Belgian society of study of the space phenomena

The Belgian society of study of the space phenomena (SOBEPS) is an association with not-lucrative goal whose statutes are appeared with the Appendices of the Belgian Monitor dated May 20th, 1971. Association has as an aim the rational study of the not identified air phenomena (UFO) and of the related problems and was chaired by the historian of sciences Michel Bougard. It was dissolved by unanimous decision of the general meeting of June 11th, 2007. The SOBEPS was famous for its publications on the Vague Belgian.

Objectives

Its objectives were:

to collect information on the phenomenon UFO near the witnesses and other organizations interested in the problem;
to constitute files of investigations on the ground;
to check this information, to criticize them according to the scientific method and to define criteria of analysis of the observations;
to organize campaigns of detection and measurement of the physical characteristics of the phenomenon;
to analyze the data thus collected in collaboration with specialized laboratories;
to distribute information collected and the results of a search as well in the public as near responsible official circles (political authorities, soldiers and scientists);
to organize national meetings and international on the problems UFO in order to promote an objective and effective research on the question.

History:

Its activity extends on about thirty years, of 1971 to 2007. One can note the publication of a review " Inforespace" and a work of information of the largest audience through the media.

" In nearly thirty years of existence, the SOBEPS saw ravelling hundreds of collaborators. She undertook thousands of harvests of testimonys and a few hundreds of investigations, set up of tens of conferences, taken part in multiple television programs and met many political officials, soldiers and scientists in order to make progress the idea of a rational investigation in connection with OVNI." (drawn from the site of the SOBEPS) A more complete history:

The book which association published, " Vagueness of UFO on Belgique" , had a certain impact with the beginning of the year 1990, collecting testimonys of the series of observations which took place in 1989-1990 in Belgium and in certain territories bordering.

Principal members

Were members of Sobeps:

Michel Bougard, president of association, laid off in chemical sciences and doctor of history of sciences.

the professor emeritus Auguste Meessen, doctor in physics, with the Catholic University of Leuwen and author of works of pedagogy.

Leon Brenig, doctor of theoretical physics, chief of work to the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles.

the Professor Claude WAISTCOAT, doctor of vegetable biology, of the University Faculties of Namur.

Jean-Pierre Auquière, of the Catholic University of Leuwen, doctor in medical and pharmaceutical botany.

Lucien Clerebaut, general secretary, philatelist.

Jean-Luc Vertongen, person in charge of the network of investigations, decorator.

Patrick Vidal, person in charge of the network of investigations, travelling merchant.

Michel Vander Elst, person in charge of the network of investigations, head of department in hypermarket.

---- Criticisms were emitted towards the SOBEPS at the time of its cover of the events of 1989-1990:

Exceptional collaboration of the Belgian Air force

An anonymous critic stressed that " The Belgian army gave its support for the SOBEPS in the sense that it was attacked telephone calls and that it wished to pass the hand. It also contributed its share for a " drive out with the ovni" at the time of the holidays of Easter of the year 1990. There was this night no UFO nor no flying saucer of detected in spite of important means, such of the planes of detection, placed at the disposal of this association law-1901."

Vague Belgian

The SOBEPS was especially famous for its study of the Vague Belgian of UFOs, between 1989 and 1991, in collaboration with the Belgian Air force. This collaboration brought in particular the SOBEPS has to receive the assistance of the army to carry out a " track with the ovni" (at the time of the holidays of Easter 1990). This study catalogued the accounts of the witnesses of this " vague". An anonymous critic had noted in the French-speaking article of Wikipédia that: " … It was according to its dires a fiasco, or if one wants to be more precise one convincing index going in the direction of the inexistence of extraterrestrial machines at that time and in these places. On the other hand it is not excluded that machines miltaires flew over the Belgian skies and that they were nailed on the ground this day due to " track with extra-terrestre" . In spite of that, the SOBEPS conclua that part of the UFOs observed were of completely unknown nature because no natural phenomenon or known flying machine could not explain propriétées of the phenomena described in testimonys. … "

In several observations, the machine at flown over the witness with the vertical with less 10m of altitude and at very low speed. No noise of engine or beat of air by propellers was perceived. Some time a noise similar to that of an electric transformer was announced. The witnesses located at the vertical did not detect wind or of perceptible movement of air.

Many witnesses also announced the presence of 3 large white headlights on the lower surface of the machines near the three angles. These headlights were particularly intense. If the machine were a ULM or a machine lighter than the air propelled by very quiet electrical motors and were to supply these headlights at the same time, it poses the problem of the energy source then. No known human technology makes it possible to restore such a quantity of energy while compatible with the constraints of being légertés necessary for a ULM or lighter than the air.

Critics skeptics of work of the SOBEPS concerning the Vague Belgian

Two axes

Criticisms skeptics are directed in two axes:

1) The first consists in showing that the Belgian society of study of the space phenomena as well did not work as she claims it in her publications, than its investigations are baclées, than they are carried out by ufologists amateurs, people of good will but being guided only by the faith in the extraterrestrial assumption. 2) The second, more classically, consists in trying to explain the Vague Belgian of UFOs within the framework of the Modèle sociopsychologic of the phenomenon UFO. One can put questions about the role that the Belgian society of study of the space phenomena could play in information (see low: Marc Hallet) that the media had on the Wave, and by there on its propagation.

Criticisms of Marc Hallet:

One of the principal critics of work of the Belgian society of study of the space phenomena is Marc Hallet. He is at present the only author to have published a work skeptic on the Vague Belgian: the Vague Belgian UFO or triumph of the misinformation . In this work, it points the many errors, inaccuracies and fallacious Raisonnement of the first publication of SOBEPS, Vague of UFO on Belgium . As the title indicates it, Marc Hallet tries to show that the Vague Belgian is mainly the fruit of the Désinformation carried out by the Belgian society of study of the space phenomena. It thereafter published other articles on the subject.

The beginning of Vagueness

The ufologists claim for their part that the model sociopsychologic can explain the contagion but not the birth of vagueness. According to them, the first evening of vagueness, i.e. the 11/29/89, 143 observations were reported whereas no information was disseminated in the media.

The problem here is that one does not know exactly when these testimonys were given to the SOBEPS. Really before the mediatization of the testimony of the police officers of Eupen by the Belgian media, or after this one? Did these 143 witnesses indeed telephone the SOBEPS this evening there even, which wants to say that they had all the phone number of the SOBEPS under the hand (what seems not very plausible: moreover why the so-called witnesses would have informed this altogether unknown organization, rather than the authorities (police force, gendarmerie or other?)? Or as it is much more plausible did they contact the SOBEPS after the mediatization of the testimony of the police officers of Eupen, by making a testimony Rétroactif?

Unfortunately, no report/ratio of the SOBEPS on this business indicates when these “testimonys” were communicated to the office of the SOBEPS, which puts doubt the credibility of these reports/ratios, since it is about crucial information (one can this ask besides whether this omission of Auguste Meessen is a lapse of memory, and thus a large methodological error, or if it is voluntary, with an aim of influencing the reader of the report/ratio in the direction of the assumption defended by this author, i.e. the extraterrestrial Hypothèse).

This problem was raised by Marc Hallet in his work the Vague Belgian UFO or the triumph of the misinformation , like more recently by Jean-Michel Abrassart. In did its article entitled Of the UFOs seize Belgium? , Jean-Michel Abrassart discusses more specifically of November 29th 1989, date of the starting of the Vague Belgian of UFOs, and particularly owing to the fact that be-saying 143 testimonys would have taken place this single night, which would invalidate the model sociopsychologic of the phenomenon UFO in this precise case. It explains that as these testimonys have actually be collected by Belgian society of study of phenomena space after mediatization of that of police officers of Eupen (what is obviously the case until proof of the opposite), he is legitimate to think that an effect of Suggestion could play full as opposed to what, which returns the phenomena supposedly observed during this evening fully compatible with the explanation of vagueness by a psychosocial contagion, claims the Belgian society of study of the space phenomena.

Others

From the critical point of view, one notes:

Before the Vague Belgian, the witnesses of Ovni saw mainly flying saucers. During the Wave, the witnesses having mainly described triangular objects, certain skeptics see there, rather than the observation of different objects, an example of Incohérence of the phenomenon Ovni during the decades, which would evolve/move according to the modes.

Wim Van Utrecht for its part particularly worked on the Photo of Small-Rechain. In connection with this photograph, today universally famous, one can stress that there is no element of decorations (the object is on a completely black bottom) making it possible to consider the size real of the object photographed, nor to confirm the account of the witness (the place and the hour when it claims to have taken it). Wim Van Utrecht reproduced the Photo Small-Rechain with average mechanics. There is a consensus to say that the photograph was not faked, but that does not want to say that the object photographed is indeed an extraterrestrial spaceship, nor even an object very large wheel in the sky… Some skeptics also underlined inconsistencies between the stereotype and the account of the witness. Moreover, the identity of the witness remains unknown general public, which makes a counter-evaluation very difficult. Lastly, the Photo of Small-Rechain is under copyright, which raises the question owing to the fact that it brings back money to somebody, which is generally a sufficient motivation to create a Contrefaçon.

the Laboratoire of Astrophysics of the University of Liege also considered the case of Small-Rechain and noted that " the analysis of moved is in contradiction with the description made by the témoins" and made many comments in the press of the time by stigmatizing the absence with convincing elements. An astronomer amateur even made, in the case of Small-Rechain, a simulation by matrix algebra which shows that it is impossible mathematically to have a displacement in a space with three dimension whose projection would represent the blurs of moved of the photograph, which accredits the thesis of the forgery.

----

Internal bonds

UFO
Vague Belgian
Pseudo-science
Laboratory of Astrophysics of the University of Liege

External bonds

Marc Hallet
site of the SOBEPS
Articles of Professor Auguste Meessen
work of the Institute of Astrophysics of Liege and comments of an astronomer amateur
the point of view of the skeptics, lira Marc Hallet, Amanda Nuwanda, Thierry Veyts

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