record the phenomenon with a high level of accuracy and reproducibility. Interestingly, the phenomenon has been frequently observed in specific locations in the world (Figure 1) and high-speed photometry could have been used for instance to monitor the phenomenon.

 

Among these sites, Hessdalen in Norway is particularly interesting as the phenomenon has been reported very frequently, with about 20 observations per month in the 1980s. Hessdalen is now equipped with various instruments, continuously recording data within an automated station (7). The recorded data can be plotted on a graph to illustrate the variation of physical parameters as a function of time (Figure 2). Subsequently, an equation can be derived to describe the trend of the acquired data and finally deduce a physical law. This is a simplified example of the scientific method currently used in Hessdalen to describe the UAP in a rigorous scientific manner. Thus, Hessdalen is a good example of how it is feasible to set up proper instrumentations for the scientific investigation of UAP.

 

UAP/UFOs could turn out to be anything: fakes and hoaxes, unknown natural phenomena, secret human technology or even visitation from exo-intelligence (8). Physical science can provide all the necessary means to identify the nature of the observed phenomena and to understand quantitatively the physical mechanism characterising it. Again, identifying strategic sites and adopting the appropriate measurement instruments is crucial to enabling mainstream scientists to acquire such data. For instance, it is possible to use high-quality, high-sensitivity and all-sky video cameras, high-speed recordings, low and high-resolution optical spectrographs, thermal imaging cameras, magnetometers, VLF/ ELF and microwave spectrometers, radars, LIDARs, electrostatic particle detectors and gravimeters. Some of these instruments have been already used to monitor UAP, but funding is needed to equip additional scientific stations on various pre-defined strategic sites (9).

 

This research is still in a very early stage and no university has taken yet a serious interest in researching UAP. In our opinion, funding agencies and universities should encourage such research because the phenomenon presents the type of anomaly that could lead to scientific breakthroughs and ultimately, the development of innovative technologies.

 

Acknowledgment

We thank Giancarlo Sportelli, member of the MCAA, for commenting on this article.

References

1. Shapley D. UFOs just will not go away. Science (1977) 198:1128.
2. Sturrock PA et al., Physical evidence related to UFO reports. Journal of Scientific Exploration (1998) 12:179-229.
3. Kestenbaum D. Panel says some UFO reports worthy of study. Science (1998) 281:21.
4. Appelle S. UFOs and the scientific method. Science (1998) 281:919.
5. Teodorani M. A long-term scientific survey of the Hessdalen phenomenon. Journal of Scientific Exploration (2004) 18:217-251.
6. Boffey PM. UFO Study: Condon group finds no evidence of visits from outer space. Science (1967) 163:260-262.
7. Project Hessdalen (website by Erling Petter Strand): http://www.hessdalen.org/index_e.shtml
8. Teodorani, M. Search for high-proper motion objects with infrared excess. Acta Astronautica (2014) 105:547–552.
9. Teodorani M. Instrumented Monitoring of Aerial Anomalies. CAIPAN 2014 Workshop. CNES
   GEIPAN, 2014. http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fileadmin/documents/24_TEODORANI_full.pdf

 

Exciting news. Next week on July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, after a very long journey of nearly a decade, will fly past Pluto and become the first spacecraft to make a close approach to this body (who was until recently classified as the ninth planet of our solar system). On the arrival date, this will be the 50th anniversary of the first spacecraft arrival of planet Mars, Mariner 4.

 

New Horizons carries on board the ashes of the man who discovered the dwarf planet, Clyde Tombaugh. When he passed away in 1997, he specifically requested his ashes go to space. NASA decided to honor him and to to put his remains on the spacecraft. This is bringing Tombaugh closer to the space body that he discovered in 1930.

Besides his discovery, Clyde Tombaugh is also famous within the Ufological community because he was one of the first astronomers pushing for research into UFO’s (unidentified flying objects) and also because he had observed UFO at different times.

 

The below link points to the essay from Michael D. Swords, “Clyde Tombaugh, Mars, and UFOs”, (p 128-137). Published in 1999 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, it provides today a good relevant Ufological reference to the exiting news that we are about to hear from the far side of the solar system.

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/volume-13-number-4-1999

 

 

 

D. J. Eicher wrote an article in the March 2015 issue of Astronomy Magazine entitled “Let’s cut the UFO crap”.  The title and footnote of this article are offensive and inaccurate.  Answering Mr. Eicher’s letter is necessary, and perhaps will contribute to a constructive debate.
 

Similar to scientists and skeptics who dismiss and disparage the UFO topic, Mr. Eicher appears to be unaware of how complex and extensive the UFO phenomenon is, and seems to confuse the issue of extra-terrestrial intelligence with the issue of UFOs.  Considering Mr. Eicher’s opinion, please also consider this quote from Stanford University Astrophysicist Emeritus Professor Dr. Peter Sturrock’s research: “One also finds that opinions (of members of the AAS – astronomer scientists) correlate strongly with time spent reading about the subject. The fraction of respondents who think that the subject certainly or probably deserves scientific study rises from 29%, among those who have spent less than one hour, to 68% among those who have spent more than 365 hours in such reading.” Perhaps Mr. Eicher should find himself among those who spend more time studying the relevant material before making sweeping statements as in his March 2015 column.

 

For example, Mr. Eicher is inaccurate when he writes: “…the claims of a businessman who said he spotted nine shiny ”flying saucers” moving at high velocities”. In fact, the witness told the reporters that he had observed during a trip in his own plane a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft, flying in formation in two lines, and moving “like a saucer would do if you skipped it across the water”.  It was the reporters who in their Associated Press dispatch erroneously transformed the description of the movement of the objects into a description of their shape, “saucer-like”.

 

Science does not require lock-step compliance with popular opinion. There isn’t anything in the principles of scientific endeavor that describes what one may or may not study.  Mr. Eicher indicated “People see things in the sky they often don’t understand. That’s the conclusion.” For most scientists, a conclusion that states “something happened and I do not understand it” is hardly the point at which scientific inquiry should end. The nature of science is to study what we do not understand.

 

Despite the cosmic distance scale, it is not unscientific to consider the hypothesis that aliens have visited the planet versus the null hypothesis which states that they have not. The possibility of visitors operating spaceships in the form of UFOs is just one of several hypotheses to explain the UFO phenomenon.

 

There are well-documented observations made by many different trained, experienced observers that do warrant further study which, unfortunately, he has recommended against. The scientific problem with these reports is they often are not corroborated by instrument readings, and they cannot be replicated. These are problems to address, and are quite different from the problem that is stated in Mr. Eicher’s article.

 

Mr. Eicher’s article is puzzling, as its premises are not logically connected to the conclusion that the universe is big, Earth is special, and we should take care of it and our fellow human beings. It is not clear what these insights have to do with scientific study to understand aerial anomalies. Certainly psychologists could argue from sound evidence that if you really want to take care of other human beings, the first and most important step is to not exaggerate differences, deride open-minded curiosity, and demonize anyone who chooses to study that which you choose to discredit. Polemical arguments like the statement in the caption that ends the letter, and the article’s offensive title, are examples of what not to do. There are good scientific reasons to be skeptical about anomalous events in the sky, and even more reason to doubt alien visitation. However, those rational arguments do not justify demeaning and dismissing those who are inclined to study the possibility of alien visitation.

 

Unknown phenomena happening in the sky above is a call to scientific inquiry. That’s how we learn. Serious ufologists recognize the importance of monitoring unidentified anomalous phenomena in a rigorous and deterministic way.  This is the reason new projects for networks of automatic stations for UFO monitoring are currently being defined. Identifying strategic sites and deploying appropriate instruments are crucial activities to enable mainstream scientists to acquire relevant data. Is it unscientific to collect data? We will keep Mr. Eicher informed about such coming endeavours.
 

My article for the March 2015 issue of the Astrosociological Insights Newsletter which focused on Astrobiology.

Online (page 21) at:

http://www.astrosociology.org/Library/PDF/Newsletters/ARI-Newsletter_Vol-4_Iss-1_04-2015.pdf

 

Picture below: Alleged UFO landing trace, Delphos ring soil, Kansas, 1971

Courtesy: MUFON

1. Background
   

Similarly to other countries around the world, Italy represents an historical rich country with respect of the number of UFO observations and the different UFO researches undertaken. As a result of a wave of UFO sightings in 1978 and some questions raised by members of the Italian Parliament, the then Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti designated the Air Force as the institutional Body to collect, verify and monitor the UFOs. As a result, the Minister of Defense ordered a specific office within Air Staff Headquarters to centralize all UFO data, and all armed forces were asked to forward their data to this office. Nowadays, this activity is carried out by the General Security Department of the Air Force. Anyone wishing to submit an event pertaining to a UFO sighting can do this by using the specific questionnaires available on the Air Force’ website. After the form has been submitted on line, it will be delivered to the nearest “Carabinieri” station (the national military police of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations). This will result in launching an investigation for trying to identify the nature of the phenomena observed, i.e. attempting to find an explanation in terms of human-made events and/or natural phenomena. If necessary, this research will also involve the participation of some other Italian competent bodies. Overall, such investigation will aim at ensuring that there is no potential defense of national security issue associated with the UFO sighting. If it is eventually not possible to identify the nature of the phenomena, the event will be classified as an observation of an Unidentified Flying Object. Obviously this will not mean that an alien vehicle was flying above Italy, but simply will indicate that it was not possible to identify the origin of the phenomena observed.

 

The yearly UFO summaries of the Air Force covering the period 2001- 2013 are available at the following link:
http://www.aeronautica.difesa.it/Organizzazione/SMA/EntiDipendenti/Pagine/RGS_OVNI.aspx.

 

As I had the opportunity in some previous posts to provide some statistics pertaining to the numbers of UFO observations in others countries (e.g. Canada, USA, France), I thought that it would also be useful in the context of this interview to retrieve some data regarding Italy. In that respect, I have found a recent chart which that was presented by Italian researcher Gian Paolo Grassino at the 26^th National UFO convention “150 years of UFO in Italy”, an event organized by CISU in November 2011 in Torino. The below chart shows that CISU had collected an impressive number of sightings (+/- 25.000) on the period 1947-2010, and that there has also been a considerable increase of UFO reports since 2002.

(Source: CISU, http://www.ufo.it/torino2011/grassino.pdf).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1: CISU number of UFO sightings (Source: Gian Paolo Grassino, cisu, 2011).

 

Regarding the declassification of official governmental UFO information, it should be emphasized that as early as 1978 the Air Force started to release some UFO reports to Italians Ufological associations. A quick summary of the release of Italian official files, compiled by Spanish researcher Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, is as follows:

 

1978

6 (1977-1978) Air Force UFO reports released to CUN, CNIFAA and CIRSUFO.

1986

Summaries for 70 Air Force UFO reports (1979-1985) released to CUN and CISU.

1988-2001

Yearly Air Force UFO sighting summaries (1987-2000) released to CUN and CISU.

1993

Air Force statistical study of 111 UFO reports (1979-1990) published.
1996-2001

Full Air Force UFO files (1979-1990) released to CISU: 372 reports, ~3,000 pages.

2001 to date

UFO sighting summaries online (2001-2013)

 

For interested readers, further historical information and supporting details can be found in the following article of Edoardo Russo (CISU, http://www.cisu.org/): “A Summary of Official UFO Research in Italy” . This article can be found on line on line at the following link (pages 110-112 of the excellent document “Proceedings of the 1999 Sign Historical Group UFO History Workshop”): http://www.project1947.com/shg/proceedings/shgproceed1.pdf

 

2. “UFO, I Dossier Italiani”
   

In March 2014, for the first time a book focusing on the Italian military files appeared on the Italians bookstores’ shelves. Two journalists (Lao Petrilli and Vincenzo Sinapi) managed to get access to the registered military UFO files and were allowed to consult, photograph, copy and store many UFO testimonies to be used for writing a book. In order to clarify the information contained in this book, UAP Observations Reporting Scheme contacted one of the authors. Vincenzo Sinapi kindly accepted to answer specific questions and provide at the same time some supporting statistical data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 2: Book UFO. I dossier italiani, Petrilli Lao; Sinapi Vincenzo, Editore Ugo Mursia Editore, 2014.

 

Some information about the authors:

– Lao Petrilli, journalist, founder and director of WikiLao.it, works for RDS, to “La Stampa” and the Australian broadcaster SBS. He is the author of “Embedded, hunt for terrorists with the Marines “(2005) and, with Vincenzo Sinapi, “Nasiriyah, the true story” (2007).

– Vincenzo Sinapi is the managing editor added to the Chronicles Italian news agency ANSA. After working for a decade on judicial investigations and major processes, he began writing in 1998 about defense and security, following closely the activities of the Italian soldiers in theaters of war.

 

Why did you write this book and do you plan to issue an English edition ?
Vincenzo Sinapi: We are not ufologists, but investigative journalists. In the Italian media there has always been a lot of discussion about the Italian Air Force UFO “secret archives” and we decided to enquire about them. We determined the location of these archives and managed to access the UFO documentation. We realized that we had in our hands the real documents, and in fact that most of them had never been published before. One scoop, in fact. This is how the idea of a book was born. A book about UFOs written according to journalistic criteria, aseptically and neutral. UFO Sightings reports from these military files are reported in our book in their entirety, without adding any personal assessment. We wanted to make available these official documents to all citizens, in order to allow them to “get an idea” of the UFO phenomenon in Italy, without withholding any part of the official documentation or adding any of our personal views. For the interest of UFO researchers, we offer some cases that have largely been unpublished until today. Even at the international level, in our opinion, our book stands out due to both the working method and the content. Hence, we indeed have the idea of translating this book into English in the future.

 

Have you encountered any difficulty for accessing/consulting these official UFO files ? Did you need any special authorization and where are the files kept ?

The material is kept at the premises of the General Security Department of the Air Force, the department which deals with collecting and archiving national reports of “Oggetti Volanti Non Identificati (O.V.N.I.)” (UFOs in Italian). We did not encounter particular difficulties in accessing these files, despite the fact that the Air Force has always been very careful to open their UFO archive’ doors. They hold an archive containing a large quantity of documents that were once protected by various classifications of secrecy and that have been declassified since some years. What we have done is to ask for permission to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, to inspect and make copies of the material. This authorization was granted only after a few days. From our side, there was the promise that we would publish the material without any distortion and that the book would not favor any specific thesis, but only strictly reported the facts as quoted in the official reports. From the side of the Air Force, there was no restriction or control whatsoever regarding the content of the book. In fact, we have been free to publish whatever we wanted.

 

Are the files properly archived at the General Security Department’s premises and is there any plan to make them available on line (like the CNES/GEIPAN reports) ?

Reports of UFO sightings are contained in yearly folders starting from 1972, when the Air Force began to store this material in a systematic way. However and as previously mentioned, it was only in 1978 that the Air Force was formally instructed by the Government to deal with the UFO matter. In each binder, you can find all material relating to individual reporting cases. If a sighting was made ​​by a citizen, the binder typically contains the following:
Firstly the original declaration made ​​by the witness to the Police. Secondly a specific UFO questionnaire filled in by the witness: “Report of sighting of unidentified flying object” which contains 21 questions and  some drawing of the UFO made by the witness. This questionnaire follows the format of the standard form that had been adopted in the United States at the time of the official American Project Blue Book. Thirdly, any photographs or video recordings made ​​by the witness. Finally, the investigations’ results conducted by departments or the Air Force civilian agencies that were tasked at the time to perform the relevant verifications. On the web site of the Air Force (see link given above), there is a section dedicated to UFOs which includes a yearly summary sheet of every Unidentified Flying Object’ sighting, starting from the year 2001. However, these tables show only a very few details and therefore not the files’ contents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 3: Soncino (Cremona), 09/09/2013

 

How many cases originate from military sources and what are their origins (e.g. Navy, Air Force) ?

The messages contained in the Archive of the Air come from various sources. Most are those of from all categories of individuals (e.g. adults, teens, men, women, workers, professionals, priests). There are also, in fewer numbers but still of significant interest, reports of witnesses belonging to the Armed Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force, both pilots ground staff), to the Police Forces and also some reports originating from civilian planes pilots.

 

What are the most documented military UFO events and from which years?

Several UFO reports made ​​by the military are quite detailed, especially the ones coming from the pilots. You can find them in several years, like for example one of 1977 (27 October), when a “disco light” was observed by several Army helicopters’pilots at the airport of Cagliari (capital of the island of Sardinia). In fact, it is one of the cases that will push the government to engage into the UFO topic and to instruct the Air Force to take care of the matter henceforth. A case quite unique, in light of the number of trained and experienced witnesses, and due to the fact that an UFO had even violated the restricted and protected airspace of an Italian military base. In the book, there are many episodes of UFO flying over military bases or UFOs that have been observed and chased by military pilots. For example, the case which occurred in Foggia (Southern Italy) on the June 6, 1978, when a pilot chased a “red-orange light” for a certain amount of time but which was then forced to return to base due to lack of fuel. Another occurrence took place in Cisterna di Latina (central Italy) when a top Air gun’s pilot managed to come close as to 50 meters from an object that he had “never seen before” in his career. Or also an event in La Spezia (northern Italy) on March 18, 2003, when an Navy helicopter observed for about 20 minutes a “hard white circular light of about a meter’s diameter”. These are only a few illustrating examples of such military UFO observations, as in fact there are dozens of such cases in the Air Force documentation.

 

Are there any military cases which include specific supporting scientific data (e.g. radar, traces, pictures) ?

Even in the files relating to military reports and this is also applicable to all UFO observations recorded in the Air Force files, the documentation only provides, at the exception of very few exceptions, the results of the investigations without the support of any additional documentation. Such information is kept with the department that carried out the investigation, as requested at the time of the investigation.

 

Do you know if any of this UFO information has been shared with other countries or with the Italian scientific community ? Is there any cooperation agreement existing in Italy with some research institutes, laboratories or scientists ?
We do not know whether or not there is an exchange of information through official channels between Italy and other countries. In the documents that are kept in the Air Force UFO archives, there is no sign of such cooperation. We personally believe that as part of the existing collaboration between the Italian Air Force and the allied countries’ Air Forces, there is no obstacle against the exchange of information regarding individual UFO cases. However, during our research we have not found any record of such correspondence in the UFO files. Surely because the Air Force’s archived messages cover exclusively domestic UFO cases. With regard to the cooperation with civilian agencies and the Italian scientific community, the government’s proposal at the time, dating from 1978 and continued by the successive governments, was involving the CNR (National Research Council). In that respect, we found in the documents that we consulted, the project of a cooperation agreement involving six different ministries. However it appears that at the end such collaboration never materialized, however for reasons that we don’t understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 4: Casoria (Napoli), 12/05/2011

 

Have the military taken any proactive action in order to detect such phenomena ? For example in the context of specific UFO field experiments ? Has there ever been any deployment of scientific/military equipment for the detection and tacking of UFO in locations where there had been a sudden increase of UFO sightings ?

The Italian Air Force and in particular the general security department (which replaced the SIOS II Department, Information Services and Operational Situations, the “secret service” of the Armed Forces  which was abolished January 1,1998) has been tasked to exclusively deal with the UFO topic in relation with potential issues of flight safety, defense or national security. The UFO investigations only aimed at ensuring that the country was not facing any potential threat; therefore not at determining the origin of the UFO phenomena. The Air Force performs verifications associated to airspace control and air defense, but this is not in relation to technical aspects and the scientific nature of the phenomenon. According to us, there has been are no specific UFO field surveys, at the exception of course of the “Carabinieri” who will have received the UFO report alert and decided to go on the field for further investigating it.

 

From studying these files, what do you think is the opinion of the Italian Army regarding the UFO phenomena ?

For each message sufficiently serious received by the Air Force, the necessary verifications are systematically performed. In the different records, the police officers often provide an assessment of the seriousness and reliability of the witness. But not concerning the origin of the event. No general consideration regarding the “UFO phenomenon” is given by the military. Our opinion is that the Defense’s world – and the Air Force in particular – look carefully into this UFO matter, without underestimating it.
However this is always performed within the limits of their respective mandates, and also in light of their budgetary constraints. These are certainly the limitations that prevent someone you from performing those additional investigations that may be necessary and useful. But such actions belong to the scientific community and not to the military forces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 5: Rivalta (Torino), 28/08/2010

 

What have you learnt from these files and what cases have impressed you the most (if any) ?

What we have learnt is that the number of UFO observations in Italy was much larger than we had originally expected. Indeed, UFOs have been seen in all the Italian regions, every year and by all sort of witnesses. Since 1972,a total of 445 UFO reports has been officially registered and filed by the Italian Air Force (see chart below). The year that recorded the highest number of sightings, perhaps due to the after effects of the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (released in Italians theaters at the end of 1977) has been 1978, with 69 reports. Others years depicting many UFO observed flying over the country has been the year 1980 with 32 cases, followed up by 1997 and 2010 with 22 sightings each of them. After that there have been 18 cases in 1995 and 17 for both 1998 and 2011. With respect to low numbers, in addition to 1976 which represented the only year without any sightings at all, the years 1975, 1972, 1982, 1987 and 2004 have just registered two UFO files . Last year, seven observations were officially catalogued as reports of Unidentified Flying Objects. An amount quite similar to the one of 2012 (10).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 6: Number of registered UFO sightings (Source: Sinapi Vincenzo)

 

Concerning the geographical areas of these 445 reports, in the south there were 160 sightings, the north following closer with a total of 154, while the Centre of Italy showed a slightly lower number of reports (120). Only one case has been registered in San Marino, but it is true that this can be easily explained by the fact that this republic is an enclaved microstate of only 62 km² and 32 000 inhabitants.

 

Looking at the details per region (see below illustration), the numbers clearly placed Lazio at the top with 53 cases. This region was then followed by Tuscany with 43 reports, Lombardy and Campania (36), Puglia (34), Emilia Romagna (32),  Sicily (31), Veneto (23) Brands (21), Sardinia (19), Calabria, Piemonte and Abruzzo (18), Liguria (17), Friuli Venezia Giulia (15), Trentino Alto Adige (11), Basilicata (3), Umbria (3), Valle d’Aosta (2) and Molise (1).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 7: Number of registered UFO sightings per region (Source: Sinapi Vincenzo)

 

Browsing through the various reports that have been collected by the Air Force since 1972, we have noticed throughout the decades a change of attitude from the witnesses towards the unknown and the extraterrestrial hypothesis.  In the early years the persons observing a UFO were mostly afraid, and even in some cases terrified. More recently however, the witnesses were almost chasing the “flying saucers” or  ready to confront UFOs and photograph them. As previously mentioned, the interesting cases reported in the book are many. If we were asked to select only one of them, with respect to the quality of the witness and the level of details available, we would choose the sighting by an Air Force top gun which took place on February 9, 1994 in Cisterna di Latina, central Italy. The pilot, engaged in a training mission with a student, saw a UFO and chased it until it was only 50 meters away. The observation was very precise and clearly described  an object with stubby wings, a bright green back and a gray belly. According to the military pilot, this object for sure “was not any type of known aircraft” and the UFO was able to escape pursuit.

 

 

Many thanks Mr Sinapi for your time and we will be looking forward to the English edition of your book.

 

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As mentioned during the UAP worskop in Paris last July, CNES/GEIPAN have now made available on line the totality of the material presented. This represents a considerable resource for those seriously interested in the scientific potential of UAPs. CNES/GEIPAN shall be felicitated by this transparency and efforts for organising such event and making rapidly available the totality of the filmed presentations and associated papers written by the researchers, the posters and the various discussions. This is certainly the right approach and look forward to all follows up of this initiative, which somehow represented an historical milestone as it was the first time that GEIPAN was organising such scientific conference.

http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=212

 

UAP reporting Scheme participated to the workshop, contributing to the theme related to “Systematic observations of the sky”;specifically focusing on the instrumental detection projects through the following poster (feedback always welcome):

 

UNIDENTIFIED AEROSPACE PHENOMENA (UAP) AND EXPERIMENTAL STRATEGY: METHODS, EQUIPMENT AND LESSONS FROM INSTRUMENTED FIELD STUDIES

CAIPAN2014 poster-Ailleris 2014a