GEPAN — World's First Government UAP Bureau

On May 1, 1977, France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) — the French equivalent of NASA — formally established the Groupe d'Étude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés, known by its acronym GEPAN. Under the direction of astrophysicist Dr. Claude Poher, GEPAN became the first permanent, institutionally-funded government scientific bureau in the world dedicated exclusively to the systematic investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena.

GEPAN's founding framework was notable for its rigor. The French National Gendarmerie, Air Force, civil aviation authority (DGAC), and meteorological service were all formally mandated to report UAP sightings to GEPAN, creating a structured, national collection pipeline. This gave GEPAN access to credentialed, trained observers across France — a quality and volume of reports unprecedented in any government investigation program up to that point.

Under Poher and his successors, GEPAN developed structured physical and statistical analysis protocols. The agency conducted field investigations, collected soil, vegetation, and physical trace samples from landing sites, commissioned laboratory analyses, and applied rigorous scientific classification to each case. GEPAN's investigation of the 1981 Trans-en-Provence landing case — in which a landed craft left scorched trace evidence analyzed by INRA (France's National Institute for Agricultural Research) — is considered a landmark in physical-evidence UAP investigation.

GEPAN was reorganized in 1988 as SEPRA (Service d'Expertise des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques) with a broader atmospheric mandate, and was reorganized again in 2005 as GEIPAN (Groupe d'Études et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés), its current form. GEIPAN has publicly catalogued and released over 5,300 cases, classifying approximately 3% as 'Category D' — unexplained even after thorough investigation. France's institutionalized approach to UAP investigation stands in contrast to most other nations and preceded the US government's recent transparency initiatives by nearly five decades.