UAP Check

(continuing from Part 2)

«Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world», Ronald Reagan, 40^thPresident of the United States of America

«The issue of unidentified flying objects does not fall within the remit of the Commission, which has no intention of following it up», Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission

«The UAPs are critical events that could threaten the air traffic and aerial security in Europe. In this sense, I agree that we must pay more attention to that», Général Claudio Graziano, Président EUMC

THE WAY AHEAD

Let's look ahead to 2024-2029. A new wave of 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEP) will be elected on 9 June 2024, opening the 10th term of the European Parliament. We know the political context, which has never been so perilous since the Second World War: an economic recession and a barely concealed financial crisis, international tensions at their height with military conflicts counting tens of thousands of deaths on our doorstep : Eastern Europe, Black Sea and Mediterranean Middle East. On the domestic front, a clear rebalancing of political forces in favour of a 'hard' European right - populist, bourgeois, even nationalist - is forecast... calling into question, among other things, environmental legislation and the energy transition on the European Union's agenda. Ecologists, moreover, are lamenting the setbacks imposed on the issues of pesticides, eternal pollutants, new GMOs, environmental hazards and diseases... Poisonous clouds are gathering on all sides, and not just when it comes to the climate emergency.

In these circumstances, where the sound of cannons, the clamour of angry crowds and the sound of boots dominate, who among the future MEPs will dare to speak out on the issue of the UAPs? From the outset, the issue seems secondary, futile or marginal. How can the diversion created by UFOs find its place at the heart of current geostrategic issues? How can progress be made in integrating UFO, UAP and UAO issues into European public policy? Moreover, could the UAPs become a factor for integration and cohesion in the EU? This last question, as provocative as it is preposterous, is not without basis.

EURO-LEAGUERS UNITED AGAINST UFOS?

In 1987, in his speech to the 42nd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Ronald Reagan said: "Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world."(1) Six years later, in December 1993, the European Parliament's ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) Committee unanimously adopted a report on "the proposal for the creation of a European Monitoring Center for UFOs", an individual resolution that had been championed since 1990 by the Socialist MEP Elio di Rupo, the future Belgian Prime Minister. The Belgian wave was still fresh in everyone's minds. It was explicitly mentioned in the text adopted, which called for the French SEPRA to become the European reference body, and whose rapporteur was the Italian physicist Tullio Regge. Unfortunately, the Regge report was controversial and fiercely contested by British MEPs, and was never included on the agenda for the January 1994 plenary session. And so it was never voted on before the end of its legislature, which came 6 months later…(2)

In 2010, another Italian MEP, Mario Borghezio, a member of the Italian Northern League, signed a written declaration calling for "the declassification of documentation on UFOs’, deeming it ‘essential to set up a scientific center for the analysis and dissemination of the scientific data gathered to date by various European bodies and governments".(3) No further action. Too sulphurous? The Commission's terse response to another written question, tabled two years earlier, in 2008, by Cypriot liberal MEP Marios Matsakis (4), sets the tone: "The issue of unidentified flying objects does not fall within the remit of the Commission, which has no intention of following it up". (5) Are we to deduce from this that the European Union nowadays needs a new wave of UFOs somewhere within the 27 to force harmonisation, to shake up the political status quo and revive consideration of UAPs in the EU?

'Drovnis' now swarm days and nights over nuclear installations, the US Navy unveils UAP videos taken 20 years ago, and the probes of its fighter planes record measurements of the performance of flying machines that defy the laws of our physics, reinforcing calls for a robust and collaborative instrumental ufology. But there's another way of thinking about this, and it's from Frenchman Jean Cocteau: "Since these mysteries are beyond me, let's pretend to be their organiser", suggested the famous artist in the middle of the last century. A poetic insight never to be overlooked, worthy of the best strategic communication manuals.

WAITING FOR THE NEXT WAVE?

We know that Francisco Guerreiro's political initiative has been accompanied since the summer of 2023 by contacts with several officials from the European Commission and the nebulous EU agencies. And that these same officials, invited to take part in the March 2024 event, chose not to appear and to remain silent. We also know that several MEPs in the European Parliament have expressed an interest in the UAPs following speeches by the Portuguese Green MEP, but that they do not wish to be in the spotlight. We also know that the Committee on Petitions, a body of the European Parliament that European citizens can call on, did not follow up in 2021 the request made to it to investigate ‘UFO sightings’. Not admissible, because it "matters seemingly not coming within the Union’s fields of activity". (6) What are they so afraid of?

Pending the next wave of UAPs, what options does the European UFO lobby have? Faced with a facade of parliamentary disinterest, and a lack of willingness on the part of the European Commission and EU Member States to give concrete and explicit answers, the European UFO lobby has no choice but to regain the upper hand.

How can we bring pressure to bear to make progress on this issue, which is still too stigmatised? With individual meetings with the new MEPs, recalling the European resolution already passed in 1993? The recent work of MEP Franscico Guerreiro? The social demands of airline pilots and veterans of professional armies? By submitting other requests for access to documents or written questions? As international news and US disclosures unfold? Chris Gaffney of the Irish group NHI Disclosure, for example, has made a speciality of requesting access to European documents via Asktheeu.org. No fewer than 27 requests since 2021.(7)

20 MARCH: A EUROPEAN UAP DAY?

Another intermediate objective could be to make 20 March 2025 a ‘European UAP Day’, by presenting the results of a major pan-European opinion survey. The equivalent of a Eurobarometer of the population of the 27 countries on the subject of UFOs! Various national surveys are available, but so far nothing on a European scale. Yet all European countries are concerned, as Italian ufologist Edoardo Russo, coordinator of the EuroUFO network and member of the UAP Check initiative, pointed out in his speech to the European Parliament on 20 March 2024.(8)

Another form of influence would be the publication of white papers, press releases and briefing notes, along the lines of the SOL Foundation across the Atlantic, setting out the concrete strategic, technological and scientific gains and geopolitical leadership that would result from EU announcements and commitments on the UFO issue. Nor should we rule out support for programmes or initiatives involving public conferences, research projects or the European Network, led by public/private consortia such as ExoProbe, SETI, the Galileo Project, the Sol Foundation, UAP Check, etc.

‘As you have pointed out, the UAPs are critical events that could threaten the air traffic and aerial security in Europe. In this sense, I agree with you that we must pay more attention to that’, wrote Italian General Claudio Graziano in August 2021, in response to a letter from Irish ufologist Chris Gaffney. Claudio Graziano was speaking as chairman of the EU Military Committee (EUMC), a post he held between 2018 and 2022. He continues: "Nevertheless, I have to underline that aerial security and defence remain a strict national jurisdiction and all the European countries have already some reporting procedures in place. In addition, from a purely military side, I recall that the Air Defence in Europe is coordinated and inserted within NATO's Air Defence system. In this vein and in accordance with the principle of avoiding duplication between NATO and the EU, I cannot see the need to create a specific EU procedure or structure to deal with it. In my capacity, I can only rise this issue to the attention of the Chiefs of Defence of the Member States while recommending a closer coordination among them and possible data sharing with the concerned EU institutions. (...) We require more consciousness from the EU citizens on these issues", concludes General Graziano.(9)
NATO? Future European space legislation? Secrecy, disclosure or disinformation?
The great European game of UAP hide-and-seek is not over yet.