Former DGSE Intelligence Director Alain Juillet on UFOs : full transcript
Full transcript of the interview with Alain Juillet by Baptiste Friscourt
Baptiste Friscourt: Today we have the pleasure of welcoming Alain Juillet, former Director of Intelligence at the French General Directorate for External Security, and former senior official in charge of economic intelligence. Hello Alain.
Alain Juillet: Hello.
BF: Welcome first of all, this is the first time we've done an interview together. I'm very pleased to be able to welcome you with your degree of expertise on the subject, and I think we're going to have quite a lively debate. But first of all, I think there's a real disconnect between French society and intelligence, and even public concern. Could you explain to our audience what foreign intelligence services are and what economic intelligence in particular is?
AJ: Intelligence is something that has always existed. When the first men attacked the mammoths, they couldn't attack them on the plains. They had to look for places where they could attack the mammoths without getting killed. They had to look for gorges, small valleys and so on. To do that, they had to find out the mammoth's itinerary - they had to gather intelligence. Clearly, intelligence is one of the oldest professions in the world.
In some countries, intelligence has always been considered important. The Anglo-Saxon countries in particular, but not only - the Chinese too, since Sun Tzu. On the other hand, there are countries where intelligence has not been taken seriously for a very long time, particularly France. For a long time in France, intelligence was considered to be a bit of a strange thing, not very serious, with strange people, the barbouzes if you like.
It wasn't until the first Gulf War that the then Minister of Defense, Pierre Joxe, realized that the French had no intelligence at all, while the Americans and British had plenty. This was extremely dangerous for our armies, because it's easier to fight if you know who your enemy is, and where he is, than if you know nothing at all. He decided to restart intelligence in France, and since then, slowly, people have started to realize that intelligence is important.
Since the 2000s, there has been a gradual second phase. We realized that French companies were being taken over, companies were being bought out; we were losing contracts abroad, to people who didn't hesitate to use any means to find out what we were doing, what our companies were doing. At some point, we figured we had to do economic intelligence too, otherwise we would lose every battle we fight, because in today's battles, in whatever field, the one who wins is the one who is best informed.
So, there's a gradual awareness, but, granted, in France, we're starting from a very long way off, if you like. To give you an example, in England, the best graduates from Cambridge and Oxford, from the great English universities, go on to work in the intelligence services. Today, at Polytechnique or ENA, well, that wasn't the case until very recently.
BF: That's a good question, by the way. How can a candidate apply for intelligence?
AJ: There are official applications. Every year, applications are posted on the Internet, and positions are advertised for those wishing to enter the intelligence services. What's more, once you've completed your studies at those prestigious schools, you can apply directly to join the intelligence services. So, today, we welcome candidates from a wide range of backgrounds. There are experts, specialists, generalists, graduates of business and engineering schools, because they know they'll be gaining valuable knowledge. Even if they decide at some point, this experience can be very useful in their career, because you really do learn a lot.
BF: And there's a whole list of positions for various profiles with specific skills that, for good measure, I recommend my audience to go and see for themselves.
AJ: Absolutely.
BF: Where does this French mistrust of government administration come from when it comes to intelligence? I had no idea.
AJ: There are several reasons for this. Firstly, when an intelligence service conducts operations abroad, these are generally secret. Obviously, the intention to monitor developments on the other side is not disclosed. So, when an operation is launched, such as contacting a guerrilla group in a given country, it is crucial to understand not only the state's position, but also that of the opponents.
If agents are discovered, the local state will attack the French government, crying foul. Even if the agents were simply there to establish contacts, this will cause a scandal. Politicians, seeking to avoid responsibility, may fire a few people, but their image has already been tarnished at that point, and they don't like that.
There's a well-known story in France, that of the Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace ship sunk in New Zealand. This incident created a huge scandal that greatly damaged the French state at the time. The ministers involved pretended to know nothing about it, sacked the heads of the intelligence services and blamed them for the incident. In reality, that was a maneuver, but it demonstrated that a botched operation, however rare, can be catastrophic. So governments are wary, because if anything goes wrong, they know they'll be the first to suffer.
BF: As you mentioned, information has always been part of human activity. But since the emergence of social networks and the multiplication of information-sharing channels, we're really witnessing propaganda wars being waged to influence populations.
AJ: Absolutely.
BF: What is the role of intelligence services in this new territory of conflict?
AJ: The intelligence services' mission is to inform the State, because they work for it. Their aim is to provide the state with as much information as possible, so that it can make informed decisions and formulate solid positions on the problems it faces. Rarely does anyone have all the information they need, but even a minor addition can have a significant impact.
Let's take a contemporary example: the war in Ukraine. The Americans announced that war was about to break out, while the Europeans said it was not immediate due to unfavorable weather conditions. In reality, the Americans had a source of information close to Putin. They knew Putin's position, while the Europeans relied on things like weather conditions. In this way, one side had more information than the other, illustrating the importance of data in decision-making.
BF: One of the reasons for the public's distrust of the intelligence services is, of course, their secrecy. Why does a democracy need secrecy? Because, in the Platonic concepts of the creation of democracy, the presence of intelligence services does not exist. Why does a democracy need secrecy in its operations?
AJ: There were forms of intelligence in those days, but the means were quite different from those of today. An illustrative example is the history of the marathon, a race that has become very popular today. Back then, the marathon reflected the history of the Greeks.
When the Athenians won a battle against their opponents, it was crucial to notify Athens immediately so that they could prepare for what was to come. In those days, there were no radio or telephone links. So how did they go about it? They would send out a runner who had to run 42 km with all his might to reach Athens and relay the news: "We've just won, here's the situation." It was a primitive but effective form of intelligence gathering.
BF: In this case, we were talking about the need for secrecy to cover up operations.
AJ: The thing is, there are things you can't say. There are things you can't say because people wouldn't necessarily understand them. People are more and more qualified, they have more and more information, they are more and more efficient in their analyses, as we can see in the population. Nevertheless, there are some things that people shouldn't be told because they could cause problems, if you like. Because in life, the world isn't kind, the world doesn't offer gifts. There are things that happen that make you wonder, if you like, and it's not a good idea for the public to realize the reality of what's going on, because the reality is often awful. Let me give you an example. There have recently been coups in Africa, for example in Niger. In Niger, we were kicked out, to say the least. The people took power, a military junta took power and said "we don't want the French any more".
Well, the French protested, you'll recall, at the time, the President said "this is unacceptable, oh, you just wait" and so on. At the same time, the Americans sent a Secretary of State to Niger to tell them: "hey, you can do what you want with the French, but you can keep us because we have a very important military base in Agadez, which allows us to monitor the whole area. So you leave us alone. We agree with you, we won't say anything, you can do your evil deed, we won't say anything."
Well, in terms of reason, it's totally immoral for a Western ally to let down its ally who, until now, has ensured the security of the area. It's immoral. Well, can you tell everyone, can the President say: "Not only are we going to defend ourselves in Niger, but I'm going to crack down on the Americans, because what they've just done is unacceptable". Of course not, we're not going to speak ill of our allies. So, there are things you have to keep secret.
If you send French special forces to a theater of operations in a foreign war, and you send 2-3 people to find out what's going on, it's obvious that you're not going to say on French television "we've sent a special forces team there to see what's going on". For example, to Bakhmout, Marioupol or wherever. Of course not, you say nothing. So the protection of secrecy, if you like, is necessary. And we have to be careful, the story of absolute transparency, which is regularly trotted out these days, is complete nonsense. You can't have absolute transparency. If you study history, then I know that current trends, Woke and others, mean that we no longer talk about history. But if you look at history, every time we've tried to have total transparency somewhere, it's ended in dictatorship. It always does. And I'll give you a personal example, not personal to me, but for your listeners, the listeners who live as a couple, over a weekend, do you swear to each other, or each other, or one another as you like, do you swear to tell each other face to face, everything that goes through your mind from the moment you wake up until you go to bed. So absolutely anything you can think of, either way. Well, I guarantee that by the end of the two days, you'll be separated. We know the secret, we practice it ourselves. There are things we can't say. You think things yourself, you think things, and then you say to yourself: "no, I can't say them because it'll shock people to their face, it's unacceptable", or "no, I can still think it, but I shouldn't think it". There are lots of things like that, the individual is the way he is. The notion of secrecy, if you like, is the protection of things. Now, that doesn't mean you have to exaggerate secrecy, it doesn't mean you have to keep everything secret, that's not it at all.
Some things have to be kept secret.
BF: At what point can we objectively consider that there is an excess of secrecy? Is there a scale that can be used to determine that we're starting to go beyond what is normally covered by secrecy, or is it entirely subjective each time?
AJ: No, I don't think it's subjective. Depending on the experts you ask, they would give you different criteria. Each one, with his expertise, will give you criteria that correspond to him. But there's no doubt that secrecy shouldn’t be abused. We can see that. You can't say, or we can't constantly say, "Oh no, we can't tell you about that, it's secret. Because at some point, people will say "That's enough". So there are things you have to say, but you have to know that there are limits. You have to know how to set limits, in other words, you have to say "well, I can talk about this, but I can't talk about that”, or "I can't talk about it today, but I'll be able to talk about it in a while." Look at what's happening right now. Look, it's interesting, the October 7 affair in Israel. There's such emotion, such horror, such emotion, such feeling, that you can't technically talk today about everything that happened, on all sides. Because you're immediately attacked. You're immediately seen as pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, ugly or nice, whatever. In three years, in five years, we'll be able to reveal - because there are things we know - we'll be able to reveal a certain number of things that will shed considerable light on what happened.
BF: Yes, we've seen articles in the American press about the fact that there was information that was known before the operations.
AJ: Exactly, for example, we know that the Israeli services, on the one hand, knew what was going to happen. And we also know that the Egyptians warned them, for example - twice. They warned the Israelis, or they warned the ministers, saying "be careful, something's going to happen that day", but the others didn't believe it. So they didn't believe it, but to what extent and how? We have proof that they didn't believe it. A military camp, three military camps in fact, were attacked by the Palestinians, by the Hamas guys. There were three military camps, there was war, and the Israelis were massacred. So that means they were totally unprepared. One of the questions we'll have to answer is how come, when they'd been warned by Mossad, they'd been warned by the Egyptians, how come they weren't on the alert - at least ? There's a problem here, you see, we're getting into areas where we can't talk any more, given the passions of one side or the other, until such time as the passion has subsided, the emotion has subsided, we'll come back to the facts. Because intelligence, let's not forget, intelligence is where today's drama lies, intelligence is something factual, we're not here to judge emotions, we're not here to say it's good or it's bad, especially not, we're not here to judge, we're here to gather facts and give decision-makers the facts. After that, it's up to the decision-maker to decide, based on policy, whether to go one way or the other.
BF: But does the responsibility then fall on the politicians or the intelligence services?
AJ: Well, when it's a political strategy, it falls on the politicians, but if the information is false, it's the intelligence services who are responsible. But if the information is wrong, it's really intelligence that's responsible. And for intelligence to provide information, it has to be factual; if it starts interpreting it, it's bad, you see? That's what I was telling you earlier, so you can see the difference with the level of information, what I was telling you earlier about the war in Ukraine. When the Americans, because they have an informer close to Putin, say "he's going to attack", the Europeans, who have information on the ground and so on, but who have no direct information about Putin's environment, what they see is that, technically, the military cannot attack in such conditions.
BF: What's more, this conflict is also being instrumentalized on a grand scale: the United States is using Ukraine to weaken Russia, and Russia is using Hamas to weaken Israel, which has weakened the United States.
AJ: But what you're saying here, for example, is analysis, and you're right to do it, but the service itself has to be factual, i.e. it has to say here's what's going on, here are the risks in Ukraine, here are the assessments, here's what we're doing, you see? He doesn't say he's doing this or that, no. He says this is what we see. He's saying this is what we see, this is the reality of what we see. After that, everyone can do what they want with it.
BF: Is it the politician who analyzes the information?
AJ: The politician makes the final decision.
BF: Right. Oh yes, okay. Oh yes, they have a lot more responsibility, in fact.
AJ: The intelligence analyst, if you like, makes a factual analysis, saying: "Here's what we see, here's the situation". Then, based on this situation, the politician, or the general in the army, the strategist, if you like, will say: "based on these elements, and knowing the other elements I have at my disposal, I decide to do this."
BF: Right. There's another thing that I don't think the public is aware of, and that's the extent to which France, as a country, is - I'll use the term attacked - attacked by rival interests, but in the very broadest sense of the term, i.e. in terms of influencing opinion, but also in terms of conquering market share. In fact, we don't see much in the French press of what we find in the international press, which tells how attacks occur between countries for economic conquests, since you were talking about economic intelligence, but which have a huge impact on geopolitics, since these are contracts that are supported above all by States. So I find it hard to understand why, in France, this subject seems to be absent from the media.
AJ: So, it comes from the fact that the media, if you like, the French media, are not investigative media. Most of them are ideological media, not investigative media. That's the problem. In a number of countries, you have media that do research. In France, you have investigative research. Mediapart, for example, is an investigative newspaper. But it's ideological investigation because it's totally biased. Mediapart is one side. I'm not saying it's badly done, but systematically, the faults and the investigations are systematically on one side. Clearly, they're not going to talk about everyone. That's the difference. In the United States or in other countries, in England or elsewhere, in democratic countries, of course, you're going to have people coming up with very interesting things. Take the United States, for example, on the Israel affair, the war with Hamas. They've come up with things that we've never come up with here, precisely because it raises questions.
BF: On the international scene, to what extent is France attacked by other countries? I think there's an idea among the population that we're in a zone of peace within the European Union and that, as a result, everything's fine between neighbors.
AJ: That's not true at all. Look, I'll show you a terrible example. Nuclear power. We were world leaders in nuclear power and had the cheapest electricity in the world. Not bad. It wasn't bad because it meant lower production costs. Technically speaking, when the cost of producing energy is lower than that of other sources, the trade-off is that for the same selling price, you have a little more margin to pay salaries and so on, or social costs. What did the Germans do? The Germans didn't have nuclear power, they didn't want it. So the German government paid two German state institutes, i.e. major state organizations, to finance anti-nuclear campaigns in France through NGOs. They succeeded perfectly, because as you've seen, in France we said: "we've got to stop nuclear power", we had a president who said: "I'm shutting down power plants", we even had the current president who, before changing his mind, shut down a power plant, Fessenheim. So we've had everything for 20 years, we've had attacks on nuclear power all the time. But these attacks, the good people, the honest people, thought they were people who had thought things through and were convinced. Not at all, these people were paid by Germany. So, among those who told us "it's not right", in the NGOs, there were of course honest people who really believed in it, but what they didn't know was that the money for their NGO came from the Germans, who were funding them to destroy the French nuclear industry. And what for? To replace the French nuclear industry with gas-fired power plants, because they were working with the Russians to set up a terrible trap, which was to bring gas to Germany via the famous Nord Stream, and then from Germany, supply gas to the whole of Europe. And, of course, to earn royalties and drive up prices in France, because gas-fired power plants cost more than nuclear power, so they were ruining French industry. This is a true story, it's true, we have all the proof, it's been proven. We haven't talked about it much, to say the least. We only started talking about it a few months ago, even though it's been going on for years and everyone knew about it, in limited circles of course.
BF: I think it's really important for people to realize that a country's only ally is itself.
AJ: Churchill, De Gaulle, all the great statesmen we've known in different countries have said it: a country has no friends. We have enemies, we have partners from time to time, but we never have friends. Everyone defends their own interests, and that's normal. When you close a factory in your area, you create unemployment. When you take over a factory that's here and we send it, I don't know, it gets bought out, it goes to Turkey, Poland or the United States, they get the jobs and we lose them. So it's a war, we're in an economic war. Today, we have to realize that we are in an economic war. It's not just China against the United States, it's all countries against each other. That's what we have to realize.
BF: And by the way, it was quite funny, because last year, there was a former CIA officer who started doing the rounds of American podcasts. And the message he kept repeating every time he was interviewed was that, in the field of economic intelligence, the biggest threat from the United States was France. And so, I thought it was quite interesting that the CIA should decide to spread this message on all private platforms, since you were at the helm when he was in operation. How do you explain the fact that, at a time when the United States has huge economic conflicts with China, it decided to point the finger at France as the main economic threat?
AJ: So, for the Americans, if you like, it's very simple. There are two enemies. The Republicans' enemy is China, and the Democrats' enemy is Russia. That much is clear. Well, that's the first thing. But behind that, they have all the countries, the other countries in the world, that they consider should be controlled by the United States, if you like. Economically, there's America, which has to pull through. And then the others, after that, they're vassals, if you like, they're subsidiaries. So that's very clear. They have an assertive policy. They're not shy about saying so. And if you like, that's what's a bit embarrassing, it's that you have a country that unashamedly affirms what it's doing. The Americans, they speak? We listen. I remember there was an American senator who was told: "But that's scandalous. You listen to your economic allies. They said, "Yes, because we're convinced that you're corrupt, that you don't play by the rules. So it's only natural that we should listen to you.” Well, that was obviously a fallacious argument. The truth was that they listened to everything we did to try and steal our contracts.
BF: Yes, yes, it caused a scandal at the time with Angela Merkel being spied on by German facilities under the control of US operations.
AJ: But they do it all the time. When you had the Pegasus affair, people attacked Morocco in particular, they said "Morocco", but when I see people listening to the cell phones of the Presidents of the Republic, we know very well where that comes from. It's coming from the very great powers, so, through intermediaries, because there too, to avoid admitting that it's them, they don't hesitate to use classic relays.
BF: So, I really wanted to have this first part where we could have a very general view of the situation, because I don't think we can really talk about UAP as a field disconnected from geopolitics, given how it's interwoven within it.
AJ: You know - excuse me for interrupting - for a very long time, in Europe in particular, there was a writer, a strategist called Clausewitz, who said "war is the continuation of politics by other means". But today, with modern means, if you like, in all fields, the fields of artificial intelligence, everything, the Internet, it's obvious that war is global. If you like, today we can no longer say that there is politics, then military warfare. No. Everything is done together. Look at the war in Ukraine: there's a military war with NATO against the Russians, but on the other hand, there's an economic war, with a series of sanctions. Okay, they don't work, that's another story, but we are imposing sanctions. So we're mixing economic warfare with military warfare and political warfare. So it's clear that we're part of a whole.
BF: All the more so since the Second World War, when it became clear that war was one of the most economically efficient means of production-destruction, since every missile fired had to be replaced, and so compulsory financing was put in place.
AJ: Of course we do. Moreover - and that brings in a lot of money - look at the Ukraine affair for example. You've got the Europeans, we've given equipment to the Ukraine. That's why we don't give a lot elsewhere. We give equipment to the Ukrainian army. But the Americans don't give equipment. They lend the equipment with a plan. You have to pay for it. At the end of the war, the Ukrainians will be obliged to reimburse the Americans for all the investments they've made. And I guarantee you that the Americans will make sure they pay. No doubt. The Ukrainian state will have to pay. And from that point on, of course, it's clear that we're in a conflict that doesn't simply pay off, or that we don't simply win militarily.
BF: One of the most tense subjects on the international scene at the moment, where the intelligence services of various powers are at work, is the subject of UAP (unidentified aerospace phenomena). Could you explain how these UAP are a challenge to the national security of the various countries that encounter them?
AJ: It's very simple. All countries, without exception, with their allies or on their own, must defend their territory, their sovereignty if you like, and prevent anyone from coming into their territory, without them being able to defend themselves, to do whatever they want. That much is clear. That's why we monitor our borders, land borders, sea borders and space borders, air borders. So we have an air force, an army and a navy. And each of the three ensures the security of its zone so that nobody can reasonably get in and do what they want on our territory. The terrible thing about unidentified objects, whether flying or unidentified, is that our armies are incapable of responding to these systems. In other words, we're faced with something we have no control over. And that's very serious, because it means we can't control them. If they're aggressive, which at the moment they're not, but if they ever get aggressive, we can run like hell, because we don't know how to stop them. So this poses a huge problem for national security in every country.There was a time, after the Second World War, when we regularly received reports of unidentified craft, unidentified objects. But at the time, we used to say, and this has always been the case, we used to say, this is strange, but maybe it's witnesses who were hallucinating. They had abused alcohol, red wine, cigarettes, whatever. Nevertheless, even back then, eyebrows would raise when very serious people would speak up, and there were some, particularly in the military and the air force, who would tell you, "I saw this, it was next to my aircraft, it was like this". And then we'd say to ourselves: "Come on, these people aren't crazy, they're serious. What could it be?" But we thought, well, on the face of it, there was no problem. So we let it go. What's happened over the last 20 years is that our measurement systems, our identification systems, our tracking systems have developed considerably with modern means. And so we have more and more identified and verified cases of unidentified flying objects. In other words, we have, if you like, more and more cases today where we say, yes, something did indeed happen, and here's the information we've been able to gather on it. This poses real problems. And it poses real problems because, obviously, the response at military level, or when the politician asks the question to the soldier and says, "Well, what do you do about it? And the other one says: "but I can't do anything because I don't know, I have no way of preventing it."
BF: It's reminiscent of what happened in February of last year now, in the northern U.S. where the U.S. decided to shoot down objects without even formally identifying them.
AJ: Yes, with balloons, the famous balloons?
BF: That's right, we're still outside the U.S. military doctrine.
AJ: Not only are they outside the doctrine, but they've even crossed the line in terms of international legality, since normally, we consider that the protected airspace, in which countries have control, is 30 km, 30,000 m. Above that, we're in space, and there are international agreements that say that in space, you can't shoot at each other. Above that, we're in airspace, and international agreements stipulate that we can't shoot at each other in airspace. Until the day we start shooting at each other, you might say. But for the moment, it's very clear that space is neutral. So when the Americans fired on the balloons, they were over 30,000 m away. So they destroyed objects flying beyond the limits within which they were legally authorized to do so. That's the first problem. Well, the answer is: "yes, but in any case, it was over our house, they had just spent two or three days flying over American territory, they were spying on us". Right. What's really interesting is that they shot at these balloons. They sent in high-altitude fighters, which fired missiles. And they had the famous balloons fall back to earth. So, I don't know if you noticed, but there was no comment on what they found in the remains that fell to the ground. And that's very interesting, because on the one hand, it shows that it wasn't, as they said, spy balloons, because if it had been Chinese spy balloons, they would have immediately put out the information saying, "You see, these are Chinese spy balloons, they had all the equipment to film and watch what we have here". But they didn't say anything about it. This proves that these balloons were not spy balloons. So, were they weather balloons, as the Chinese say? It's possible, it's weird but it's possible. Was it something else? We don't know.
BF: In fact, there have been cases on the West Coast of the United States where fighters claimed to be observing UAP, and in fact, after examination, they were Chinese-equipped drones, disguised as UAP, because knowing that the pilots didn't want to report having observed UAP in flight, they had disguised them as UAP. And we also have the opposite case, i.e. the United States using new stealth helicopter prototypes to carry out operations, disguising them as UAP so as not to be reported to the military authorities of the various countries. So, we're in a situation where the information is much more confusing than it might appear.
AJ: Oh yes, that's why I'm telling you that, in any case, all the major countries in the world have spotted unidentified objects, or "UAP" as they call them over there. Well, they've spotted UAP and they've measured them, so you have to be careful, there are a number of observations that have been made by control systems, I wouldn't say human, not visual, but automatic, infrared spotting systems, well, systems for spotting waves, wave emissions and so on. So, in a certain number of cases, we have machines with flight characteristics and direct characteristics, if you like, of machines that are completely different from what we know. Well, that's one thing. Then, of course, there are the smart guys, the big powers, who say to themselves: "But after all, why don't we use them, why don't we camouflage the tests we carry out, or even without camouflaging them, why don't we say they're UAP". When the Americans started launching, for example, testing their famous fighters that fly under the radar - stealth fighters - well, it's clear that when they started testing these machines, that was on test bases in California. The others, who didn't know about it, spotted flying machines that didn't have the shape of an airplane, because they no longer had wings, rudders and so on... well, they didn't have the shape of an airplane, they were moving very fast, so they thought they were UFOs. But when they spot them and then the air force takes a look and makes a study of the craft in question, very quickly the Air Force realizes that that’s a US craft, from an experimentation center somewhere. For the others, it'll remain an unidentified flying object, but for the air force, they'll know very well that it's not true, but after all, if the others believe it, so much the better. Same for the Chinese, same for the others, the difference is when you have what we saw with the Nimitz affair, that they showed in the films, what's very interesting about the Nimitz affair, is that it's the first time they really showed things taken by the navy - not the Air Force, you have to be careful because the air force doesn't talk, it's the U.S. Navy that talks a lot more, and when the Nimitz affair happened, they showed two flying objects against which they sent fighters piloted by top pros, they were a commander and a chief instructor, so they weren't just kids, who spotted them, who took measurements, if you like, from a distance, by locking their center, their firing system, their measurement system on these flying objects and who saw, and who filmed, I'm not interested in the flight in the air where they zigzag, what interests me is when they enter the water and without slowing down, they continue underwater and then come out. We're always talking about unidentified flying objects, but we now have a large number of reports of unidentified marine objects, i.e. devices that are underwater and traveling at absolutely incredible speeds.
BF: I couldn't agree more. For me, that's a fundamental characteristic, because that's what objectively differentiates what could be a cutting-edge technology, whether for radar disturbances or for their very high performance, from a technology that is radically different from anything else we can obtain. In other words, we have a few objects capable of switching from marine to aerial environments, but with extremely degraded performance; we have no object capable of switching from one environment to another without even slowing down.
AJ: That's it, exactly, and what's more, if we go a little further, for example, in the observations that have been made of devices like this, we've noticed that when they come out of the water, there's no trace of water, so that means they're with a bubble, if I can put it that way. The Russians have a high-speed torpedo that works like this: you create a kind of plasma bubble around the torpedo, so that it no longer works in water, but in a bubble that's not water, but plasma. They're the only ones who know how to do this at the moment, and this torpedo is formidable, because it obviously goes much faster than anything else we have available, but what we're talking about, effectively, goes much faster still, and so we have testimonials, and we know that there isn't a country capable of doing this today, so if you like, we know it's something else. That's why, back to the problem of national security I was talking about at the start, today's major countries can't ignore this problem. There have never been any aggressions, there have never been any assaults, although there is a dark story of a helicopter being shot at by a ray. But it's very, very, very... In Italy, but it's very suspicious. But apart from that, there's been no story since 1945. There's no story of a device firing, of a UAP destroying anything. So, for the moment, they're observing, but they're not being aggressive.
BF: We'll come back to that, because I found some pretty interesting cases. I don't know if you've noticed, but just as the Air Force doesn't talk about what's in the air, the US Navy talks about what's in the air, but completely refuses to talk about what's underwater.
AJ: Absolutely, and we know they've spotted them. Even beyond that, they've spotted extremely high-speed UAP underwater, circulating underwater. Apparently, they have a number of very interesting testimonies, but they don't talk about them. It's true that there is a kind of... It's very curious because, in the end, there are... They don't talk about things that ultimately concern them less, as you say. The navy talks about flying machines, but not marine machines. It's a bit weird. And the air force doesn't talk at all.
BF: Yes, and all the more so as we know that the American navy had incredible submarine reconnaissance resources during the Cold War. The real fear was Russian nuclear submarines. We know that all the oceans are under surveillance.
AJ: Exactly, we have underwater listening systems to monitor the nuclear submarines of other countries, so that today, we monitor everything that happens. Look, when a submarine has an incident or a major accident and sinks, for example, a few days or a few months later, we learn that, well yes, we heard an explosion 3200 kilometers away, at such and such a place and at such and such a position. They have the means to track everything. So, obviously, they have information on this, but they don't talk about it. And then we're back to secrecy. And I think it's because, since they don't know what it is, they don't want to scare people. Oh yeah, right. It's true that if we told people - we don't know where they're going, we don't know where they're coming from, we don't know where they're going to. Maybe there's something else below us, on land, that is not us. Well, obviously, then people would panic. So we prefer not to say anything. We'll say, "Okay, we'll talk about it when we know more.”
BF: Do you think it's realistic to imagine people would panic? Because to be honest, a lot of information has come out since then. Nothing radical, but I haven't seen the slightest hint of panic in any country to which the information has been released.
AJ: I agree with you, but what's more, if you like, there are some people who say on this subject that the Americans, gradually over the last ten years, through spokesmen like Elizondo and others, gradually, the Americans are starting to release information to accustom the population, their population, but it's the same in other countries. Gradually, to accustom them to one day discovering a reality, "there may be, we may be with things that are more advanced than us and we don't know what it is". Which poses a problem still.
But once people are prepared, why should they worry if we're going to tell them, “well yes, there are things happening around us that we see from time to time, but they're not aggressive, they're not attacking us, so you're not going to worry” ? People will say, "What's that?” Then we'll move on to something else. Is it people who live on Earth? Is it another world? Is it people from other planets? In fact, anything is possible. But that's another story, if you like. As far as the intelligence services are concerned - as I said, we're factual. So the intelligence service won't tell you that it's another world, that it comes from somewhere else, no. We report what we see today.
BF: So, to come back to what we were talking about before, there are some cases that have been left out, because I think they're quite disturbing, but on the other hand, they're highly reliable, because they've been investigated by government or federal authorities in the various states. So in South America, we have cases from the Acre area, where people have encountered luminous spheres and suffered burns and even blindness. These cases were investigated by the Brazilian Federal Police. A little further on, there's the case of Colares, investigated by the Air Force, where light rays of some kind have burned people. And on the other side of the Atlantic, we had the case of Beridiam in Senegal and the case of Eritrea, which is even further away in Africa. In both cases, an object destroyed a village, causing a sort of mini-tornado on the spot and toppling the houses. And if we look for - and this is a subjective analysis, but if we look for similarities - these phenomena act differently depending on the population where they take place. Where the population is very poor, with few means of communication, the phenomenon seems to demonstrate its technical means. And when they're in areas that are much more developed, with better means of communication, they're much more elusive, or even, we get the impression that when they make contact, they try to show themselves to be benevolent and interested in the environment. Is there any way of considering these two completely different behaviors within the same scheme?
AJ: No, that's where we get into the difficulty of what's going on today. What you're talking about are operations that have already taken place and been validated by local authorities. The problem, then, is people's capacity for analysis. We have to be careful about people's capacity for analysis according to their culture, their cultural level - as you were saying earlier, their living conditions.
BF: Yes, it's the desert on one side and the deepest jungle on the other.
AJ: Let's just say they haven't benefited, the unfortunate ones, they haven't been lucky enough to have training, schools and the like. So they live like... they live miserably, they eat, they don't get enough to eat, they live in appalling conditions. Of course, these people, who have no training whatsoever, tend to take a phenomenon and amplify it, precisely because they're incapable of understanding it. Nowadays, if you see something in the sky that emits lights that move very quickly and so on, people aren't shocked, they'll say first it's a plane, then it's a satellite, oh no, it's not a satellite, what if it's a UFO, a UAP ? Well, that doesn't shock them any more, if you like, but because we're talking about it - the proof is in the pudding, you make programs about it - so people have a technical knowledge that others don't have. And I think it plays a role, if you like. I remember, you know the Papuans, a very long time ago, French ethnologists, 40-50 years ago, had been to Papua, they had discovered that there was a population that knew absolutely nothing about civilization. Of course, they had seen airplanes flying overhead, and for them, the plane had become God, the representation of God, and they worshipped the plane, it was a primitive population that worshipped the plane, and then there was, instead of attributes, there was the reproduction of an airplane that you saw in the sky, and everyone said it's God, it was their Christ. Well, obviously, these people, if you see someone getting off the plane, or if the plane starts doing something, or shines in the sun because the sun is reflecting off the plane, and when you look at the sun you burn your eyes, there are lots of things, I'm not trying to excuse, but I mean, you have to be very careful - testimonies, you know, it's something, even when you validate them in a certain way… Well, there was something, that's for sure, in all these cases, there's no doubt. We have to be careful about the reality of everything that's been said about the reliability of the testimony.
BF: Since the Church Committee in the USA, we know that the ethical standards of the American intelligence and armed services are relatively low, given that they have carried out experiments on their own population, but since the Church Committee, they can no longer experiment on their own population. However, that doesn't mean they can't experiment on others. Do you think some of these characteristics could be explained by platform experiments?
AJ: That's why I'm suspicious. When I say I'm very suspicious, it's because... I'll tell you a story. I remember, a long time ago, when the first helicopters came out, French helicopters, especially in France, when there were night flights of helicopters for the special forces and others, what did people who were quietly at home in the countryside see? They saw a deafening noise, the blades of the helicopter, they saw a flame, it was the flame of the nozzle, it was nighttime, it seemed to arrive very quickly, it slowed down, it landed on the ground, it was the time for the guys to be disembarked from the helicopter, it took off again and it accelerated again. But I guarantee you, back then, people thought they were flying saucers. A special force landing in a field in the countryside was, as I've just described to you, a flying saucer. If certain countries have devices, if they're working on devices using lasers for example, a laser is a beam of light that can destroy a certain number of things. There are combat lasers. If you say here, I'm going to put one on a helicopter and then I'm going to test the helicopter in an area, obviously I can't do that at home, I'm going to test it, I'm going to go and destroy a village in a remote corner of the world, these are unfortunate people, nobody will know anything about it, it's morally horrible but it's classic and it's definitely been done, it's certain that it's already been done by certain countries that don't have much regard for morality.
BF: I think it's important that the whole spectrum of possible causes be presented to the audience.
AJ: I'm very suspicious. I'm not saying there's nothing going on in these wretched countries, I'm saying that I'm inclined to be factual, but what interests me is when there are testimonies and measurements in countries that can be considered as… whose people are sufficiently educated to be credible, you know what I mean? I'm not saying that the others aren't, but there's less doubt, there's less doubt in the analysis we can make. When an air force pilot or, an astronaut, who's a highly-trained guy, tells you “I've seen something and it was really weird”, and then you find out afterwards that he's been told not to talk about it, that makes me wonder.
BF: Within these very low-ethical programs that the U.S. had, one of the programs called MILAB, abductions by military forces, was trying to find out what the psychological resistance limit was of an individual being abducted. Do you think this type of program and this type of experimentation could explain what some people perceive as abductions by non-human intelligences?
AJ: No, I don't know anything about that, so I honestly can't give you an answer. Especially since, if you like, experiments involving sensory deprivation and the deprivation of many things have been carried out. It's not the best thing in research, to say the least. But unfortunately, I think it's been done more on prisoners than anything else. I think Guantanamo, for example, hasn't been talked about much, but it was a very interesting place for this kind of experimentation. Guantanamo wasn't just about physical torture, if you like.
BF: No, absolutely, absolutely. From memory, we have a witness who was able to describe in drawings the different experiments he was doing, and no, it was all very psychological.
AJ: Yes, because it's true that when you manage to break someone psychologically, it avoids having to resort to other methods, that's clear. Now, there's been experience of this, as you mentioned earlier, the CIA experimented with LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs in the United States, which caused a scandal. Well, it was banned, so we can assume that since it was banned, they no longer practiced it on Americans or on American territory. But experience with Al Qaeda showed that when the Americans had regulations in the U.S. forbidding them to do so, they tortured people in prisons in foreign countries.
BF: Yes, there were even facilities in Europe that were under American control.
AJ: Which raises another moral question.
BF: Absolutely. Speaking of the CIA, I think the first time we had a sort of finger pointed at the CIA was in 1971, when we had an Australian intelligence scientist, Harry Turner, who had been tasked with finding out who was responsible for manipulating opinion on the subject of UFOs, and who pointed the finger at CIA operations, saying that after three years of investigation, everything pointed to the CIA, and that's in an official Australian intelligence report. Recently, sources have also indicated that a CIA office called OGA, the Office of Global Operations, was responsible for recovering UFO debris. Do you think this would be consistent with the CIA's foreign intelligence missions?
AJ: The debris thing, yes, of course. When you have this story, when you have what I was telling you, there's a national security problem. So we say, well, these machines, we tell you, there have been times when they've broken down, when they've broken down, when they've been destroyed, when they've hit the ground at one point or another. What, of course, is the immediate thought? It's “wait, if they've been somewhere, we can find pieces of them somewhere, we've got to go and retrieve them”. So it's obvious that every department in the world is interested in recovering pieces. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, because in these pieces, we'll be able to see the alloys used. Because everyone's asking the question today, it's very likely that one of the means used, the means of moving these machines shows, given their flight trajectories, their behavior, that they've solved the problem of gravitation. That much is clear. So, for this, there are necessarily... There are also alloys that correspond to this. Alloys that prevent the effect of gravity, that neutralize gravity in one form or another. And the effect of gravity. So, if you recover parts of the machine, you'll be able to see, by studying the alloys, perhaps find some. And discover that these alloys may be made with minerals that exist on Earth, or perhaps they're alloys with things we don't know. You see? So that's it. So, of course everyone's interested. We know that the Americans have... Now, thanks to the testimony of a recent whistle-blower to the US Congress, we've had confirmation that everything seems to indicate, in any case, that the Americans have recovered pieces, or even a whole device, but I don't know if that's true, we don't know, since we haven't had confirmation, but in any case, in what the witness said, and which was later repeated by another witness, they would have recovered a whole device in Italy after the war, and they would have recovered pieces of the device in several places. I think if they're doing it, I think the Chinese are doing it, and the Russians must be doing it too, because today, as the Chinese have acknowledged, there's an office in the Chinese services working on this, and the Russians talked about it a few years ago, and said yes, we're working on it too. So all the major countries in the world, and that's obvious today, because from an industrial and technological point of view, it could perhaps enable us to make some interesting advances and begin to understand how it works. For defense manufacturers, that’s definitely very interesting.
BF: France also has projection capabilities. In your opinion, does our country have a recovery program similar to those of the United States, Russia and China?
AJ: Honestly, I don't know, I don't think so, but I don't know, I'm not going to tell you if it's good or bad, I don't know.
BF: Admiral Tim Gallaudet said last month that "we're being visited by a non-human intelligence with technology we don't really understand, and whose intentions also elude us". Do you share his point of view?
AJ: It's a bit like, when you look at everything we've just said, when you consult everything we've just said, all the facts we've mentioned, the real question is this: we're faced with something we don't understand, well, we know it exists, there's no doubt now, if you like, we can't say it's dreams, no, no, now we know it exists. We don't know what it is, but we know it exists. So the real question is, well, how can it turn out? We're back to the original problem. It simply sums up a global position which is the result of everything we've just said.
BF: Recently, former Defense Secretary Miller said that one of his biggest regrets was not asking to be briefed on the subject when he was in office, insisting that he wasn't automatically briefed on it. Do you think this type of information requires such a high level of secrecy that it would be kept away from the highest American government officials?
AJ: When I said that knowledge of alloys and the design of a craft would enable the defense industry to build such a craft within a reasonable timeframe, imagine if one of the world's major powers were capable of producing a craft with the flight characteristics we talked about earlier - a UAP. At that point, this country would have a major military advantage over the others, because although it doesn't attack anyone at the outset, this kind of craft can become aggressive if equipped for it. This means that the country that would have it would be colossally more powerful than other countries. It's a bit like the atomic bomb, when only one or two countries had it. It's an extremely serious problem, and I might as well tell you that if a country has made progress in this field, it has no interest in telling the others about it. They're not going to reveal any secrets. You know, a secret - I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that - a great author, he said: "A secret is no longer a secret from the moment it is shared by another person." So if you have three, four, ten people who know, that's one thing. If you have 500 people who know, it's not a secret anymore. There's always someone talking. In this kind of field, if you're trying to develop a UAP in a Western country or elsewhere, in Russia, China or the United States, you're not going to tell anyone. When the Americans started developing stealth fighters, which were a major development in aeronautics, it was an absolute secret for ten years. Nobody knew anything about it. That's why in California, at the time, they had spotted "UAP" that weren't UAP.
BF: Since the Schumer amendment, major American media outlets have adopted a position of defiance towards those they officially call the guardians of secrecy. Do you think public and media pressure can force the US government to take the lead in an election year?
AJ: They may feel that in the general interest, given the pressure they're under, they need to let go of something. But they won't let go of everything. At that point, the professionals will look at what can be said that poses the fewest problems for the future. What can be said that's the least engaging for what's to come. That's why I was telling you earlier that in France, in particular, I talk about it with my friends at GEPAN or 3AF. When I talk about it with them, the question we end up asking ourselves is this gradual unveiling by the Americans of a certain amount of information, because in the end, little by little, we're still learning about it, and they're showing us some, which means that the public will exert less pressure because they'll say "we've talked about it, we know there's something there, they're looking into it, it's over". There's no more pressure to say "you're not telling us anything, we want to know, we want to know".
BF: As we mentioned earlier, China and Russia have openly declared that they are studying UAP through statements of their respective armies.
AJ: Absolutely, for the same reasons. Whoever understands how it works and is able to reproduce it has a considerable military advantage over the others.
BF: All the more so since Russians were mocking the fact that the United States were rediscovering the subject today. Could there be an arms race between these nations over UAP technologies as a result?
Yes, definitely. That's why everyone wants to recover pieces of UAP, to find out about alloys, and other things, and the means, because if you recover a whole one, you can have a much deeper knowledge of a lot of things.
If we can figure out how it works, of course. Today, it's in every country's interest to do just that. When it comes to defense, all the major countries are trying to find a breakthrough weapon. The breakthrough weapon is the one that others can't stop. Today, we have Russian hypersonic missiles, for example, which have been developed, or torpedoes, as I said earlier, high-speed torpedoes, which were developed by the Russians using revolutionary techniques, what we call MHD. They worked on it and succeeded. It has to be said, moreover, that when we look at them today, the Europeans and Americans are lagging behind. Right now, we're up against a weapon that we can't stop. I might as well tell you that it's in play. I can tell you that today, the American military is playing along, because they know very well that nobody in the United States wants to laugh when faced with a hypersonic missile that could land on an American aircraft carrier and sink it.
BF: Absolutely.
AJ: So, when you're told that you're capable of stopping everything - you've got defense systems and all that - but when you're faced with a machine that nobody can stop, it's a bit of a panic, if you like. Now, it's obvious that if we were able to rebuild a UAP today, the country capable of doing so would have a terrible advantage in terms of defense, since it would annihilate all airborne resources. Can you imagine? So the hundreds of fighter jets that some countries, the big ones, have, fighter bombers, are no longer of any use. It's colossal, if you like. It's a revolution. That's why everyone is obviously watching and trying to understand.
BF: It's just that we're in a geopolitically highly charged environment, with many conflicts, many players who are also in the midst of rearmament. In this context, doesn't the misunderstanding between a UAP and an opposing aircraft violating airspace present a serious risk of escalation?
AJ: Yes, but in this case, I think UAP are equipped, obviously, according to the measurements that have been taken and some pilot testimonials, UAP know how to keep their distance. There's no risk of contact, in my opinion. There's no risk there.
BF: Got it. I was asking that because in 1973, as I recall, there was a bilateral agreement between Russia and the United States to keep abreast of UAP’s movements, precisely to avoid the problem of opening fire on an unknown object. Does this type of agreement exist between different armies, even in conflict zones, to prevent escalation?
AJ: I honestly don't know. I can't answer that, I don't know if there are any agreements and what kind of agreements there might be. What's certain is that UAP are of interest to everyone. So, from 1990-1992, after the end of the Cold War, there were lots of agreements between the Russians and the Americans, because at the time, everyone got along well. Everyone thought we were entering a peaceful world, so everyone got along well. Today, with the tensions that exist between the Chinese, the Americans and the Russians, I think it would be complicated to agree on such a procedure.
BF: I agree. Not long ago, actually last year, the French Air Force organized a conference on high-altitude objects, a month before some got in the American sky, and they noted that the environment was very poorly monitored, with few countermeasures in place. Do you think this will be the kind of development in weapons and defense systems that we'll be seeing in the next few years, given that all the world's major powers are beginning to race towards high-altitude space?
AJ: First of all, there's one thing we have to look at, and which is a problem. Today, the major powers, all the major powers - including France - have tracking systems that enable them to follow all satellites, every launch, and we monitor them not to the nearest centimeter, but to the nearest hundred meters or kilometer. And we realized that a Chinese, Russian or other satellite came close to a French satellite - and you'll recall that former Defense Minister Madame Parly was concerned about this some time ago - and went to steal its information, and recently I saw a Chinese satellite and an American satellite having the same problems. So we monitor everything, everything in space today, all the pieces in space, and the proof is that the international orbital space station, we make it evolve at certain times because it will pass through pieces, debris, and this could damage it. So we have an extraordinarily precise knowledge of what's going on in the air and in space. How come we can't spot any machines or planes that might be passing by?
BF: The Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, declared that the United States had satellite videos of UAP. How do you explain the fact that these images are not being broadcast, when if these are truly abnormal craft, they are not foreign platforms, and everyone knows that the Americans have espionage resources in orbit?
AJ: Yes, that's the problem, if you like, is that for the moment, no one has talked about it, no one has shown - so yes, Ratcliffe has talked about it a little, but no one has shown any images or informed of any measures that had been taken of UAP in space. And yet there must be some, there has to be, since we see them on the ground, we see them at altitude, there's no reason why we shouldn't see them in space. So this is yet another problem about which there's still a lot to be said, but for the moment nobody's talking about it.
BF: We've come to the same conclusion. Alain Juillet, thank you very much for this interview, thank you for your time, we know it's very precious, it's been a real pleasure. Do you have a book or a documentary to recommend to people interested in this subject, but also in geopolitics in general, i.e. a very large-scale subject where you think it would be really important for everyone to have access to this information, and that you'd like to recommend?
AJ: First of all, there are a lot of books out on UFOs and UAPs. There's my friend Luc Dini's recent book on -
BF: And we salute him, he's also a friend of the network.
AJ: And Luc has very recently published a book which is very interesting, because it takes stock of the latest developments. So I'd recommend Luc Dini's book, because for me it's a book that takes stock, and since he's an engineer, he's a very serious person, if you like, and what's more, he's the head of the 3AF commission in charge of these issues, so he knows it all inside out.
For me, he's a great specialist, and he's written an excellent book, which I think, and the reason I say this is the one to read, is because it's very straight to the point, fact-oriented if you like, and I'm an intelligence man, so I think you have to remain very factual, because it's very easy to go off in all directions, you have to be very careful. So this book seems excellent to me. I'm sorry for the great experts in geopolitics, for whom I have the greatest respect, but it's very difficult today because everything is changing. Ultimately, we're in a world that's been completely turned upside down, a world in which we're witnessing the transition - it's going to take years, but it's the transition of the G7, i.e. the Western world, the transition from a world dominated by Westerners, to a world in which emerging countries are becoming more powerful than us. The BRICS, the famous BRICS, you know the emerging countries, now have a GDP greater than that of the G7, they account for 32-33% of world GDP, they represent 40% of the world population, they account for 50% of oil and energy wealth, in short, they are in the process of overtaking us, and this is the great upheaval that is taking place, It's going to take years, it's not going to happen in three years, it's going to take years, but that is the reality, so it means that all the geopolitical concepts we've ever written, which were based on Western control of the world, are shattering, and so the geopolitical book of the future has yet to be written.
BF: In that case, I'd like to recommend Philippe Fabry's channel, which is the closest I can think of to a contemporary analyst who really takes the news and tries to decipher it day by day. The channel's audience knows him well, and he tries to offer this level of information.
AJ: I can also tell you that I have a channel too, I have a little channel on YouTube called OpenboxTV, where we do a 35-40 minute show a week with an expert to deal with current geopolitical problems, but we try to cover all areas.
BF: Perfect, we'll put the link in the description.
AJ: It's easy, openbox.tv, just type in YouTube and you'll find me.
BF: Impeccable, thank you very much Alain, it's been a real pleasure and see you soon, bye.
AJ: Thank you, goodbye.
Full video interview in French:
Translated from French by Guillaume Fournier Airaud
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0