UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For? (COMETA / NARA, 1999-2026)
Date
1999 (original); 2026 (PURSUE release)
Document Type
Academic Paper
Authentication
Official PublicationRedaction Status
✓ Fully ReleasedIssuing Authority
COMETA (French Government-Adjacent Study Group) / U.S. NARA
Summary
A document titled 'UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?' released as part of PURSUE Release 1's NARA historical archive batch. The title is the precise English translation of the French COMETA Report — 'Les OVNI et la Défense: À quoi doit-on se préparer?' — a 1999 study produced by COMETA (Comité d'Etudes Approfondies), a committee of 13 senior retired French military officers, aerospace engineers, and government officials under the direction of General Denis Letty. The COMETA Report is one of the most comprehensive government-adjacent UAP studies ever produced, concluding with a high probability that UAP are of extraterrestrial origin. The companion file `255_t_763_r1b_transcripts.pdf` contains witness transcripts that accompanied the COMETA study methodology. Held in U.S. government files and released via PURSUE Release 1 on May 8, 2026.
Significance
If confirmed as the COMETA Report, this document is among the most analytically significant in the PURSUE corpus. The COMETA committee included 13 senior retired French officials — Generals, Admirals, and a senior magistrate — whose collective institutional credibility was staked on the report's conclusions. The 1999 report evaluated hundreds of documented UAP cases, interviewed military pilots and radar operators, and concluded that the 'extraterrestrial hypothesis' was the most probable explanation for a core subset of unexplained cases. Its appearance in U.S. government NARA files indicates the U.S. intelligence community formally retained and studied the French assessment.