HALL V · 1954 — present

Global Disclosure

The United States is not alone. France's CNES operates GEIPAN, a civilian agency that has accepted and investigated reports since 1977. The United Kingdom released its Ministry of Defence UAP files between 2008 and 2013. Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay maintain active military investigations.

12 EXHIBITS · CHRONOLOGICAL

April 6, 1966№ 01

Westall

200 schoolchildren, suburban Melbourne

Roughly 200 students and staff at Westall High School and the adjacent primary school reported a silver disc-shaped object that descended into a paddock behind the school, hovered, and departed at high speed. The case was investigated by the RAAF; the relevant files were among those released by the National Archives of Australia in 2014. Witnesses describe being instructed by school authorities and uniformed personnel not to discuss the incident.

· Australia· RAAF· school

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January 19, 1966№ 02

Tully Saucer Nest

A Queensland cane farmer and a swirl of flattened reeds

Banana farmer George Pedley reported a saucer-shaped craft rising from a swamp; on inspection he found a 30-foot circular area of flattened, swirled reeds floating on the water. The Royal Australian Air Force investigated and produced a report classified at the time and now held by the National Archives of Australia. The site remains a touchstone case in Australian aviation history.

· Australia· RAAF· trace-evidence

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Founded 1977№ 03

GEIPAN

France's civilian UAP investigative agency

GEIPAN — Groupe d'Études et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés — operates inside France's national space agency CNES. It is the only civilian government agency in the world with a standing mandate to receive, investigate, and publish UAP reports. As of 2024, its public database contains roughly 3,000 cases, of which approximately one in three is classified 'D' — phenomena not explained by known aerial activity.

· France· CNES

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September — December 1977№ 04

Operação Prato

A Brazilian Air Force investigation in the Amazon

After Amazonian villagers in and around Colares reported beams of light from the sky producing burns, fainting, and lasting medical effects, the Brazilian Air Force's First Air Command dispatched a research team for a four-month investigation. The unit produced 500 pages of reports, hundreds of photographs, and six hours of film. The dossier was declassified in 2005 and is held by the National Archives of Brazil.

· Brazil· FAB· Amazon

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September 20, 1977№ 05

Petrozavodsk

A 'jellyfish' over Soviet Karelia

Witnesses across northern Europe — from Karelia to Finland and Sweden — reported a luminous, jellyfish-like object that hovered over Petrozavodsk for ten to twelve minutes. The Soviet Academy of Sciences opened a dedicated scientific study (Setka-AN) and a parallel Ministry of Defence programme (Setka-MO) in direct response. The most likely conventional explanation — the launch of Kosmos 955 from Plesetsk — does not fully account for the duration or the witness geography.

· USSR· Academy of Sciences

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December 30–31, 1978№ 06

Kaikoura Lights

RNZAF radar and television film off the New Zealand coast

Over two nights, an Australian television crew aboard a Safe Air Argosy filmed luminous objects off the Kaikoura coast as Wellington Air Traffic Control tracked corresponding radar returns. The Royal New Zealand Air Force investigation file, declassified in 1984, remains the most extensive sequence of unexplained radar–visual–film correlations in the Southern Hemisphere record.

· New Zealand· RNZAF· radar

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Recorded continuously since 1984№ 07

The Hessdalen Lights

Ongoing instrumented study of an unexplained light phenomenon

Since the early 1980s, residents of the Hessdalen valley in central Norway have reported anomalous lights — sometimes stationary for hours, sometimes pulsing or moving at speed. Project Hessdalen, a permanent automated observation station operated by Østfold University College in cooperation with Italian astrophysicists, has continuously recorded the phenomenon since 1984. The phenomenon is real and unexplained; no single hypothesis (combusting dust, piezoelectric effects, plasma) has accounted for the full range of observations.

· Norway· science· ongoing

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May 19, 1986№ 08

The Official Brazilian UFO Night

Twenty radar contacts, six fighter scrambles

On the night of May 19, 1986, civilian and military radar tracked more than twenty unidentified objects across southeastern Brazil. The Brazilian Air Force scrambled three Mirage IIIs and three F-5s from São Paulo and Anápolis. The aircraft achieved visual and radar contact but were unable to intercept. Three days later, Aeronautics Minister Brigadier Octávio Moreira Lima held a public press conference acknowledging the events.

· Brazil· FAB· radar

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September 27, 1989№ 09

Voronezh

TASS reports a sighting in a Soviet park

On September 27, 1989, the Soviet state news agency TASS issued an English-language report of children and adults witnessing a sphere and three tall figures in a public park in Voronezh. The report — broadcast worldwide and confirmed by a senior physicist at the Voronezh Institute of Geophysics — was unique for being released by Soviet state media during glasnost. The local Soviet militia took soil samples that were studied by the Academy of Sciences.

· USSR· TASS· glasnost

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January 20, 1996№ 10

Varginha

Brazil — civilians, soldiers, and a hospitalised entity

On the afternoon of January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha reported encountering a small, dark, V-headed creature in a vacant lot. Independent witnesses described a Brazilian Army operation transporting a similar entity, and a military police sergeant who participated in the alleged capture later died of an undiagnosed infection. The Brazilian Army formally denied a recovery operation; declassified portions of the Brazilian Air Force's file on the case were released in 2010.

· Brazil· Army· entities

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Published July 1999№ 11

The COMETA Report

French general officers ask the question publicly

Authored by a group of retired French general officers and senior scientists at IHEDN, the 90-page report 'UFOs and Defence: What Should We Prepare For?' reviewed major international cases and concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis, while unproven, was the most plausible explanation for a residual class of incidents. It was the first study of its kind to be written by individuals of that rank in any NATO country.

· France· IHEDN· defense

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Final tranche released 2013№ 12

The UK MoD UAP Files

Britain releases its complete record

Between 2008 and 2013, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence released, in ten tranches, the complete contents of its UAP files: more than 60,000 pages covering reports from 1950 to 2009, when the MoD's UFO desk was closed. The files include the 1980 Rendlesham incident, the 1956 Lakenheath–Bentwaters radar case, and a 2000 internal scientific study (the 'Condign Report') that concluded the phenomenon was real but most likely a poorly-understood atmospheric one.

· UK· MoD· FOIA

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HALL I

The Modern Disclosure Era