In France, when the investigation is possible, the investigation of "strange" phenomena observed by witnesses leads to one of only two possibilities:
- Either the observed phenomenon finds an inexplanation,
- Or it doesn't find any.
Above, the investigation phase ➊ leads to two possibilities. Phase ➋ is now abandoned.The GEIPAN (Group for Studies and Information on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) thus identifies a number of "unexplained" cases after investigation, this is the famous "D" category.
But then, what do we do? Which scientists are interested in what these famous unexplained "D" cases could be?
These are questions that often come up with the public.
First of all, it must be understood that it is not the responsibility of GEIPAN to carry out fundamental research on "D" cases: like a satellite, this organization is responsible for collecting, filtering /denoise and transmit "clean" information related to observations. Once this work of cleaning and labeling the data has been completed, "it's over": the baton must be passed on to the researchers.
This leads to a certain frustration on the part of the public who naturally expect that "we" the professionals (investigators, GEIPAN, researchers) conduct research on these "unexplained phenomena", in order to try to characterize them and understand them better.
In other words, we answer the question: "What's behind these Phenomena?"
That's a tough question. For a long time and until now, research work on NAPs can only be undertaken on a voluntary, individual and free basis. Without any support. At my own level, it is a priesthood that has occupied me for many years (see references opposite) knowing that every word and every writing published is monitored, scrutinized, and can potentially be turned against oneself: This is a far from pleasant situation.
As I have already written, advances in this area have been made on the scale of several generations, since the end of the Second World War.
In recent months, the United States has been leading the way on this issue: a Senate committee has taken up the subject with a new creed: "To gain insight into the nature and origin of UAP". This was reflected in the laws recently passed by Biden and gave birth to the AARO: the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
In France, the CNRS should (and could) take care of this research, but the problem is that this "set of unexplained phenomena" does not belong, a priori, to any scientific category.
In other words, once the investigation is carried out by the GEIPAN, you will not find any official research group to take an interest in the subject. And who actually could take care of this one since neither Astronomers, nor Meteorologists, nor Physicists, nor Biologists seem to be able to say that these types of phenomena are within their competence?
How to do research if this residual unknown does not reside in any domain known a priori?
How to get out of this impasse?
An autonomous research group dedicated to UAPs should be created in France and other countries also. It will have to be transdisciplinary, it will have to be the pilot and not driven by the existing bodies. And this decision will have to be political. Michael Vaillant
Like INRIA (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation) in its time.
Imagining that this could be a "simple" emanation from the CNRS seems unlikely to me. Why?
Because, in itself, this theme is difficult to deal with because it is disturbing for many scientists. But even more, the "disciplinary" organization of science has difficulty in giving rise to "trans" structures. Admittedly, there are "displayed" efforts to integrate a transdisciplinary dynamic into the CNRS, but the culture of publication necessarily creates effects of "clusterization" and "sectoralization" which contradict these efforts: as a researcher, if you publish, you must rely on a network of "peers" who recognize you, therefore a pre-existing, organized and themed "disciplinary" network. Without the existence of such a network on an international scale, your recognition efforts will be in vain. And, the mechanics of evaluating the value of articles by their level of referencing by peers mechanically leads to this organizational clustering and a general impoverishment of "disruptive"/"out of frame" thinking, as may have been highlighted in the January 2023 issue of the journal Nature.
Also, I think that inevitably, in the next few years, such a group will be created. On the other side of the Atlantic, the train has already started... From now on, the more time passes, the more France will realize that it will have fallen behind and that it is passing, if not next to strategic issues, to side of public communication issues.
This will happen because the future will inevitably see the rise of complexity science and environmental systems science. The relationship between UAP, the environment and ecology will become obvious. Transdisciplinary functioning will no longer be an option. Michael Vaillant
In the meantime, since the early 2000s, on U-Sphere, I have been trying to put forward a point of view transdisciplinary and ecological that I sometimes call "ecosystemic". In particular within the framework of the analysis and the comprehension of what could be these Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. It is to this task that I have worked by setting up analysis tools and a specific research methodology, based on data-analysis and the search for weak signals. This strategy for Research on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena was synthesized during a presentation given by U-Sphere during the Vertical Project Colloquium on October 16, 2022.
With that, I wish you a happy new year 2023!