Denis Letty

Major General Denis Letty (Ret.) is a retired French Air Force officer with extensive command experience. A former fighter pilot, he served as head of French Air Defense for the southeast zone, led the French military mission for the Allied Air Force of Central Europe, commanded the Fifth Wing, and served as commander of Strasbourg air base.

Letty's engagement with the UFO phenomenon began in 1965 when he encountered police reports of disconcerting sightings while serving as a captain at FATAC headquarters in Metz. Key cases that shaped his perspective included Colonel Herve Giraud's 1977 Mirage IV encounter and Captain Jean-Pierre Fartek's 1979 disc sighting near Dijon.

In 1996, Letty initiated the COMETA committee (Committee for In-Depth Studies) within the IHEDN framework. He recruited a twelve-member study group of defense experts and scientists and partnered with General Norlain and former CNES head Andre Lebeau. The committee conducted a three-year investigation examining documented UFO incidents, concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the most rational explanation, and submitted the report to the French Prime Minister and the military cabinet of the President.