France's CNES creates GEPAN

France's space agency CNES set up GEPAN, a unit in Toulouse to collect and analyze reports of unidentified aerospace phenomena, with engineer Claude Poher as its first head. It became SEPRA in 1988 and GEIPAN in 2005, and still operates.

Sources

  1. OfficialLe GEPAN: pourquoi? comment? (CNES document) (opens in a new tab)CNES / GEIPAN
  2. OfficialGEIPAN (project page) (opens in a new tab)CNES
  3. PressAux origines du Geipan, l'organisme francais dedie a l'etude des ovnis (opens in a new tab)Slate.fr / 2025-09-21

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