Claude Poher

Claude Poher is a French astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who spent three decades at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)—France's equivalent to NASA. With a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics and expertise in electronics and space research, Poher brought rigorous scientific methodology to the study of unidentified aerospace phenomena.

GEPAN and Official UFO Research

In 1977, Poher founded the Groupe d'Etudes des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés (GEPAN)—the world's first official government-funded civilian research organization dedicated to systematic investigation of UFO reports. Launched with CNES backing, GEPAN represented a bold institutional departure from the dismissive tone of Project Blue Book and similar efforts; Poher positioned the work as legitimate aerospace science rather than fringe inquiry. He served as GEPAN's inaugural director from 1977 to 1978, steering the organization through its critical founding years. Though his tenure was brief, he established protocols for case investigation and statistical analysis that became the template for all subsequent French government UFO programs.

Intellectual Influence

Poher's entry into UFO research came in 1969 when he met J. Allen Hynek, the renowned Project Blue Book scientific advisor, during a trip to the United States. Inspired by that encounter, Poher conducted a statistical study of UFO phenomena and presented it in 1975 to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics—lending academic credibility to a topic often dismissed in formal scientific forums. His work demonstrated that systematic data analysis could illuminate patterns in UFO sightings without requiring extraordinary claims about their origin.

Legacy and Later Work

After stepping down from GEPAN, Poher left to pursue a sabbatical but retained personal interest in UFO phenomena. Upon his retirement from CNES in 1996, he devoted himself to theoretical physics research, developing the "Universons theory," a quantum mechanical approach to gravitation. GEPAN itself evolved into SEPRA (1988) and eventually GEIPAN (Groupe d'Études et d'Informations des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-Identifiés), which continues operating as a systematic investigative body within the French government—a direct institutional legacy of Poher's vision. His insistence on applying scientific rigor to unexplained aerial phenomena helped establish the principle that governments could examine these reports without prejudice or ridicule.