Cussac Children's Encounter

On the morning of August 29, 1967, at about 10:30 a.m., Francois Delpeuch (13½) and his sister Anne-Marie (9), children of the mayor of Cussac, were watching their family's cows in a pasture near the village when they spotted what they first thought were four small children dressed in black on the other side of a stone wall. Upon closer look, the figures—approximately 1 to 1.2 meters tall with elongated heads, pointed features, and shiny black skin-tight covering—were engaged in activity near a dazzling 2-meter spherical object on the ground. One was bent over picking up something from the grass; another held a bright mirror-like object. When the children called out, the beings became aware of them, rose vertically into the air one by one, and dove headfirst into the top of the sphere. The object then rose with a whistling sound, spiraling upward and leaving a strong sulfur smell. Traces of yellowed grass in a circular pattern were noted. The children's father notified the gendarmerie, who arrived the same afternoon, confirmed the sulfur odor, and conducted an investigation. Further probes by ufologists and later GEPAN (French government UFO project) in 1978 upheld the consistency of the accounts.