Valensole Encounter

At approximately 5:45 a.m. on July 1, 1965, Maurice Masse was working in his lavender field near Valensole when he heard a sharp whistling sound. He saw a dark, matte, egg- or rugby-ball-shaped object, roughly the size of a small car, resting on legs or a central pivot in the field. Two small humanoid figures, about 1 meter tall, wearing tight-fitting gray suits, stood nearby examining the lavender plants. One entity noticed Masse, pointed an object at him, and he was paralyzed and unable to move. The figures quickly entered the craft through a sliding door. The object then rose vertically with a whistling noise, hovered briefly, and departed rapidly toward the northeast. Masse recovered after about 20 minutes. Gendarmes arrived promptly, documented a central cylindrical hole surrounded by a star-shaped pattern of four shallow furrows in the damp soil, and noted that the soil later became unusually hard, like concrete. The case was recorded in official gendarmerie procès-verbaux and later reviewed by GEIPAN as unexplained (Class D).