Jean Kisling's airline stranger

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Contents 4
Jean Kisling's airline stranger
Dr. J. Allen Hynek (left) and Dr. Jacques Vallée (right).
Dr. J. Allen Hynek (left) and Dr. Jacques Vallée (right). Photo: United States Government · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Date29 June 2002
TopicsCrashes & retrievals (topic), Military encounters (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic)
PeopleJacques Vallée
TestimonyShellenberger testimony, p. 148
Year2002 in UFO history
Timeline2002 on the UAP Timeline
Sources5

Jean Kisling's airline stranger — A French officer tells Vallée a stranger on a 1950s flight claimed to work on recovered craft.

According to Jacques Vallée's journals, in June 2002 a French aviation officer, Commandant Jean Kisling, recalled an odd conversation on a transatlantic flight in the 1950s. A bearded stranger seated next to him claimed to work on recovered craft.

The anecdote is just that: a memory of a chance conversation, with no name, documents or way to check it. Vallée recorded it as one of many such stories he heard.

It illustrates how difficult crash-retrieval stories are to evaluate: many come from casual encounters decades earlier, retold through others.

People and topics

Jacques Vallée 2024
Jacques Vallée 2024 Photo: Cmichel67 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
  • Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
  • Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.

On the Timeline

Illustration of official papers and files
Illustration: official papers and files. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

See every 2002 event on the UAP Timeline →

References

Further reading

This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.

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