Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!actnyc!gcf
From: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: French government says genuine UFO exits
Message-ID: <736@actnyc.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 15:36:35 GMT
References: <9840@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Distribution: na
Organization: InterACT Corporation
Lines: 43

In article <9840@tekecs.TEK.COM> keithr@tekecs.TEK.COM (Keith Rowell) writes:
} 
} In response to an earlier posting, Gordon Fitch said:
} 
} } Okay, I'm ready to believe.  Where's the stuff?  Not books,
} } the stuff: wrecked UFOs of strange metal, little gray bodies
} } dead or alive, and so on.
} 
} (At least you realize they are *gray* and not *green* now!  :-))
} 
} Gordon, if you lived in France and paid attention to official
} French government announcements, you probably wouldn't be asking
} these questions, that is, if you are inclined to believe
} official government information.

I'm not.  I regard government information as untrustworthy.
It is like newspaper and television information, except the
media are more careful in some circumstances because they
_can_ be sued and they _can't_ print money.

}
} ... [stuff about US government as source of information] ...
}
} In 1977, the government of France began an official, open, and
} above aboard investigation of UFO reports.  The group formed to
} do this investigation is Groupe D'Etudes des Phenomenes
} Aerospatiaux Non Identifies (GEPAN)... (From Margaret Sachs' The UFO
} Encyclopedia (Putnam (Perigee Books), 1980, ISBN 0-399-12365-2)
} in the article on GEPAN, "In an analysis of eleven cases
} studied in 1978, the group [GEPAN] concluded that in nine of the
} cases a physical phenomenon was involved whose description
} compared to a flying machine whose origin and propulsion and/or
} sustenance systems are beyond human knowledge." It seems
} pretty clear to me.  We have some genuine UFOs flying around.
 
Now we have a book about a book.  I want _stuff_.  It does not
follow from the observation of the appearance of unidentifiable
flying objects that they are what is usually mean by "UFO",
that is, a flying device or being of extraterrestrial origin.
I have met people who I regard as veracious who have related
such observations to me and I do not doubt that such phenomena
are observed.  Nor do I doubt that it is _possible_ that such
observations are actually of extraterrestrials.  So what?