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Case of Petit-Rombach, on April 22 or 24 or 26, 1966:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1966-04-24-PETITROMBACH-1

Summary:

From 1984 to 1986, local ufologist Eric Antoine investigated several sightings made from the hotel in the hamlet of Petit-Rombach from 1965 to 1981.

One of the observations noted was that on April 22, 1966, at 9:20 p.m. local time, from the parking lot of the hotel "Au Bois du Prince", Michel R., 16 and a half years old, postman, and Denis L ., 15 or 16, schoolboy, made an observation lasting more than two minutes, as follows:

They were on the stairs of the hotel when they suddenly saw "a brighter star", heading southwest. In a split second, they find themselves in the presence of a dark oval-shaped object, hovering noiselessly about 60 to 150 meters high, almost above them, at an angular height between 70° and 90°, above a small river.

From its upper part, not visible to them, came four long, slightly conical beams, uniform in color pastel green, golden yellow, dark blue and black "furnace pipe". These beams were motionless, horizontal, without any projection. The object had no flashing lights.

Except for the witnesses who are "bathed" in a strange pale light, comparable to fog, to the halo of the moon, a faint glow similar to a nearby lamp without seeing its source or provenance. 15 to 30 seconds later, witnesses felt intense fear and unease. Running inside the hotel, after thirty seconds they persuade those present to come out.

The object has disappeared and at the place where it had hovered, a long trail of luminous particles stretches, describing a wide curve towards the east and stretching towards the southwest. This trail will dissipate in place in a relatively long time, from 30 seconds to 15 minutes.

During the observation, the sky was starry and clear, the temperature pleasant, there was a moderate wind from South to West. No electrical faults were noted at the hotel that evening.

Eric Antoine notes that the details, time, date, shape, beams and colors were reported at the time by Michel R. in an article in the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for April 24, 1966.

He notes that the other witness, Denis L., admitted to having observed something in the company of Michel R., but does not remember it, confusing other facts and observations that also took place at the Petit Rombach.

He notes that the main witness, Michel R, subsequently lived withdrawn from the village and 50 meters from the place of the sighting; that he is single, quiet and stable, and that his only explanation for his sighting is that it was a craft of extraterrestrial origin. He was a military man there at the age of 21 for three years with the rank of Maréchal des Logis, and a skill as a sniper. He has no visual or hearing problems, does not read any ufology or science fiction books, that he keeps up to date with UFO cases through the local press, and that he had attended a UFO conference by Jean-Claude Bourret several years ago.

Since 1971, i.e. 5 years after the events, when Michel R. reports the events, he feels discomfort, a kind of stress, which begins with tingling along the body that can last ONE minute, except for the hands and feet. This tingling also occurs when he senses an immediate danger, forcing him to be on his guard (in a car, for example). Eric Antoine specifies that the other witness did not report anything of this kind.

When an important problem arises for Michel R., he thinks about the phenomenon and then finds himself more stimulated and ready to face the problem.

Eric Antoine, perfectly aware of the many testimonies of inhabitants of the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin, the same evening between 9 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., qho saw a luminous phenomenon subsequently identified as a cloud of barium dropped by rocket over the Sahara to study the Earth's magnetic field, thinks that this testimony has nothing to do with it.

He indicates that Michel R. is trustworthy and does not seek "in any way publicity or extrapolation."

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he reports that there was a case on April 24 or 26, 1966, in Petit-Rombach in the Haut-Rhin; which was told to him by Michel Dri on Friday, September 4, 2009, as follows.

Michel Dri, recently retired, had returned to live in the home of his parents at Petit Rombach, told him about his sighting there, in April 1966 as he was 16 years old. He had experienced the close observation with his friend D. and it deeply impressed them.

"It was on April 24th or 26th in the evening, between 9 and 10 p.m., we were in the parking lot opposite, near the outside staircase of the hotel restaurant "Au Bois du Prince." My friend D. drew my attention to what seemed at the time to be an extremely bright star. It was located high in the sky, heading South-Southwest. We watched when suddenly it came down at once, and in a split second, we were in the presence of a very large object, parked, motionless and without noise, about ten meters above the roof of the hotel, almost at our vertical. Its lower part only was visible, the object was dark, oval-shaped, with a length of twenty meters and a width of 6 to 7 meters. 3 light beams shaped live stovepipes, green, orange and dark blue went in range of one of the two ends pointing towards the east. The origin of the light beams was not visible, as if it was on the top of the oval."

"Although the bottom side of the object was dark, we were plunged, my comrade and I, in a sort of pocket of pale and misty light, like a dome of pale light for which we could not distinguish the source. After about thirty seconds, scared and uncomfortable, I run home to tell my parents while D. rushed inside the hotel to persuade those present to come out and look... When we came out, the object had disappeared and at its place persisted a long trail of light particles such as crackling sparklers, which stretched towards the south, where the object had come. This trail dissipated on the site shortly after."

"Until today, I did not know that my observation was the subject of a report in a journal (LDLN # 275/276 June 1987 - Investigation of Eric Antoine). I no longer evoke this experience to others because I quickly realized after the fact that I was not believed, and I was considered to be a storyteller. I'd like to meet others who experienced the same thing to discuss it."

"I will never forget what I experienced that night. I was very scared, I confess: I still get chills when I tell it 43 years later. When I look back, I also feel like a feeling of elation because it was really something extraordinary, and I take from time to time some form of comfort and strength in difficult times. With hindsight, I now think I was very lucky to live this amazing event."

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. eae1:] ERIC ANTOINE:

Note: In LDLN #281-282 on page 7 for November / December 1987, this errata was published:

[Ref. cnu1:] UFOLOGY GROUP "CNEGU":

[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he reports that there was a case on April 24 or 26, 1966, in Petit-Rombach in the Haut-Rhin; which was told to him by Michel Dri on Friday, September 4, 2009, as follows.

Michel Dri, recently retired, had returned to live in the home of his parents at Petit Rombach, told him about his sighting there, in April 1966 as he was 16 years old. He had experienced the close observation with his friend D. and it deeply impressed them.

"It was on April 24th or 26th in the evening, between 9 and 10 p.m., we were in the parking lot opposite, near the outside staircase of the hotel restaurant "Au Bois du Prince." My friend D. drew my attention to what seemed at the time to be an extremely bright star. It was located high in the sky, heading South-Southwest. We watched when suddenly it came down at once, and in a split second, we were in the presence of a very large object, parked, motionless and without noise, about ten meters above the roof of the hotel, almost at our vertical. Its lower part only was visible, the object was dark, oval-shaped, with a length of twenty meters and a width of 6 to 7 meters. 3 light beams shaped live stovepipes, green, orange and dark blue went in range of one of the two ends pointing towards the east. The origin of the light beams was not visible, as if it was on the top of the oval."

"Although the bottom side of the object was dark, we were plunged, my comrade and I, in a sort of pocket of pale and misty light, like a dome of pale light for which we could not distinguish the source. After about thirty seconds, scared and uncomfortable, I run home to tell my parents while D. rushed inside the hotel to persuade those present to come out and look... When we came out, the object had disappeared and at its place persisted a long trail of light particles such as crackling sparklers, which stretched towards the south, where the object had come. This trail dissipated on the site shortly after."

"Until today, I did not know that my observation was the subject of a report in a journal (LDLN # 275/276 June 1987 - Investigation of Eric Antoine). I no longer evoke this experience to others because I quickly realized after the fact that I was not believed, and I was considered to be a storyteller. I'd like to meet others who experienced the same thing to discuss it."

"I will never forget what I experienced that night. I was very scared, I confess: I still get chills when I tell it 43 years later. When I look back, I also feel like a feeling of elation because it was really something extraordinary, and I take from time to time some form of comfort and strength in difficult times. With hindsight, I now think I was very lucky to live this amazing event."

Discussion:

About Christian Valentin's book:

It is not at all my habit to "advertise" a book or anything, and I have no interested relationship with the author, but I wanted to say a word on the book by Christian Valentin, "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés" (i.e. "Myths and Realities of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (cover on the left) , ref. [cv2]; which, as its subtitle indicates, is about Alsatian UFO sighting reports and the saucer lore in Alsace.

I think Alsatian ufologists and, generally, people interested in the UFO question, or in the history of Alsace, my region, would probably like this book.

The 144 pages book is sober but well presented, unbiased, richly documented and illustrated. It is the first work in print specifically about UFO sightings in Alsace. (There was another one a few years ago, but it was partly made by copying - pasting without mention of the sources, portions of my website, especially the Alsatians cases I almost exhaustively documented in my catalog of UFO sightings in France in 1954, and copies from another websites; the trivial explanations I proposed or gave there being almost always stripped off!)

The author does not want to prove or disprove the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors or some other so-called "extraordinary" explanation, he rather offers a chronologically ordered review of Alsatian UFO reports, starting from the origin and stopping in 1980, based on known sources ufology, on the articles of the regional Press, and cases less known or even unreleased so far that he collected directly with the witnesses. His own comments are printed in a different color, references to the sources are always given. A very nice work in my opinion!

The author currently has a blog where he shows what libraries in Alsace have the book available, see: christian.valentin.overblog.com

About the byrium cloud of April 22, 1699:

The literature (*) shows that on April 22, 1966, France performed, from Hammaguir near Colomb-Bechar in Algeria, its third launch of the sounding rocket Ruby. Ruby 03, to "vaporize" barium copper oxide in the upper atmosphere to study the high-energy particles sent by the sun and the solar wind. Barium clouds also allows observer on the ground to distinguish the direction of the magnetic forces lines in Earth's magnetic field.

This launch of the Ruby 03 sounding rocket established a French rocket high altitude record of 2035 km.

VE-210 "Ruby" was designed to test the airborne release of the cap, the separation and rotation of the third stage of the "Diamond" launcher. It carried the top of the Diamant launcher onto a VE-110 Agate first stage.

(*) For example, "History of the French Sounding Rocket Programmes", by Christopher Rothmund, March 1991.

Below: some images of barium clouds:

About the case:

The location of the witness is quite precise:

Above: Aerial view of the Petit Rombach, the blue dot is the wintesses position.

Above: The hotel in the years of the case.

Above: 2020 view of the parking and stairs.

Above: 2020 view from the position of the witnesses to the South-Southwest, their observation direction. The moutain is in front of them, hiding any luminous source on the ground in the direction of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines.

The date:

I see that the date is April 22, 1966 for Eric Antoine, but the 24th or 26th for Christian Valentin.

It is true that in these two cases, the case is reported late, so it is quite possible that the main witness does not have a totally clear memory of the date.

I have the following impression:

Eric Antoine speaks on the one hand of this case which he dates April 22, 1966, and on the other hand of another case also at Petit Rombach which he places also at this date, which involves members of the same family. This other case is the one that can be explained very well by the barium cloud.

As a result, I think that it is the date given by Eric Antoine which is not the correct one. Because how can one imagine that one of the members of the family makes the observation in question here in front of the same hotel as other members of this family, with about ten people, without the ones knowing about the others?

Another problem: Eric Antoine indicates that the details, or some details, of the sighting were reported by Michel R. in the regional newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for April 24, 1966.

But in Christian Valentin's book, which reproduces this article, Petit Rombach is not mentioned at all. The article would relate only to the observation of April 22, 1966, in Oberbergheim. And the press articles given by Valentin for the days following and preceding the observation of Petit Rombach do not say a word about it either.

Evaluation:

Possible extraterrestrial craft.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [dna1] ? Article in the regional newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France, April 24, 1966.
• [aea1] * "Synthèse d'enquêtes du cas de Ste-Croix-aux-Mines (Haut-Rhin)", investigation report by Eric Antoine, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #275-276, pp 34-36, May / June 1987.
• [cnu1] * "Catalogue régional rétroactif de la zone CNEGU années 1948 à 1975, catalogue by the Comité Nord-Est des Groupements Ufologiques (CNEGU), France, page 5, digital issue 2006.
• [cvn2] * "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés - Histoire des soucoupes volantes en Alsace jusqu'en 1980", book by Christian Valentin, Grimoires d'Alsace publishers, France, pp 89-90, 2012.

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This page was last updated on February 17, 2023.