1993.08
Europeans seem to be having more success [than Americans] in the UFO political arena. The European Community’s Committee on Energy, Research and Technology (CERT) has recently commissioned Professor Tullio Regge, an Italian Deputy to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, to prepare a detailed report on UFOs. This report will recommend whether or not to establish a permanent UFO research center attached to CERT or other appropriate continental organization like the European Space Agency (ESA).
We have received news of this development from the reliable European publications Phenomena, a magazine published by the French UFO group SOS OVNI, and the mass-circulation Spanish magazine Mas Alla, with extensive coverage of paranormal and ufological topics. In its March/April 1993 issue, Phenomena quotes Regge as saying that “39% of the (UFO) cases don’t have a satisfactory scientific explanation.” Therefore, “for Mr Regge, the European Parliament should assume its role of political will to assure that its citizenry is kept informed.”
In the June 1993 issue of Mas Alla, well-known Spanish journalist and ufologist Javier Sierra provided additional information about europolitics vis-à-vis the UFO problem. The motion for a CERT report, according to Sierra, was instigated by a Belgian European Deputy, Eurodeputy, Mr di Rupo, Minister of Education for Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. A powerful UFO wave was reported here between November 1989 and the spring of 1991. Di Rupo was well acquainted with the investigations undertaken by the Belgian Society for the Study of Space Phenomena (SOBEPS in French), a Brussels-based private scientific organization founded in 1971, as well as the official inquiries conducted by the Gendarmerie (national police force) and the Royal Belgian Air Force.