22 September 2020
(Comité de Estudios de
Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA), Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil, Santiago, Chile)
The whole article (translated by Google Translate):
“On October 3, 2020, the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial
Phenomena (CEFAA), dependent on the General Secretariat of the General
Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), celebrates 23 years of existence.
On that day and month, but in 1997, CEFAA was born through Exempt
Resolution No. 01599 after the interest expressed by the then Commander-in-Chief
of the Chilean Air Force, Air General Fernando Rojas Vender, and by the former
Commander of that branch, General Ramón Vega Hidalgo, who determined that the
investigative body be under the authority of the DGAC.
In this way, through an official document, the then Director of the
Institution, General of the Air Brigade Gonzalo Miranda Aguirre, gave life to
CEFAA in the premises of the Aeronautical
Technical School,
in the Quinta Normal, in Santiago.
In 1996, the written press in our country published articles on 27
sightings, with an average of just over two per month, and in 1997, almost one
case was registered per month, according to data provided by engineer Pablo
Petrowitsch, one of the first scholars of this type of phenomena in Chile.
Sightings in Arica
Although 1996 was copious in reports of sightings, the decisive cases
for the creation of CEFAA occurred in late March and early April 1997. During
those days, the press published reports on lights of unknown origin over Arica for three consecutive nights and one of the
incidents was even seen by personnel from the Control Tower and by the then
head of the Chacalluta
Airport.
CEFAA’s mission is to collect, study, analyze and classify all the
information related to strange aerial phenomena reported in the national
territory, with the aim of supporting the safety of air operations in the
airspace of responsibility of the DGAC, which covers 32 million square
kilometers.
History
The first Director of CEFAA was Colonel Enzo Di Nocera and since its
birth the Air Traffic Controller Gustavo Rodríguez Navarro was linked to the
new entity, who was known within the DGAC because for decades he had been
investigating reports of anomalous aerial phenomena by personal interest.
In 1998, Air Brigade General Ricardo Bermúdez Sanhueza assumed the
leadership of ETA and also CEFAA, until February 2002. In March of that
year, CEFAA's leadership was under the command of Air Brigade General Hernán
Henríquez Cobaise, who he held that position until March 2008. During all those
years, CEFAA entered a dormant stage.
On December 15, 2009, the then Director General of Civil Aeronautics,
General of the Air Brigade José Huepe Pérez, ordered that CEFAA become directly
dependent on the General Secretariat of the DGAC, for which reason the
Committee left the Aeronautical Technical School, It began to function on the
grounds of the National Aeronautical and Space Museum and was again in charge
of General (R) Ricardo Bermúdez.
The CEFAA operated for years with General Bermúdez at the head, with the
Air Traffic Controller Gustavo Rodríguez as an investigator and with José Lay
as the Head of International Relations.
During those first years, CEFAA stood out for giving free talks with
different guests at the Aeronautical
Technical School,
for a high-profile event with international guests during the International Air
and Space Fair (FIDAE) 2000 and for similar events during the editions of FIDAE
of 2016 and 2018.
In December 2016, General Bermúdez left the leadership of CEFAA and in
September 2017, the scientific journalist and historian Hugo Camus Palacios
joined by public competition, who soon took over the leadership of the
Committee.
Historical heritage
The merit of having initiated the investigation of these phenomena in Chile
goes to the Chilean Commission for Studies of Unidentified Space Phenomena,
created by the Director of the Chilean Meteorological Office, Sergio Napoleón
Bravo, and sponsored by the Scientific Society of Chile, in which featured
prominent academics, scientists and researchers of the time.
In an interview published by the Spanish newspaper ABC in 1969, Sergio
Bravo affirmed: “I confess that at first, when the news about it began to
invade the world press, we were skeptical. But there were so many stories and
the professional solvency of many of the people who referred to it that the
concern to investigate these facts in a systematic and scientific way was born
in us ".
New CEFAA
In 2017, in
addition to Hugo Camus, Pablo Trigo Marihual joined CEFAA as administrative
assistant. At the end of that year, Gustavo Rodríguez and José Lay left the
Committee after several years of service and in March 2018, science professor
Gustavo Arriagada Bustamante joined the committee as a researcher.
The new CEFAA team was completed in mid-October 2019, when journalist
Patricio Abusleme Hoffman joined as a second investigator.
During the few years in which the new CEFAA has functioned, Director
Camus has participated in ufological conferences, has been interviewed by different
media and, together with researcher Gustavo Arriagada, has given talks on the
work of CEFAA to aeronautical and different branches of the Armed Forces in
various cities of Chile.
After the paradigm shift that the global pandemic caused by Covid-19 meant,
the members of CEFAA have continued to carry out their work remotely,
consulting their internal and external advisers when the cases under study
warrant it.
To report any sighting of anomalous aerial phenomena that have taken
place within the territory of the Republic
of Chile, users can do so
through the CEFAA website at the following link:
http://www.cefaa.gob.cl/home/enviar-caso”
http://www.cefaa.gob.cl/home/actualidad/noticias/cefaa23anosinvestigandofenomenosaereosanomalos
English translation (by Google Translate):
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cefaa.gob.cl%2Fhome%2Factualidad%2Fnoticias%2Fcefaa23anosinvestigandofenomenosaereosanomalos
Related posts:
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=Chilean+Government+UFO+Article
realtvufos.blogspot.com/search?q=CEFAA
The current CEFAA team, headed by Director Hugo Camus, at the Committee’s
premises in Cerrillos.
(Text: cefaa.gob.cl) (Photo: cefaa.gob.cl)
Members of CEFAA and some advisers to the Committee shortly after its
creation in the late 1990s, headed by General (R) Ricardo Bermúdez.
(Text:
cefaa.gob.cl) (Photo: cefaa.gob.cl)
