Jacques Arnould of the CNES announced in December 2006 that a database of some 1600 UFO (or more particularly UAP — Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena) incidents would go online early the next year — which it did on March 22, 2007.
For thirty years, the CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales — National Space Studies Center) had been amassing documents and statements for archiving and study. Many of those collected, said Arnould by telephone, were witness statements made to the police, while others were from pilots.
While there were around 1600 incidents involved, there were about 6000 reports, with many relating to the same UAP incidents. The witness's names were not included in the online archive, to allow privacy. The collation of the sightings and field investigations was the longtime work of the CNES's UFO unit GEIPAN (later called SEPRA). During the 1980s and 1990s, France was the only country officially investigating UFOs with paid staff.
The database delineates approximately 100,000 pages of material including testimony, audiotapes, photos and film. Much of what was seen, of course, misinterpreted things like odd clouds, space debris, and even moonrises.
— Douglas Chapman
CNES, http://www.cnes.fr/web/5866-geipan-uap-investigation-unit-opens-its-files.php
CNES, http://www.cnes.fr/web/455-cnes-en.php
MSNBC.com, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16392923/, 12/29/06
CNES — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNES