A UFO landed on a farm near Trans-en-Provence on January 8, 1981.
A French Gendarmerie began an investigation, collecting soil and plant samples and notifying GEPAN.
Tests revealed that a solid object with intense electromagnetic energy produced the mark.
Trans-en-Provence UFO Encounter
On the afternoon of January 8, 1981, a strange object landed on a farm near Trans-en-Provence village in the Var region of southeastern France.
This object left traces in the environment, which were collected by the French Gendarmerie (French Police) and later analyzed in French government laboratories.
This was one of the many cases investigated by GEPAN (Groupe d’Etudes des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés), the official ufological research body of the French government linked to CNES (Centre National D’Études Spatiales), which is the country’s space agency.
The UFO incident’s protagonist was the 55-year-old farmer Renato Nicolai, whose property a UFO landed and took off immediately.
When this happened, the witness, thinking it was a military device in tests, contacted the Gendarmerie, which initiated an investigation of the case.
At first, they interviewed the witness, and then they collected soil and plant samples at the landing site.
These samples were collected 24 hours after the event. Immediately GEPAN was notified and participated in the investigations.
GEPAN carried out new collections and measurements at the site, passing this information to the research laboratories.
GEPAN published the first case report in 1983 in the “Technical Note No. 16, Inquiry 81/10, Trace Analysis” and is available on the GEPAN website.
The report presents photographs of the site, sketches, testimonies, and laboratory analysis results.
Trans-en-Provence UFO Encounter Testimony
“My attention was aroused by a slight noise, a small whistle.
I turned around and saw, in the air, an object at the height of a pine tree on the edge of my property.
This object was not spinning but was descending toward the ground. I only heard a slight whistle. I saw no flames, nor under or around the ship.
As the object continued to drop, I got closer and climbed onto the roof of a cottage. From up there, I saw the object land on the ground.
The object began to emit a constant and consistent whistle at this moment.
Then it took off quickly, reaching the height of the trees when it accelerated quickly towards the northeast.
When the object began to rise, I saw underneath it four openings from which no smoke or fire was emitted.
I was at this moment 30 meters from the landing site. I later walked around the area and noticed a circle approximately 2 meters in diameter.
At specific points in the circle, there were marks.
The object had the shape of two dishes placed against each other. It must have been about 1.5 meters.
It had a lead color.
The object had an edge or strip around its circumference.
Under the belt, I saw two things that could be landing gear or feet.
There were also two circles similar to doors. These two feet, or landing gear, had a length of 20 centimeters below the object. “
Trans-en-Provence UFO Encounter Sample Analysis
The soil and alfalfa samples collected at the landing site, as well as the control samples collected at different distances from the circle, were subjected to a series of physical and chemical tests in the SNEAP laboratory, electron diffraction studies at the University of Toulouse, ion bombardment mass spectrometry at the University of Metz, and biochemical analysis of the plant samples at the National Institute of Agronomy Research (INRA), among others.
All the documentation of the case related to the investigations of the Gendarmerie and GEPAN, as well as the analyzes of the samples collected, are available in the references section at the end of the article: Scientific Analysis The Trans-en-Provence case is one of the most scientifically documented cases of Ufology.
Scientifically it has been proven that the traces were still perceptible 40 days after it happened.
It was also proven that the mark was produced by a solid object, which produced tremendous pressure at the site due to its weight.
A heating up was immediately noticed after the shock reached 600° C. The chlorophyll pigment in the affected samples fell by 50%.
The young leaves resisted the damage more, only with the characteristics of old leaves.
Although there were no signs of radioactive forces, there are indications of strong electromagnetic energy at the site.
At biochemical levels, the analyses were made concerning photosynthesis, lipids, sugars, and acids.
Numerous differences were observed between the control samples and the affected samples.
Most of the biochemical mutations were discovered by the scientist Michel Bounias from INRA.
Describing the young leaves to French journalists in 1983, Bounias said that “from the anatomical and physiological point of view, they all have the characteristics of their age, but they present the biochemical characteristics of old age leaves: old leaves! And that reminds us that we know nothing of our planet”.
In a report published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Bounias concluded:
“It is not the author’s purpose to identify the exact nature of the phenomenon observed on January 8, 1981, in Trans-en-Provence. But it can reasonably be concluded that something uncommon happened consistently with an electromagnetic stress source. The most remarkable coincidence is that at the same time, the French physicist J. P. Petit traced equations that led, years later (Petit, 1986), to evidence that those flying objects could be propelled to fly at high speeds, without turbulence, nor shock waves using force from Laplace magnetohydrodynamic effects”.
Overview
- Witness Credibility: Good;
- Number of Witnesses: 1;
- Evidence: Ground marks;
- Physical Evidence: Ground marks;
- Official Investigation: GEPAN (FRA);
- Close Encounter: Second Kind;
- Documents: 4