French space agency to launch UFO archive
With the responsibility for training their astronauts turned over to Europe and cat launchings no longer in vogue, what's a French space agency to do? Become the official Internet source for UFO sightings, naturally. See, according to Jacques Arnould of France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales space agency, CNES will publish their archive of some 1,600 UFO sightings and other foo fightin' phenomena before mid-February. The on-line archives will consist of about 6,000 reports (many relating to the same incident) filed by pilots and the public alike over the last 30 years. That gives you about two months to hone your conspiracy theories and brush up on your high-school French. What, you didn't expect these to be published in English did you?[Thanks, Mike]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ben @ Jan 2nd 2007 9:08AM
Let's the french bashing start all over again...
Benjikan @ Mar 23rd 2007 3:53PM
I am a Canadian living in Paris, France. Am I really hearing these blanket generalizations about the French. It really does reflect on the ignorance of those who jump to such broad sweeping xenophobic statements. The French people are a composite of many nationalities. France is one of the oldest democracies in the world and have been instrumental in contributing to advances in Philosophy, Sociology, Medicine, Technology, Computer Sciences, Literature, Art, Photography, Architecture, Fashion and all of the higher disciplines that I haven't sited here. Perhaps you might want to pick up a case of "Bud" a pound of chips and watch "Extreme Make Over" and crawl back in to your hole where you came from. You represent what we might have come from and not what we could be evolving in to. None the less enjoy the program. It is unfortunate that "Extreme Make Over" can't add grey matter to the less fortunate.
Matt B @ Jan 2nd 2007 9:16AM
It must have smelled real bad that day over there.
Ebzy @ Jan 2nd 2007 9:27AM
What do you reackon, do you think the image might have been photoshopped?
I dunno it does look real...
Eddie @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:37AM
@Ebzy:
Just like this image looks real?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/EddiE12345/eiffel_ufo-cop_Photoshoppedy.jpg
FYI: That's a quick 30 second photoshop... It literally took me longer to get to photobucket and upload it then it took to make it
Rynth @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:12AM
In french!? that impure language of , well yeah.
Anyhoo, god bless Google's translater.
R @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:26AM
Document Title: The French Plan In The Event Of Contact With Extra-Terrestrial Beings
Body of Document: SURRENDER
End of Document
Ebzy @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:42AM
yeah exactly...
Eddie @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:58PM
Apparently my Sarcasm Detector is off today...
My bad.
c_r @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:43AM
I thought François Truffaut had been doing this since 1977?
BiaK @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:08AM
It appears that there are some dumb racist guys here, considering prefering war than peace is a sign of civilization...
A french using an impure language that doesn't sound like a potatoe-in-the-mouth language.
Xee @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:19AM
Jeez, BiaK, didn't you know? It's cool to make fun of the French. You want to be cool, don't you?
Ebzy @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:33AM
If only people would appreciate that the French are not a race but a nationality. Thus enmity against (or condecending on) the Frogs is not racism but nationalism and this may not be the best approach but it is not illegal nor considered even unethical. It however undoubtedly is entertaining is its proper place.
NHAnimator @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:41AM
I think insinuating that the French prefer surrendering to fighting was largely dispelled in the historically-correct documentary Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Fecher la vache!
russdogg @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:37PM
Sacre bleu!!!!!!!!!
Jay Dubster @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:39PM
Although I liked & laughed @ the "surrender" post, I wanna remind you guys of the French Resistance; those guys were awesome!!
I know because I've watched lots of our English series "Allo Allo", and there's the bit in "The Great Escape" where they shoot 3 German officers.
Granted the Officers were just having a pernod in a cafe, the French were in a car, with a machine gun and stopped just 10 ft away. But that's still really hardcore. Honest!! :lol:
Flying? @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:47PM
"what's a French space agency to do?"
You moron ... go back to school before speaking about topics you don't know anything about ... the CNES is the major shareholder of Arianespace ...
Ever heard of EADS? Ariane Space? Kourou? Thales? those are either french-only or french initiated companies, gov. agencies, or European programs that lead the commercial satellites launch world market ...
Flying? @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:51PM
"What, you didn't expect these to be published in English did you?"
May I add: It won't kill you to try to read another language as the rest of the planet does ...
You can bash France as much as you want. But please at least for good reasons!
g3n3tiX @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:52PM
^^ Well said.
You know, there are SOME french engadget readers...
(looks at himself in the mirror)
Ra D O Hax @ Jan 2nd 2007 2:00PM
Wow. That's a lot of UFOs. Have the French managed to surrender to any yet?
I suppose that they are trying to figure out where the UFOs are coming from so that they can sign a treaty to collaborate with the UFOs.
melloncollie @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:21PM
You're an idiot.
Honestly.
America had the comfort of two oceans against Germany, France had a few mountains.
Gil @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:35PM
What an incredible number of idiots in these comments. Sometimes I wonder how people this stupid manage to summon enough brain power to type.
mononomore @ Jan 2nd 2007 4:36PM
Polyglots of the world unite!
As per Wikipedia, multilinguals (polyglots) outnumber monoglots (monolinguals) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism.
Some people in specific countries are just slow in catching up to the rest of the world and believe their first and only language is somehow linguistically superior to all others, when really, it's only in their heads.
PA @ Jan 2nd 2007 4:54PM
FRENCH BASHING : Une bonne partie des mots Anglais utilisés aujourd'hui proviennent du
Français. Dommage que pluieurs ici nous montrent une certaine ignorance et un mépris tout aussi certain de ette grande culture. Merci à ceux qui ont eu le courrage de dénoncer ces idiots(see, a French word use in Shakespeare's language). Annother historical fact who helped the American during the revolution ? :-) Happy New-Year everybody and before posting incoherent remarks, go to the library, watch Historia and other means of learning about the diversity of our world!
Matt B @ Jan 2nd 2007 4:57PM
I apologize if my original post gave the wrong impression. What I meant to convey was (if the picture was real) anyone that may have seen the phenomenon probably soiled themselves.
branko.milojic @ Jan 2nd 2007 7:00PM
nice comments,
too bad some of you guys just feel like displaying total ignorance to the rest of us.
first, talking about the decision to make these archive public and the reason for it, it is to stop all the paranoid, conspiracy ideas that facts are hidden. it might not be fully beleivable but at least is a move in the right direction: better than spying on calls from your own people (ie: bush illegal spying on US citizens)
2_ well, easy: shortsided, at the moment when over 3000 US youngs died to fight from freedom and liberties, you are just displaying the same pattern as the extremists do: rewrite history. when the government says Black, even if one thing is white, you beleive it.
i) america's D-Day was delayed until US was sure french resistance cleared the path and many died on the process of misleading germans.
ii) besides the beach fight, not many fights happened on the path to germany through france: all was already cleared.
iii) so we owe you a big one for that, why stop there, and forget the revolution and Lafayette's standing tall in NY, short sidedness, and a touch of brain washing.
well I should stop there.
just to throw a title: 1984 by George Orwell. would be nice to read from the comments maker here, to remind you that you might want to think for yourself, and check sources before talking. it will show you how a gvt can rewrite history in the mond of people. but I guess reading would be too hard a thing to do for people who cannot even comprehend learning another language and its richness.
lucky yet! these comments are not all representative of US people,god forbid they were.
PA @ Jan 2nd 2007 7:30PM
Great comment, I wish we could read more intelligent comments like this here. I also wish for 2007, that more people read history because we all have to know where we come from to understand our present ans see clearly where were heading.
sam @ Jan 2nd 2007 8:52PM
That's the problem with a lot of Americans, they only learn about American history in detail and therfore the majority of them are stuck in a vicious circle of delivering ignorant and derogatory French jokes they picked up from the latest sitcom.
Phil @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:32PM
Anyone who has seen Kung Pow knows that the space alien Evil Council lives in France.
Thierry @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:06PM
Keep being ignorant and good puppets to your extreme-right wing president and his cohorts that even make Hitler look good.
A majority of americans believe everything they see or hear in the media while all their freedoms are slowly taken away right before their eyes, you would think they would have a bit of common sense or could make their own judgement, instead they prefer to focus on finding martyrs (of course these necessarily need to be foreigners).
Here's news for you all french, muslim, bashers : every single country in the world thinks you're a racist, arrogant and moronic nation. The higher they go, the harder they fall... Just like the roman empire fell in due time, so will the USA.
Flying? @ Jan 2nd 2007 11:40PM
Don't be too sensitive ... it was a J-O-K-E :-)
about the movies who choose french as the new bad guys, it's interesting though, how Hollywood's too coward to pick up the people they really fear (chinese, muslims): they prefer to choose harmless ones like french.
They're perfect! close enough to be no danger to the US, but just hated enough to let accept that new status and make laugh about it without any danger ...
how brave :D
Jean-Philippe @ Jan 3rd 2007 12:12AM
A few more links would have been a good idea:
CNES is a Space Agency, which means public founded, and "public service" something that most of the French basher here don't really know what it is. (We can't hardly blame them for their ignorance).
The idea behind a Public founded agency is that it does serve the people that are founding it (amazing isn't it ?)
http://www.cite-sciences.fr/francais/ala_cite/expositions/vie-extraterrestre/dossier-cnes-exobiologie/accueil-dossier-cnes.php
The CNES in English:
http://www.cnes.fr/web/455-cnes-en.php
And why this release of pictures ? Because of this:
http://www.cite-sciences.fr/english/ala_cite/exhibitions/extraterrestrial-life/
La Cite des Science is a place that educate (wow ! Yes French basher, something that you missed) the general public to various scientific topics (more than 3.5 millions of visitors each year)
Andy @ Apr 16th 2008 9:12PM
Dude, is that website for real? It appears that the French are convinced that the main purpose of a website is to show a fancy background and push all of the content out of the way!
This website is ridiculous!
Flying? @ Jan 3rd 2007 12:36AM
"The idea behind a Public founded agency is that it does serve the people that are founding it (amazing isn't it ?)"
What's your point? the NASA is also public founded ...
010111 @ Jan 3rd 2007 9:47PM
"Keep being ignorant and good puppets to your extreme-right wing president and his cohorts that even make Hitler look good."
speaking of needing to read more history...
Steve @ Mar 30th 2007 12:49PM
I am an American, proud of it. I love my country. I'm not too sure about the dingle berries in charge, but I love my country. I think that sadly we lose our heritage of standing up for what we believe in, even if it is against our appointed leaders. I wish we had the heart we had when we showed a willingness for a revolution for what we believe in. I honestly respect the french for opening up archives, I personally wish our goverment would open up thier archives, and stop lying to us..... Post Script, no I'm not a loser trying to premote anarchy, I'd like to see us stand up for ourselves which would be true Democracy.... leaders at the service of the people, not people at the mercy of the leaders.