France to publish UFO archive online

CNES has collected statements and documents for almost 30 years

Reuters
Updated: 9:31 a.m. CT Dec 29, 2006

PARIS - The French space agency said it will publish its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online, but will keep the names of those who reported them off the site to protect them from pestering by space fanatics.

Jacques Arnould, an official at the National Space Studies Centre, said the French database of around 1,600 incidents would go live in late January or mid-February.

He said the CNES had been collecting statements and documents for almost 30 years to archive and study them.

It consists of around 6,000 reports, many relating to the same incident, filed by the public and airline professionals. Their names would not be published to protect their privacy, Anould said.
Advances in technology over the past three decades had prompted the decision to put the archive online, he said, adding it would likely be available via the CNES Web site.<sup>1

1</sup> The CNES site appears to be attempting to connect, but today everyone seems "out to lunch" as it won't complete the page download for me. Perhaps later.

John