COMETA was a French group studying the UFO phenomenon at the end of 90. flight. Its members were high-ranking officers and officials, military commanders and aviation industry representatives. Abbreviation COMET in Czech it means Commission for In-depth Studies. The study ran for many years and was led by independent, often former, “auditors"In the Institute of Advanced National Defense Studies (in the original: Institut des hautes études de défense nationale alias IHEDN), France's army officials and other experts.

This group was responsible for the resulting report COMETA message (1999), which concerned the UFO and its possible implications for the national security of France. The report stated that approximately 5% of the UFO cases studied were absolutely inexplicable. The best explanation for these cases was chosen alien hypothesis. The authors of the report also accused the US government of massive concealment of evidence.

The COMETA report has 90 pages and consists of three main chapters, including a final case study on the nearest 60 case study. years with a focus on aspects of national defense.

The report was not produced at the request of the French Government, but was prioritized before its official publication to French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Immediately thereafter, the French weekly and the magazine called VSD devoted several pages (including the introductory) of this report.

After the report was accepted by other media, the book was released: UFO and Defense: What do we need to be ready for?.

The report gained a lot of attention all over the world, foreign press and other media, especially in the United States. Here comes the book UFOs - Generals, pilots and government employees testify. For this book, the project president also gave an interview COMET, General Letty.

The report draws largely from research GEPAN / SEPRA, a separate department of the French space agency (CNES).

Department GEPAN / SEPRA was unique in that it was the only organization officially financed exclusively by the French government. The primary task of this organization was to investigate unknown cosmic phenomena and make its findings public.

Department GEPAN, subsequently replaced SEPRA, originated in the middle of 1970 largely due to the intense wave of frequent UFO sightings in France around 1954.

In 2005 it was SEPRA replaced by new group at CNES called GEIPAN. This group has released archives CNES on your own website. She found that there were at least 13% of observation cases in these archives that can not be identified in the usual way. This fact was confirmed by Mr. Yves Sillard, Chief of the Steering Committee for GEIPAN and a former driver CNES.

In 2012, only 22% of the entire archive was reviewed in December.

Original text COMETA news is available on the original pages GEIPAN on the Internet.

The COMETA report was launched by Air Force General Bernard Norlain, former director of IHEDN. The foreword was written by André Lebeau, former chairman of CNES. The authors themselves were different experts, former defense and intelligence analysts - auditors from IHEDN. The whole group was chaired by Air Force General Denis Letty, and IHNED Auditor.

Other members were:

• General Bruno Lemoine, Air Force (former auditor (=?) Of IHEDN)
• Admiral Marc Merlo, (former auditor (=?) Of IHEDN)
• Michel Algrin, Doctor of Political Sciences and Attorney (former auditor (=?) Of IHEDN)
• General Pierre Bescond, engineer for armaments (former auditor (=?) Of IHEDN)
• Denis Blancher, Principal National Police Chief of the Ministry of the Interior
• Christian Marchal, Chief Engineer of the National Corps of Mines and Director of Research at the National Office of Aeronautical Research (ONERA)
• General Alain Orszag, Ph.D. of physics, a military engineer

Members who did not contribute to the final report:

• Jean-Jacques Velasco, Head of SEPRA at CNES
• François Louange, President of Fleximage - Specializing in photo analysis
• Air Force General Joseph Domange, general delegate of the Association of Auditors at IHEDN.

Although members of the COMETA Group were predominantly former employees of IHEDN, IHEDN itself made it clear that it had nothing to do with this report.

Claude Maugé wrote in his article: Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Bayles, head of the IHEDN Communications Service: "The Institute for Advanced Studies of National Defense wants to make it clear that these people's statements are only personal and that they are by no means representative of IHEDN. IHEDN is not interested in this topic .. ".

Source: Updated version of my translation for Czech Wikipedia according to the English and French versions of the wiki. The wiki version also includes links to source quotes.