1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:22,120 They come from all walks of life. 2 00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:27,040 Computer experts, artists, engineers, booksellers and blue collar workers. 3 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:29,040 They all have one thing in common. 4 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:31,040 A fascination for the paranormal. 5 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:39,040 At times passionate to the point of being obsessed, they are known as UFO hunters. 6 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:28,040 For the past 50 years, the phenomenon of unidentified flying objects commonly referred to as UFOs 7 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,040 has frequently made the headlines. 8 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:37,040 Exploited by tabloids, ridiculed by skeptics and for the most part scorned by the scientific community, 9 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:41,040 the UFO phenomenon has captured popular imagination. 10 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:47,040 In Canada, surveys confirm that the public is interested in unidentified flying objects. 11 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:52,040 In the United States, dozens of books on the subject are published each year 12 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:56,040 and Hollywood generally comes out with at least one film per season. 13 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:08,040 The U.S. has the largest UFO group in the world called Mufan, the mutual UFO network. 14 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:15,040 Its members gather every year at the International UFO Symposium, 15 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:23,040 Webmaster for the Internet site UFOcity.com and co-author of Left at East Gate. 16 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,040 Peter Robbins is a well-known New York artist. 17 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:30,040 He is quite familiar with the community of UFO hunters. 18 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:36,040 We are a wildly varying lot of people. 19 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:41,040 We are as different as any random section of society, I think. 20 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:49,040 What unites us is an intellectual curiosity, maybe a little bit of a spirit of adventure. 21 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:57,040 Most of us like digging either allegorically or in a library or actually in the field. 22 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:04,040 Most of us are somewhat idealistic, which usually means we're somewhat naive. 23 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:09,040 They are obviously motivated by a desire to try and understand what's happening. 24 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:17,040 Often, when you scratch beneath the surface, you find a desire to believe in the existence of extraterrestrials. 25 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:22,040 Behind their impartial front, we can see their desire to believe. 26 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:27,040 We actually are interested in the truth about something that is a genuine mystery. 27 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:31,040 Some of us have PhDs in the natural sciences. 28 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:38,040 Many of us have backgrounds in the arts and we come to it from a creative sensibility. 29 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:46,040 It is precisely this eclectic attitude that has greatly contributed to tarnishing the reputation of the UFO community. 30 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:56,040 As soon as a UFO is observed, UFO hunters find themselves shoulder to shoulder with journalists at the site where it was observed, 31 00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,040 both trying to make the most out of it. 32 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:06,040 One camp sees it as a great news story, while the other camp sees an opportunity to talk about their wild theories, 33 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:12,040 worldwide cover-ups, alien abductions, or a threat of an alien invasion. 34 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:20,040 Comments made by serious researchers often become buried in the tall tales which attract the media. 35 00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:26,040 Caught up in this three-ringed circus of ideology, it is not surprising that over the years, 36 00:04:26,040 --> 00:04:31,040 UFO hunters have gained the reputation of attracting crackpots. 37 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:39,040 Like many fields of research or natural interest, we as a group have grown somewhat more sophisticated over the years. 38 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:48,040 We have seen more frauds, we have seen more genuine, remarkably important breakthroughs in research. 39 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:56,040 We are a bit better organized. We are maybe a little bit more respected by the general population, but not so much. 40 00:04:56,040 --> 00:05:02,040 Over the years, UFO groups have been forced to evolve according to the interests of their members. 41 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:08,040 Their interest is often tempered by the events themselves and by pressure from the media. 42 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:12,040 UFOs are not the same today as they were years ago. 43 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:22,040 To better understand this evolution, we have to go back to the Kenneth Arnold affair in 1947, which spawned the expression, flying saucer. 44 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:37,040 No one is better qualified to lead us back in time than French sociologist Pierre Lagrange, 45 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:42,040 a research scientist with the Center for Sociology of Innovation in Paris. 46 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:47,040 Pierre has written several reports on UFO studies, and over the past few years, 47 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:54,040 he has gained recognition as one of the world's leading authorities in the field of UFO history. 48 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:59,040 The Kenneth Arnold affair marked the beginning of flying saucers. 49 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:02,040 That was when the expression, flying saucer, was first invented. 50 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:06,040 His story happened on June 24, 1947. 51 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:14,040 He was a 32-year-old private pilot and businessman who saw strange discs flying over Mount Rainer, Washington, in the American Northwest. 52 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:20,040 According to Arnold, they were flying twice as fast as the speed of sound, and they had an unusual shape. 53 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:26,040 They were not exactly saucer-shaped. They were rounded in the front and triangular in the back. 54 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:32,040 And he described their flight as saucers skimming over the water. 55 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:41,040 And when he reported this to a reporter, a news reporter, the journalist wrote down flying saucers, 56 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:45,040 and the name was born and has been with us ever since. 57 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:53,040 The objects seen by Kenneth Arnold were probably nothing more than a flock of migrating birds. 58 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:58,040 However, his story gave birth to the modern era of flying saucers. 59 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:06,040 Back in 1947, unidentified flying objects were not synonymous with extraterrestrial spacecraft. 60 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:14,040 At the time back in 1947, Kenneth Arnold thought he was seeing secret weapons. 61 00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:18,040 Obviously, the prospect of extraterrestrials was soon raised. 62 00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:24,040 If we look back at the first articles written in the press on June 26 and 27, 1947, 63 00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:28,040 the objects were not only presented as extraterrestrial airships. 64 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:33,040 That was just one theory, among others. The theory of secret aircraft was the most popular. 65 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:39,040 The day after Kenneth Arnold's observation, the U.S. Army put up a wall of silence 66 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:42,040 and took extraordinary defense measures. 67 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:56,040 However, despite all the military's preparations, an entire fleet of flying saucers 68 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,040 seemed to be descending upon the United States. 69 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:04,040 Throughout the country, Americans were claiming to have seen unidentified flying objects. 70 00:08:12,040 --> 00:08:15,040 Since the Army was refusing to release these reports to the public, 71 00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:20,040 small groups of two or three people each began collecting information on these settings. 72 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,040 It was the dawn of ufology, the study of UFOs. 73 00:08:30,040 --> 00:08:35,040 The first ufologists appeared in the 1950s in groups such as NICAP and APRO, 74 00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:39,040 which integrated a large mass of scattered information. 75 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:42,040 At first, UFOs were only seen flying in the sky. 76 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:45,040 They hovered and flew away, but didn't land. 77 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:48,040 Then gradually, stories began pouring in about landings. 78 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:51,040 Investigators changed their view over time. 79 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:55,040 History professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. 80 00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:59,040 David Jacobs is the author of the famous UFO Controversy in America. 81 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:05,040 Well, I think that the role of some of the early UFO organizations like APRO, 82 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:10,040 the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, and NICAP, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon 83 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:17,040 in the overall controversy over UFOs was really very, very important. 84 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:22,040 I think that these are groups that continue to collect reports. 85 00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:27,040 They analyzed reports. They kept the subject in front of the public 86 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:33,040 and helped to also pioneer methodology for how you can do this, 87 00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:36,040 how you can actually investigate reports. 88 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:40,040 It was in this fervor of the 1950s that people began speculating 89 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:44,040 that these unidentified flying objects were of alien origin. 90 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:49,040 These speculations soon became the most popular way of interpreting these objects. 91 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:54,040 Left in the dark, the more conservative researchers who refused to share this opinion 92 00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:57,040 without an argument were stigmatized as ignorant 93 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:00,040 or having little faith by those who supported the theory. 94 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:04,040 Now, 50 years after that initial sighting by Kenneth Arnold, 95 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:10,040 we can only wonder how UFOs, which were originally thought to be top secret weapons, 96 00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:13,040 came to be thought of as interplanetary vehicles. 97 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:19,040 How is it that extraterrestrials have become the focus of UFO study? 98 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:26,040 One of the first people to introduce the idea that flying saucers were of alien origin 99 00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:31,040 was Donald Keeho, a former member of the U.S. military who became a journalist, 100 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:36,040 and while working for True Magazine in 1949 was assigned to investigate this story. 101 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:41,040 Keeho was rather skeptical at first since most of the contacts he had kept in the Army 102 00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:44,040 were not clear about the origin. There was nothing to the story. 103 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:49,040 But as he dug deeper, he began to think that the military wasn't telling him everything they knew, 104 00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:52,040 that there may be something to the story after all. 105 00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:56,040 The article that he published in the January 1950 issue of True 106 00:10:56,040 --> 00:10:59,040 was one of the first to really popularize the alien theory. 107 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:04,040 Three years later, Donald Keeho wrote Flying Saucers from Outer Space, 108 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:10,040 whose popularity at bookstores further entrenched the theory that UFOs were of alien origin. 109 00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:15,040 From there on, lines were drawn between those who believed in extraterrestrials and those who didn't. 110 00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:36,040 While America was debating over whether or not unidentified flying objects were alien in origin, 111 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:43,040 on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, France was experiencing an unprecedented wave of UFO sightings. 112 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:48,040 Up until then, UFOs were just strange things flying around in the sky, 113 00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:51,040 but now they seem to be landing everywhere. 114 00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:56,040 Even worse, the occupants of these spaceships were strolling around on our planet. 115 00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:05,040 One of the most striking stories happened to Marius De Ville from Carube in northern France on September 10, 1954. 116 00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:10,040 I heard my dog barking and it didn't sound normal to me. 117 00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:16,040 At first, I just ignored him, but then I decided to go see what he was barking about. 118 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:20,040 I came over here and I saw two men, or rather two beings. 119 00:12:21,040 --> 00:12:23,040 How far away were they? 120 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,040 They were on the other side of that road there about 12, 15 feet away. 121 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:32,040 Can you tell us what they looked like? 122 00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:35,040 They were pretty small. I'd say about three feet tall. 123 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,040 So your flying saucer was over there. How did it leave? 124 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:43,040 Well, it went straight up about 150 feet. 125 00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:44,040 Straight up like that? 126 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:47,040 Well, that's when it changed into a ball of fire and headed east. 127 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:57,040 In the 1960s, a whole new generation of investigators appeared on the scene, like John Keel, 128 00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:59,040 who wrote an entire series of books. 129 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:04,040 He also investigated matters that did not seem to interest other people. 130 00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:09,040 He examined things that were outside of the box, things that seemed UFO related, 131 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:11,040 but which were still on the fringe. 132 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:16,040 With investigators like John Keel, it wasn't just a matter of aliens visiting us in their flying saucers. 133 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:22,040 Keel's perspective was much larger and more complex, touching on both ecology and the occult, 134 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:25,040 with phenomena that might be linked to our basic human nature. 135 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:29,040 Some people proposed psychological theories for his phenomena. 136 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:34,040 Keel was now in the area of parapsychology, where things were happening to our society, 137 00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:37,040 other than simple visits by extraterrestrials. 138 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:48,040 Thanks to John Keel, a movement began in the late 70s that included both the UFOs and paranormal phenomena 139 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:51,040 by people who took an interest in these things. 140 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:55,040 They believed that the phenomena were closely linked to the witnesses. 141 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:05,040 The 1970s was also when the U.S. Air Force lost interest in UFOs. 142 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:11,040 In parallel with the work being done by John Keel, other researchers joined the cons, 143 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:16,040 often from university backgrounds, filling in the void left by the military. 144 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:25,040 In the 1970s in particular, after the Air Force in the United States stopped its project Blue Book, 145 00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:31,040 what happened is that it was almost like people were finally free to come out in the open. 146 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:37,040 Those who were brave could come out in the open and they could now begin to talk about UFO research, 147 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:40,040 do it openly, work together. 148 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,040 That's why Alan Heineck formed the Center for UFO Studies in 1973. 149 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:48,040 We had a scientific advisory board of fairly distinguished scientists. 150 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:57,040 This went on and there was a flowering of very serious UFO research in the 1970s that had begun in the 1960s. 151 00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:05,040 It lasted some into the 1980s to a certain extent, but several factors intervened, not Roswell, 152 00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:09,040 not necessarily abductions, other problems like lack of funding again, 153 00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:13,040 like the fact that no progress was being made. 154 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:21,040 The lack of concrete results led some ufologists to question their beliefs and they divided into two camps. 155 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:28,040 In the late 1970s, something interesting happened in ufology. Criticism began to come from within. 156 00:15:28,040 --> 00:15:33,040 Skeptics had been regarded as rationalists who knew nothing about the UFO cases. 157 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:41,040 Now the situation began to change and longtime believers, who had felt strongly about the subject for years, 158 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:44,040 began to say, we don't believe in them anymore. 159 00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:51,040 In 1977, French ufologist Michel Munnery wrote a book called What if UFOs Didn't Exist? 160 00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:56,040 According to the author, UFOs are nothing more than a misinterpretation of known phenomena. 161 00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:59,040 They're not real, they're only a myth. 162 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:03,040 There are no aliens visiting us and there are no strange phenomena. 163 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,040 They were just mistakes made by confused people who saw Venus, 164 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:11,040 the scientists' weather balloons, aircraft, the moons and other explainable phenomena. 165 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:17,040 UFO hunters were gradually becoming more aware that merely gathering witness accounts 166 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:21,040 was not enough to fully understand the phenomenon. 167 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:31,040 What was happening in ufology in the 1970s when the first skeptics began to appear within their ranks? 168 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:34,040 It was a time when, having discussed eyewitness accounts at length, 169 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:40,040 UFO researchers began to think, we need to be more scientific, there's a price to pay, 170 00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:44,040 we have to change our methods, it's not enough just to gather eyewitness accounts, 171 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:47,040 we need to produce evidence, like scientists do. 172 00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:52,040 For a long time we thought that it was a scientist's job to observe nature, 173 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:56,040 but in reality, a scientist's job is done in a laboratory. 174 00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:58,040 He very rarely sees nature. 175 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:01,040 He spends his time looking at instruments, diagrams and graphs, 176 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:04,040 so his contact with nature is very remote. 177 00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:08,040 If he goes into the woods or on top of a mountain, he doesn't see anything, 178 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:11,040 he's in the middle of nature and can't do anything. 179 00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:17,040 UFO researchers began to ask themselves, how can we present data relating to UFO stories, 180 00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:20,040 so it'll be perceived as scientific? 181 00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:23,040 They realized that there was a price to pay, 182 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:27,040 that they would need to do more than gather stories to succeed 183 00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:31,040 or simply state their opinion like a judge or a police officer. 184 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:34,040 They would need to delve into the facts and come up with items 185 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:38,040 that would allow experts to decide if there was a case or not. 186 00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:51,040 François Bourbault belongs to this new generation of UFO researchers 187 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:55,040 that appeared on the scene during this shift in ideology in the 1970s. 188 00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:04,040 My first job or my first goal, I should say, was to interest the university crowd 189 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:10,040 in the study of UFOs, but I soon came up against a brick wall, 190 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:14,040 from social prejudice to a wide variety of other prejudices. 191 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:18,040 These men and women from universities were probably afraid of losing credibility 192 00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:20,040 among their peers. 193 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:27,040 I would say that it also had to do with the lack of knowledge of the subject area. 194 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:32,040 I must admit that in the field of UFO research for serious amateurs like myself 195 00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:35,040 who want to dig a little deeper to understand an issue, 196 00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:39,040 there is a fundamental lack of funding required to do the work. 197 00:18:39,040 --> 00:18:42,040 There's also a lack of human resources available. 198 00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:46,040 And to be perfectly honest, we also have very limited access to technology 199 00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:49,040 that would allow us to perform rapid tests on the spot, 200 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,040 where physical evidence appears on the ground, for instance. 201 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:59,040 With these tests, we could advance our own research since we are on the front line, 202 00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:05,040 thereby eliminating a layer of analysis where we have to wait for the results before proceeding. 203 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:10,040 We could also turn over our test results to experts for further research. 204 00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,040 Maybe that's where the problem lies. 205 00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:18,040 A really good example of how this lack of funding and logistics can have an impact 206 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:24,040 is the case of Saint-Marie de Manoir, a small rural town less than 60 miles from Montreal, Quebec. 207 00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,040 At first I was sure that it was a 4x4, but when I got up and looked, 208 00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:31,040 I saw that it was over my neighbor's house. 209 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:37,040 It was blue everywhere in the house, and there was this persistent noise in the background. 210 00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:41,040 I think it was something from outer space. 211 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:45,040 I think they might be more advanced than us since they are coming to visit us. 212 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:47,040 It was bright everywhere. 213 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:51,040 I'm not sure how far away it could be seen, but it was as bright as day where I was. 214 00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:57,040 Several experts find this case to be particularly puzzling. 215 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:03,040 UFO researchers involved in the case had to cut their investigation short, 216 00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:05,040 since they lacked the means to continue. 217 00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:09,040 François Bourbaud was one of the key figures in this affair. 218 00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:16,040 The incident in Saint-Marie de Manoir was probably one of the best opportunities in scientific terms 219 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:20,040 to pursue an in-depth study of the case. 220 00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:28,040 First of all, there were many witnesses, and several different types of witnesses at that, 221 00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:32,040 including highly competent ones such as police officers. 222 00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:37,040 I was amazed I'd never seen anything like it before in my life. 223 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,040 Several levels of society were represented among the witnesses, 224 00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:44,040 and there was physical evidence left on the ground. 225 00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:50,040 Electromagnetic effects occurred in the immediate area, and a trace of the craft was left on the ground. 226 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,040 This incident happened in winter, and the grass turned green where the UFO mark was found. 227 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:59,040 Using my own money, I paid L'Oval University to analyze grass and soil samples. 228 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:04,040 Chlorophyll levels were ten times higher, and nitrogen had gone up by 300%. 229 00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:10,040 I found it very bizarre, because the chlorophyll levels should normally have been the same everywhere. 230 00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:15,040 I don't think it's humanly possible to fake chlorophyll levels and plants in November. 231 00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:21,040 We had material on our hands that could have been genuinely investigated, 232 00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:25,040 but somehow we missed our big opportunity. 233 00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:30,040 We didn't succeed in capturing the interest of enough people in the fields of botany, 234 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:35,040 physics, electricity, magnetics, or mathematics. 235 00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:39,040 We didn't get plant geneticists involved in our project. 236 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:44,040 A lot of work could have been done to rule out natural causes. 237 00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:59,040 Over the years, UFO hunters have gradually divided into two separate camps. 238 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:05,040 One group represents the diehards, who still believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin. 239 00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:11,040 The other group, mainly consisting of UFO researchers, define themselves as skeptics. 240 00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:17,040 It appears that ufology is not the work of a single group of individuals, 241 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:20,040 but rather a network of groups, like in the field of science. 242 00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:26,040 In my view, the fact that there are skeptics does not mean that ufology has become more scientific in approach. 243 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:31,040 It means that researchers are starting to think like the people they used to criticize. 244 00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:37,040 Nowadays, skepticism about UFOs is a matter of personal opinion, just like believing in them used to be. 245 00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:43,040 It's not much different after believing in UFOs for years. They decide not to believe anymore. 246 00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:45,040 What effect does that have? 247 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:49,040 Rationalists say, finally UFO researchers are becoming more scientific, 248 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,040 but if we look at the facts, it just isn't true. 249 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:58,040 Just when things were calming down and researchers were beginning to use a more scientific approach, 250 00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:01,040 the controversy started back up again. 251 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:06,040 After having said they exist, they were turning around and saying they don't exist. 252 00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:11,040 While saying they don't exist doesn't make you a scientist, but it does spark controversy. 253 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:15,040 This controversy is not making the field any more scientific. 254 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:21,040 Since each person is proceeding according to their own personal opinion, it's very easy to become a UFO researcher. 255 00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:25,040 You have some business cards printed and publish an article in a few newsletters. 256 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,040 It's much harder to be a scientist. 257 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:32,040 You need to have diplomas, experience and research work that's approved by others as a group. 258 00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,040 The UFO field has been faced with two problems. 259 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:44,040 Frequent shifts in ideology and a lack of funding for its work. 260 00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:52,040 Victims of precarious budgets. 261 00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,040 Most UFO associations cannot hire paid staff. 262 00:23:55,040 --> 00:24:01,040 This means that almost all of their members are volunteers, with the best of intentions no doubt. 263 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:06,040 But inevitably, they run into problems with the availability and competency of their members, 264 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,040 which leads to less than ideal investigations. 265 00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:20,040 Fascinated by the subject of UFO since the mid-1970s, Antonio Junius, a writer for Fate magazine 266 00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:27,040 and co-author of the UFO Briefing Document, is quite familiar with the problems faced by UFO researchers. 267 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:40,040 One of the main problems of ufological research is the lack of funds. 268 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:48,040 This is very bad, especially when you go to even two other countries, it's even more acute. 269 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:57,040 There was a short period, I would say through the 90s, where you suddenly had this emergence of the philanthropists. 270 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:06,040 In the late 1990s, US multimillionaire Lawrence Rockefeller financed a series of meetings on the American East Coast. 271 00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:11,040 Chared by astrophysicist Peter Sturrock of Stanford University, California, 272 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:20,040 the Pocantico meetings are now considered to be the most important initiative that has taken place in the field of UFO study over the past few years. 273 00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:32,040 Francois Luange is an optic specialist who directs FlexImage, a corporation specializing in satellite imagery. 274 00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,040 He was an active participant at the Pocantico meetings. 275 00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:45,040 The Pocantico conference organized by Mr. Rockefeller in 1997 was highly instructive. 276 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:52,040 This gentleman, who has large sums of money, tends to spend a lot on artistic and human causes. 277 00:25:52,040 --> 00:26:00,040 Lawrence Rockefeller had a certain curiosity about UFOs in general, and crop circles in particular. 278 00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:06,040 So he financed this week-long meeting at his Pocantico Center where his family had once lived. 279 00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:12,040 The idea was to discuss physical evidence, not just for UFOs, but in general. 280 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:18,040 Basically, you had two types of scientists. You had ufological scientists. 281 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:28,040 These were people who were professional scientists like Ballet and even Velasco and Richard Haynes and John Schuster and many others 282 00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:36,040 who made the case for ufology. They presented the best landing cases, the best photography and so on, the best radar cases. 283 00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:44,040 Then you had a panel of neutral scientists, and these were people who were neither in favor nor against it, but they were professional scientists. 284 00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:52,040 The goal was to have researchers speak about UFOs in front of a group of scientists in the hopes of finding common ground 285 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,040 and preparing a small booklet on their conclusions. 286 00:26:56,040 --> 00:27:05,040 Why did Rockefeller do this? Because up until that point, the only thing that existed in the field was the Condon Report that had been sponsored by the U.S. Air Force several years earlier. 287 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:12,040 The very thick Condon Report was read by few people. It contains a lot of information, some of it on inexplicable phenomena. 288 00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:19,040 However, the official conclusions of the Condon Report go something like this. First of all, we didn't find anything. 289 00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:27,040 And secondly, science has better things to do with its time than waste it on a subject like this that is of no interest. 290 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:36,040 Condon closed the books on the subject, and scientists did that too. With regards to the Condon's conclusions, we agree at least on the first point. 291 00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:45,040 We didn't find anything really convincing, any absolute proof that unknown phenomenon are occurring, and we found even less evidence of extraterrestrials. 292 00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:50,040 On the other hand, as to what science's position should be, we are diametrically opposed to Condon. 293 00:27:50,040 --> 00:28:03,040 We feel that given the evolution of the information gathered and the technologies at their disposal, it would be in the best interest of science to research the subject intelligently, to listen to UFO researchers and to continue the work. 294 00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:15,040 If the Pocantico Conference led to a recognition of the interest in UFOs, then why does the science community at large seem so uninterested in this phenomenon? 295 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:24,040 If someone were to find a technological application for the UFO problem, then just watch the benefactors line up to finance it. 296 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:34,040 Maybe not UFO groups at first, but if another meeting were held with Mr. Sturok, there might be a group of people who would say, 297 00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:39,040 aha, we're being offered 10 million gentlemen, go back to your drawing boards. 298 00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:53,040 However, before we can speculate on how to interest the science community in UFOs, we need to have UFO groups themselves come to an agreement on the importance of the information gathered and the manner in which it is presented. 299 00:28:54,040 --> 00:29:04,040 The material itself, the data, although there are some excellent cases, but it is very ambiguous and you can basically adapt it to any theory you want, 300 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:14,040 because you will select those elements if you're interested in the more bizarre cases, you will find plenty of those. 301 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:19,040 If you're interested in the more sort of sober, you'll concentrate with radar and pilot cases. 302 00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:30,040 So that's what I saw, that people, because they had a theory, then they were digging up for those elements in the database that would support their theory. 303 00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:40,040 After so many years, it may be surprising to find that so few professional researchers let themselves be carried away by a scientific interest in UFOs. 304 00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:48,040 Perhaps we are simply seeing a contrast between the ideal vision of science and the unorthodox reality of ufology. 305 00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:58,040 One of the great failings of UFO research in the western hemisphere anyway, and not as much in Europe, but certainly in Canada and in the United States, 306 00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:04,040 has been the failure to convince the scientific and academic community of the legitimacy of the subject. 307 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:11,040 I think we're setting ourselves up for a disappointment when we expect science to come up with all of the solutions. 308 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,040 When it comes to expanding knowledge, solutions are very rare. 309 00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:21,040 When scientists study a matter, very rarely do they agree on what it means. 310 00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:28,040 Of course, when we read history books about science, we see famous names such as Galileo, Newton and Einstein, 311 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,040 who all made a significant contribution to scientific knowledge. 312 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:38,040 But we need to remember that 99% of all scientific research does not lead anywhere. 313 00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:43,040 The research is done because we need to ask questions and find answers. We need to make progress. 314 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:48,040 Scientists often disagree. In the field of science, it's very difficult for everyone to agree. 315 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:55,040 So if we were to take a scientist out of his controlled environment and place him in a situation with amateurs and people from different backgrounds, 316 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:58,040 naturally he would find it more difficult to do his job. 317 00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:06,040 In that type of situation, scientists tend to have the attitude that UFO researchers are not capable of producing hard evidence. 318 00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:11,040 They're not like scientists who produce real results. I tend to see the problem differently. 319 00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:18,040 If we think about it, science hasn't produced a lot over the years, considering all the conditions imposed on scientists. 320 00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:22,040 They need to have a diploma, publish articles, sign contracts and so forth. 321 00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:29,040 In contrast, it's amazing to see how much UFO groups like SOPEPS have managed to accomplish without a controlled environment. 322 00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,040 So if anything, I would say that the opposite is actually true. 323 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:41,040 It's not that UFO researchers don't take their work seriously. Given the conditions under which they work, they're very serious in their approach. 324 00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:47,040 Perhaps we should be demanding that scientists produce a lot more than they do. 325 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:58,040 A half century after the birth of Ufology, UFO hunters are still practically as far away from a global answer as they were back then. 326 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:09,040 Can their limited success be blamed on a lack of effort, a poor choice of witnesses, 327 00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:16,040 or is it simply that ufologists have had to pay the price for resorting to sensationalism once too often? 328 00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:21,040 Well, obviously we still don't know what the UFOs are. 329 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:26,040 If we did, the discussion would already be on a different level. 330 00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:35,040 People already automatically, and this is even in France, I would say not the researchers, but the culture and the media, 331 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:42,040 automatically equates UFOs with extraterrestrial beings coming in spaceships. 332 00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:46,040 So this is sort of the cultural interpretation. 333 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,040 The popular cultural interpretation, I would say, all over the world. 334 00:32:50,040 --> 00:33:02,040 In this world of superficial choices and judgments, abduction by aliens, the Rosswell crash and cover-up, these are sexy. 335 00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,040 These are hot topics, even though time is passing. 336 00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:11,040 Rosswell's 53 years ago, it still captures the public imagination tremendously. 337 00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:22,040 I think it makes it very difficult for the serious research of ufology because so much of it now has become basically a media-oriented entertainment and sensation. 338 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:34,040 The lack of interest in UFOs by the elite of the science community is not only due to the ufologists' tendency to believe in wild rumors of alien abductions and flying saucer crashes. 339 00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:43,040 It also stems from public prejudice and the superficial manner in which UFO-related matters are handled by the media. 340 00:33:55,040 --> 00:34:03,040 An associate member of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, Béthra Meust has written several books on UFOs. 341 00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:07,040 Such as science fiction and flying saucers. 342 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,040 There are several factors that come into play. 343 00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:20,040 On one hand, there is the unstructured research that has been done up until now by amateurs, 344 00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:24,040 whose standards of quality are not as high as those of the science community. 345 00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:31,040 On the other hand, there has been this incredible challenge to have this subject regarded not only as a serious matter, 346 00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:35,040 but also as something important, something worthwhile studying. 347 00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:40,040 This message has not yet found roots within the scientific community in France. 348 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:45,040 To give you an example, my peers are sociologists and ethnologists, 349 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:49,040 and you wouldn't think that the study of UFOs would be a problem for them, 350 00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,040 since they study sociological and cultural phenomena. 351 00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:58,040 But even within these groups, UFOs are not considered to be a serious subject of study, 352 00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:04,040 and if a sociologist decides to study UFOs, he risks becoming a social outcast. 353 00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:12,040 The situation is absurd. As you can see, there is a sort of barrier, a fear of cultural or philosophical rejection. 354 00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,040 The people that matter don't look at our findings. 355 00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:22,040 It is much easier to say, well, this can't be because it isn't. 356 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,040 Therefore, it's not. Therefore, I'm not going to waste my time. 357 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,040 It is still informed by a great deal of ignorance, and most interesting, 358 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:36,040 if you go back and you study the first reports of UFOs in the major American media, 359 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:39,040 going back to the summer of the autumn of 1947 or so, 360 00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:46,040 you will see a pattern of reportage in major American newspapers, start with the New York Times, 361 00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:51,040 that continues to a degree to this day, and it usually goes like this. 362 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:55,040 There is an initial report of an incident and event, a sighting. 363 00:35:55,040 --> 00:36:00,040 Then there is a response, either in the same article or follow-up article, 364 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:05,040 by some kind of authority who usually would have no knowledge of the subject, 365 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:11,040 but they are a psychologist or a meteorologist or a biologist, 366 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:16,040 and they are going to tell us, well, this is nonsense, I have a PhD and I know, 367 00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:23,040 and the American public, the Western public, has been brilliantly conditioned, 368 00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:28,040 overtly and covertly, by the media, by the government, by themselves, 369 00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:34,040 to literally wire up in their minds when you hear UFO. 370 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:39,040 You see the mouth moving, but somebody is saying, I saw UFO, 371 00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:43,040 what you are hearing is maybe I'm crazy and should be in an institution. 372 00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:49,040 In order for ufology to rise above the scorn and ridicule that it faces, 373 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:57,040 and in order to determine with any degree of certainty whether or not unidentified flying objects are indeed elite in origin, 374 00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:02,040 it is vital that this field of study receive a minimum of physical and logistic support. 375 00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:07,040 In my opinion, state intervention is indispensable, if you want to do a thorough job, 376 00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:11,040 since the most useful sources of information are generally state agencies. 377 00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:16,040 If we take France, for instance, there is the state police, the air force and civil aviation. 378 00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:21,040 Obviously, these organizations are not going to pass on information, especially the air force, 379 00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,040 with its need to keep defense issues confidential. 380 00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:31,040 It's very difficult for someone outside of these agencies to obtain information such as radar data. 381 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:38,040 In the late 1970s, France became the only member of the GA to set up such an agency. 382 00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,040 It was called CEPRA. 383 00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:47,040 As part of its mandate, this group examines unidentified phenomena in French aerospace. 384 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:54,040 The National Space Research Center, the equivalent of NASA, 385 00:37:54,040 --> 00:38:01,040 is located within CNES, France's National Space Research Center. 386 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:08,040 CEPRA has been headed by engineer Jean-Jacques Velasco for quite a few years. 387 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:16,040 CNES is a public sector agency that distributes information. 388 00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,040 We don't have anything to hide. 389 00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:25,040 These days, we let the public know about a lot of our investigations, 390 00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,040 and we will continue to do so in the future. 391 00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:34,040 However, keeping the public informed of our investigations is not part of CEPRA's mandate, 392 00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:41,040 as was the case for its predecessor, Japan, which prepared technical notes and informational notes. 393 00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:45,040 The difference between the two groups is quite simple. 394 00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:50,040 We just don't have the means. 395 00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:57,040 Although he admits that his group does not have the logistic support necessary to carry out a global study of the UFO phenomenon, 396 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:02,040 Jean-Jacques Velasco does not see how CEPRA could associate itself with UFO groups 397 00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:08,040 without putting its own credibility and that of CNES on the line. 398 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:18,040 What is commonly referred to as UFOlogy is a large group of people primarily interested in UFO sightings. 399 00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:22,040 They have developed an interest in the subject as amateurs. 400 00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,040 We are not at all in the same class as those groups of amateurs. 401 00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,040 Here, we do scientific work. 402 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:35,040 We investigate sightings and check out the facts that are reported. 403 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:40,040 Our work consists of scientifically analyzing the facts, and that's all. 404 00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:57,040 Other than France, only a few countries in South America have set up official agencies to collect UFO reports, 405 00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:02,040 often undercover as part of their military activities. 406 00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:10,040 Elsewhere in the world, UFO reports are lost, destroyed, or find their way into a box in the basement of an administrative building. 407 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:19,040 In Canada, the RCMP and Transport Canada used to send their reports to the National Research Centre in Ottawa. 408 00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:25,040 After a quick read-through, the reports were then transferred to the National Archives building, 409 00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:30,040 where they waited patiently for someone to come along and examine them. 410 00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:38,040 Recently, Canadian UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski decided to do something constructive with these reports of UFO sightings. 411 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:51,040 After the year 2000, an arrangement between myself and Transport Canada allows the reporting of objects seen in the sky to be made through them to me, 412 00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:57,040 and I produce an annual report of sighting activity to try and understand what it is that people were seeing. 413 00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:03,040 You see, the National Research Council itself was not interested in UFOs, 414 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:10,040 but the possibility that UFO reports might lead to the recovery of meteorites. 415 00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:18,040 But I've chosen to do something with the data, because I think it's important that we understand what it is that people are seeing. 416 00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:25,040 Not what is perhaps reported in the tabloid newspapers, perhaps not what we see in the movies, 417 00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:30,040 but what is it that is actually seen by people, and to do that we need the actual reports. 418 00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:35,040 So it is a very good arrangement from a scientific standpoint, 419 00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:42,040 simply collecting the data from Quebec, from Newfoundland, from British Columbia, from the Yukon and Nunavut now as well, 420 00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:50,040 and analyzing the data for an understanding of what it is people really are experiencing and seeing when they report a UFO. 421 00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:56,040 Chris Rutkowski's initiative is an exception to the rule. 422 00:41:56,040 --> 00:42:01,040 In the United States, where more UFO sightings are reported than anywhere else in the world, 423 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:07,040 there is no mechanism in place to provide UFO groups with a copy of these reports. 424 00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,040 They usually end up in a shredder. 425 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:18,040 One of the things to me that puzzles me that after all these years in the United States, for instance, 426 00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:23,040 no single repository was created for all the files. 427 00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:32,040 That would have been much better spent, you know, and just create a central location where when the organizations go out of business, 428 00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:37,040 which happens, you know, when the leader dies or something like that, there's nothing. 429 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:44,040 After 50 years of UFO research, how can we best sum up the results? 430 00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:51,040 Researchers for the most part, amateurs, have still not succeeded in rallying the science community to their cause. 431 00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:55,040 Living on the edge, they are constantly faced with prejudice. 432 00:42:55,040 --> 00:43:05,040 For the time being, UFO hunters continue their pursuit, navigating through strange worlds in the search for evidence to support their theories. 433 00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:13,040 Beyond the rhetoric of UFO groups, it is clear that if scientific institutions were to undertake a serious study of UFOs, 434 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,040 they would not make long philosophical speeches on the wonders of science. 435 00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:23,040 They would proceed methodically, impervious to the war of words being waged by UFO groups. 436 00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:29,040 The Americans need more of the sociological theory and the Europeans need less, 437 00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:37,040 because in America, it's not at all liked by the ufological community, who is completely committed to strictly nuts and bolts, 438 00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:44,040 ET, aliens, crash saucers, genetic hybrids with abductions and so on. 439 00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:53,040 But in Europe, with some of these groups, you go to the other extreme where everything gets reduced to just a myth. 440 00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,040 But a myth still takes off from something, you know? 441 00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:02,040 Myths from North America, specifically from the United States, have swept through Europe. 442 00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:09,040 Researchers like Scornot, myself and others have… well, I wouldn't exactly say that we've given up, 443 00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:13,040 but we're still interested, but no one listens to us anymore. 444 00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:22,040 Well, they still listen to Pierre Lagrange, who seems to be able to find ways to make himself heard, but no one really listens to us anymore. 445 00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,040 They're only interested in those myths from the United States. 446 00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:29,040 There's another factor that's also becoming into play, the Internet. 447 00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:37,040 As a professor, I have several students who are interested in UFOs, but they know nothing of all the serious research that was done on the subject. 448 00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:45,040 When they hear the expression, flying saucer, they immediately think of the American myths and all of the information circulating on the Internet. 449 00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:50,040 To summarize, when I was 25 years old, UFOs were things flying around in the sky. 450 00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,040 We would go into the field to observe them. 451 00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,040 These days, young people look up information on the Internet. 452 00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,040 That's why I'm a lot less interested now. 453 00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,040 It's become a sort of virtual reality. 454 00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 455 00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:21,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 456 00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 457 00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 458 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 459 00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 460 00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:36,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 461 00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:39,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 462 00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 463 00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 464 00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:48,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 465 00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 466 00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:54,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 467 00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 468 00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 469 00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 470 00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 471 00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 472 00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 473 00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:15,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 474 00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 475 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 476 00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 477 00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 478 00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,040 The Internet is a virtual reality. 479 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,040 The Internet is a virtual reality.