Did nobody else see this flying saucer? What really?
You may not know it but in January it will be 40 years since ‘the most complete’ UFO sighting of all time. I know, exciting. When I saw the word
‘complete’ I assumed it meant something thrilling had happened – a huge spaceship landing in a field near Basingstoke, 200 little green aliens with pointy ears walking out, nipping to the nearest pub for a pint and a bag of Scampi Fries, then getting back on board and flying off again. But disappointingly it wasn’t quite that enthralling.
The Trans-en-Provence case happened in January 1981. Just before tea-time, 55-year-old farmer Renato Nicolai was ploughing when he heard a ‘strange whistling sound’. He saw a saucer-shaped object (it’s always a saucer-shape isn’t it?) land 50 yards away.
‘It was the colour of lead’ Nicolai reported. ‘Under the machine I saw two kinds of pieces as it was taking off. They could be reactors or feet and extended about 20cm below the machine.’
Nicolai claimed that no sooner had it landed, it took off again – rising into the sky and heading north-east, as though the driver had misread the map and realised they should have touched down in Belgium.
Nicolai carried on ploughing – presumably thinking, ‘nothing odd about that’ – and went to bed, only reporting the sighting the next day.
The gendarmerie interviewed Nicolai (I’m guessing their first question was, ‘so tell us Nicolai, did you drink any alcohol yesterday?’), took photos of the scene and collected soil samples. They were sent to the French Space Agency and an investigation began.
The soil was vaguely interesting – it had been compressed by ‘mechanical pressure’ of about five tonnes and heated to between 300C- 600C. The investigation concluded, in inconclusive fashion, that no plausible explanation could be found.
The best part came when, after criticism of the investigation, it emerged the initial police report said the marks on the ground ‘looked like ones made by the tyres of a car’. This was dismissed by the Space Agency because, and I quote, ‘the sole witness said otherwise’. In an interview for French TV years later, Nicolai confirmed there had been vehicles passing on the road at the time. Unbelievable, and which also begs the question that, if Nicolai’s version of events is to be believed, why did none of the drivers see a huge flying saucer land and then take off again?
Now, if this is the ‘most complete’ UFO sighting of all time then
I’m afraid it doesn’t do much to persuade me of the existence of life forms being out there. But there are plenty of people who do believe that.
For example, the British UFO Research Association has more than 1,000 members. I clicked on its website and then into one of the stories in the Latest News section, headlined ‘An alien craft sending energy beams to the Ground’.
It is marvellous and contains an detailed account of a girl called Jane taking photographs of the sunrise behind electricity pylons while ‘travelling on a Megabus’ near Exeter.
It wasn’t until a few months afterwards when Jane downloaded the photos, that she noticed ‘a strange looking black object in the sky with two long thin protrusions reaching down to the ground’.
The author goes on to write a 1,500-word essay detailing the mysterious sighting, which, midway through the story, reads that Dave (described as a British UFO Research Association Astronomy specialist) ‘felt the shape of the object resembled a double legged streetlamp’. Then, by zooming in on the object in the photo, the author noticed a number four. ‘This was certainly a Eureka moment,’ he writes.
We are then given a full account of a Google maps search which concludes that the mystery object’s actual identity is – lo and behold - a lamppost just outside Exeter.
It may seem from the above that I’m poking fun at this organisation. I’m not. I love stuff like this and I’m seriously tempted to not only join but attend the annual conference, which has been held in Sheffield since 1987.
It is all fantastic stuff and although I don’t believe in UFOs in any way, who am I to say for certain? I mean we don’t know everything about the universe and, who knows, there might be a planet out there we don’t know about inhabited by alien-types who have their own supermarkets and TVs and spend their evenings listening to the alien equivalent of The Archers is.
‘So tell us Nicolai, did you drink any alcohol yesterday?’