The Trans-en-Provence UFO Encounter and a Flying Saucer “Sunburn”

The Trans-en-Provence UFO Encounter and a Flying Saucer “Sunburn”

by Bill Knell

Described as “perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time” by Popular Mechanics magazine, the Trans-en-Provence UFO encounter took place on January 8, 1981 near the village of Trans-en-Provence in the Var region of southeastern France.

It began around 5 pm when a fifty-five year old farmer named Renato Nicolai heard an odd whistling sound while outside at work on his farm property. Looking in the direction of the sound he saw a saucer-shaped object about 160 feet away from where he was standing. The object was eight feet in diameter (based on later discovered burn marks) and shaped like two saucers, one inverted and on top of the other. It looked to be about five feet in height and was the color of lead.

Renato said, “The device had a ridge all the way around it. Under the machine I saw two kinds of pieces as it was lifting off. They could be reactors or feet. There were also two other circles which looked like trapdoors. The two reactors, or feet, extended about 20 cm (8 in) below the body of the machine.”

He said the object took off almost immediately. It rose above the treeline and flew away towards the northeast leaving burn marks on the ground from where it landed and took off. Nicolai notified the local gendarmerie (police) the following day. They interviewed him, took photos of the scene and collected soil, plant and grass samples from the field in and out of the affected area.

Knowing this was out of their investigative jurisdiction because it did not involve an actual crime, the gendarmerie reported the incident to the French government. They gave the case to GEPAN (Groupe d'Étude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés) for review. That agency was established in 1977 under the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) in Toulouse, the French counterpart of NASA. GEPAN was created to investigate French UFO sightings and encounters.

In 2007 GEPAN (now GEIPAN) released close to two thousand of their six thousand investigative files through a newly created website. A close look at some of these files reveals objective and thorough scientific and investigative methodology applied to each case. In short, this was not a smokescreen to hide true conclusions as was the case with the purposely under-funded and under-staffed Project Bluebook (which was run by the U.S. Air Force and headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio).

The GEPAN analysis reported that the ground where the object briefly sat had been compressed by a mechanical pressure of about four or five tons. It also had been heated to between 300 and 600 °C (572 and 1,112 °F). Small amounts of phosphate and zinc were found in the soil and plant samples. Analysis of resident alfalfa near the landing site showed chlorophyll levels between 30% and 50% lower than expected.

Nicolai told the police that he initially believed the object was some kind of experimental military device. That's because his property was close to the Canjuers military base. However, GEPAN's investigation never went in that direction due to a lack of evidence that any military device of that type existed. Instead, the investigators focused on more conventional explanations. They considered terrestrial causes like atmospheric or ground phenomena. Despite a thorough, two year investigation by both GEPAN and the gendarmerie, no known natural explanation was found.

This case caught my attention for two reasons. First, I have always preferred physical evidence cases because they can make or break the validity of eyewitness reports in short order. Second, I personally investigated another UFO encounter like it. That case involved two friends sitting in a hot hub in Southampton on Long Island, Suffolk County, New York.

In late July of 1990 Joey and Paul were sitting in a hot tub behind a house they shared in Southampton. It was around 10pm on a quiet Sunday night. They heard a “sound like an old boat whistle” far in the distance. Then nothing. Both twenty-something guys looked around and saw a white, saucer-shaped, self illuminated disc which suddenly appeared about twenty feet away from them. It hovered ten feet off the ground in their backyard. The disc was silent and was thirty feet in diameter (based on later examination of affected grass and ground). That is a commonly reported size for saucers.

The craft briefly landed leaving a circular area of dead grass behind. The grass circle and ground remained affected for almost a year despite lawn treatments and had an above background radiation level. The ground did not absorb water for several inches down. A pet dog refused to enter the circle and always walked around it. After a little less than five minutes the disc slowly rose off the ground. It stopped at ten or twelve feet, then slowly moved over the hot tub. It remained above Joey and Paul for what seemed like a couple of minutes. They stayed still not knowing what else to do.

While the craft hovered the guys both felt a warmth radiating from it, then it was gone. The saucer flew straight up faster than their eyes could track it. Joey and Paul immediately got out of the hot tube and ran inside their house. Once inside they stood looking at one another in disbelief. They had what looked like bad sunburns on their faces and shoulders. Despite the visual severity of the burns, neither man felt any pain or noticed any skin effects as would normally be expected from sunburns.

Both guys were fans of my cable TV show about UFOs sponsored by Time/Life and seen on Cablevision throughout Long Island and other parts of New York. The next day they called the phone number I provided on the show to report any UFO sightings and encounters. As in the case of the French encounter, Joey and Paul initially thought that maybe the object was something being worked on at Brookhaven National Labs on Long Island, a large and somewhat secretive government facility located in Upton, Suffolk County, NY.

Long Island has long been the home of major government contractors designing and building all sorts of projects like the B-1 bomber and Trident sub, but the truly secret ones would never be tested or flown locally. Too many people. Why would they do that when they have desert locations in the Southwestern U.S. where most of the residents are sand, cactuses and critters.

I do believe that the type of work done at places like Grumman's former Calverton Naval Weapons facility in the Riverhead area initially attracted the interest of a great many UFOs which still remain regular visitors to Long Island and the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Conneticutt. I have personally investigated cases like a UFO landing in a New York City park to mass animal mutilations in a New York City zoo. And that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Read my other articles.

Joey and Paul gave me a detailed account of their encounter allowing me full access to their home and property. I saw them within 24 hours of the incident and both still.had the strange red “burns” on them that were weird and not at all atypical of sunburns. These eventually faded, but took two weeks to do so. Grass and soil samples were examined by a local geologist and a scientist that often assisted me in my investigations. An engineer friend used his Geiger Counter. While I was on their property I noticed that their German Shepard dog refused to enter the affected circular area and a squirrel ran around, not through, the circle. No doubt this case was the real thing.