(continuing from Part 1)
A EUROPEAN UFO LOBBY?
The day of March 20, 2024, initiated by MEP Francisco Guerreiro, marked the birth of a European UFO lobby. This is a real achievement in terms of influence, a cornerstone that the ufological networks must recognize and of which we were privileged witnesses on that day. The round table brought together representatives of the main associations and coalitions present in Europe: EuroUFO, UAP Check, UAP Coalition Netherlands (UAPCNL), COBEPS (Belgium), Belgisch UFO Meldpunt (Belgium), GEP (Germany), UFO-Norge (Norway), CISU (Italy). International groups, mainly North American, such as the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), the Sol Foundation and Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA) were also represented or spoke. And that's not counting the 150 people who were online during the event.
UAPCNL (UAP Coalitie Nederland, in Dutch)(1) proved decisive in setting up the day. Founded in November 2022 in the Netherlands, dedicated to promoting transparency, cooperation, understanding and research into UAPs and supporting those who may witness them, this organization of professionals from the ranks of aviation, police or armed forces, is co-piloted by Joachim Dekkers and André Jol, a climate data and policy expert at the European Environment Agency. A fine connoisseur of the inner mechanisms of the European decision-making system. UAPCNL's regulatory page (2) highlights the lack of dedicated UAP reporting guidelines in the European Union, and insists on the need to include UAPs in the legislation and procedures for aviation safety reporting, managed by EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency), and in European space strategies and legislation, including the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking Service (SST) and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). UAP should also be included in the activities of the European Space Agency (ESA).
This meeting on March 20, and the Brussels meetings that preceded and followed it, enabled the groups present in the Parliament to present a united front. It also provided an opportunity for the experts and representatives present - some of whom had never met before - to get together, exchange ideas and consider joint, transnational projects.
BETWEEN THE EASA LINES
The March 20, 2024 meeting was the subject of numerous reports, transcripts and replays, all of which can be consulted online. This event, which I was fortunate enough to attend, embodies on its own scale all the ambivalences characteristic of any UAP dossier: late but captivating communication, deliberately restricted access while ensuring the widest and most transparent possible online access to the debate, a panel of speakers and participants from leading European and international UFO groups and organizations (EuroUFO, MUFON, SOL, UAP Coalitie Nederland, UAP Check…. )… filling the empty chairs that could have been occupied by representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA) or DG DEFIS (the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defense and Space, created in December 2019)!
Only a brief visit from an emissary of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), based in Cologne and created in 2003, saved the reputation of the European institutions. Rather than dismissing the case, he played along by coming to the meeting for a few minutes… Just long enough to deliver the official message from his superiors: that there was no justification to revise the existing system, especially as a European reporting system for airborne "occurrences" already exists and, moreover, that the number of reported cases of UAPs was far too low to justify setting up a dedicated UFO desk. In short, an "everything's fine" music that was both elusive and hasty, written in advance and for show. At this point, should we be surprised by these denials or this lack of action?
EASA is regularly questioned on the subject of UAPs. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, a number of requests for access to the document were made via Asktheeu.org. This is an online portal where any European citizen can request access to documents as provided for in the European Treaties, from the Commission or any other European Union institution, such as the European Aviation Safety Agency, DG DEFIS or the Joint Research Center (JRC). Whether due to a formal error on the part of the applicant, regulatory formalities or an inability to produce the requested documents on time, the requests were systematically filed with little or no follow-up action.(3) (4)
EASA's position in particular is now to indicate that it holds no documents corresponding to the request, or even to invite the applicant to contact its national contact point for aviation safety data. From a strictly regulatory point of view, this is correct. "There is no evidence of maladministration on the part of the European Aviation Safety Agency," ruled the European Ombudsman in 2022, following a referral from a dissatisfied applicant to EASA dismissings.(5)
PUBLIC AFFAIRS OR RAISON D'ETAT?
Let's dare some side trip. The UAP question occupies a growing number of minds, but remains elusive. Intelligence services and private military-industrial groups are studying it, even actively researching on it, but this is not supposed to be seen or known. Official reports contradict each other. There are thousands of UAP witnesses, including fascinating accounts by airline and fighter pilots, but only 3% of reported cases remain unexplained. We'll keep quiet about it, but talk about it anyway. U.S. authorities acknowledge radar contacts, while the public domain is filled with tales of galactic contact. Our collective unconscious, eager to quench its thirst for questions and knowledge, is shaped by fictional scenarios of invaders from the stars. Alien life and mysterious celestial objects are in the air. Ancient religious texts multiply references to flying visitors. Scientists address us in front of images of exoplanets revised by illustrators. Ultraterrestrial channeling messages and apocalyptic forecasts are engrammed and interwoven as numerous revealed truths. It is impossible and yet it exists, etc. This list may seem insane and practically endless. But you know all this as well as I do.
When it comes to UAP, our brains are saturated with paradoxical injunctions. This legion of double binds - simultaneous, conflicting and incompatible injunctions - is a source of unbearable psychic pressure. Witnesses and "experiencers" feel them all the more intensely when their own experience contradicts the surrounding reality. In such circumstances, a witness's fear of being ridiculed, discredited or "stigmatized", in the words of MEP Francisco Guerreiro, illustrates both the glass ceiling and the courage it takes to "dare to speak out in public". Isn't mockery the trend in most media? Wasn't it the stake that, in 1600 and before the Galileo affair, greeted Giordano Bruno's claims about the plurality of worlds? In France, in October 2023, didn't Industry Minister Roland Lescure compare UFO witnesses to alcoholics? One too many taunts that French ufologists won't forget. Who will win - and what can be win!? - in this battle of the minds that looks like a war of information and beliefs?
PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
At the level of statesmen, the UAP issue translates into a triple posture of secrecy, disclosure and disinformation. French senior civil servant and former Director of Intelligence at the French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), master spy and geostrategy expert Alain Juillet put it perfectly during his presentation at the Paris UFO Dinner, on April 6 2024. This great insider of state secrets described the rationale of a "cold" reason, favoring - for instance in the case of UFO crashes, the competitive advantage of keeping the secret - industrial secret, defense secret, state secret, etc. - over the benefits of open, transparent and public collaboration. Obtaining confidential information, processing it and keeping it to oneself is a reflex of intelligence services and economic warfare. It is a predatory demeanor, in a world full of dangers and risks. Disclosure is either accidental or controlled, the latter in response to higher interests. On this scale, we speak of strategic communication. In other words, we are in the intentional use of communication to achieve a specific objective or result. This level of information control includes lying and denial. In these domains of perception management and public opinion manipulation, disinformation is a formidable tool for diverting minds. In army parlance, this is known as diversion.
The question of UAPs, whether real or fantasized, is proving to be a remarkable tool for diversion, distracting people's consciences at one time or another. But to where? What's really going on behind the scenes, while we collectively debate the sex of angels or the color of gray eyes? Let's not forget that these disinformation tactics, most of which are blown wide open, also feed an unfortunate feeling of rejection and a general crisis of confidence in institutions that no longer seem to serve the general interest. The lures of disinformation also remain pervasive and influential, even after they have been exposed. It needs time to detoxify from infox. The elusive question of UAPs, which so fogs our minds, is also, paradoxically, a fertile source of hypotheses, awareness and imagination. An incredible thinking machine, a lever for evolution and speculation that can be compared to the mind experiments so dear to cosmologists and other theorists… (End of digression)
So, what happens to the question of UAPs in the EU? Secrecy, disclosure or disinformation? Should it be left to the celestial ambassadors alone? What should be done with the testimonies of pilots, military personnel and professional analysts? What could be the unknowns of the next European legislature?
(to be continued in Part 3)
NOTES AND REFERENCES
(1) https://uapcoalitienederland.nl/en/
(2) https://uapcoalitienederland.nl/en/knowledge-center/policies-and-regulations/
(3) https://www.asktheeu.org/en/search/UAP/all
(4) https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/request_about_ufo_uap_and_unknow_2
(5) https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/159559
Top picture: UAP organizations representatives at the EuroParliament meeting. Left to right: Jean-Marc Wattecamps (COBEPS, Belgium), Frederick Delaere (Ufo Meldpunt, Belgium), Robert Fleischer (Exomagazin, Spain), Beatriz Villaroel (Sweden), Renate Fossdal (Ufo Norway), Michael Vaillant (UAP Check, France), Lee Dines (SCU, UK), Danny Ammon (GEP, Germany), André Jol (UAP Coalition, Netherlands), Edoardo Russo (CISU, Italy), Peter Skafish (Sol Foundation, USA), Jonathan Berte (Sol Foundation, Belgium). Photo by Julien Odeur (COBEPS)
