The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré, France, le 12 janvier 1976.
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GRENOBLE. -- What is happening in Domène, this laborious city near Grenoble? About fifteen boys and girls came to confirm the story of the young Jean-Claude Silvente who saw last Monday then Tuesday evening a "blond giant" coming out of a U.F.O. posed on the ground. We are well aware of the completely unusual character, to put it mildly, of these testimonies which relate to uncontrollable and apparently insane things. But the people who see them, these strange things, and whose first reaction is to rush to the gendarmerie to ask for help and assistance, cannot be suspected of "psychic disturbance". Madame Silvente is very honorably known in Domène. She is a solid and courageous woman, the complete opposite of a visionary. Since then, she has also closed her door to anyone who wanted to question her. And we understand it, because she does not seek any publicity. Her young son remained, meanwhile, quite traumatized by what he saw. He now stays locked at home when evening approaches.
A little girl confirmed that the giant with long blond hair was indeed wearing a shiny jumpsuit "like cataphotes" and that he was brandishing, at arm's length, "something very shiny and green."
It so happens that Domène seems to have been visited again last week.
A young man of 17, a solid and well-balanced boy, spontaneously went to the gendarmerie. His statement, which was the subject of a report, boils down to this:
"Thursday around 9 p.m., when I was at the entrance of Domène, I saw arriving in the air, from Chamrousse, a big bright light, red and yellow, when it approached, I distinguished a conical object twenty meters in diameter at the base. The object went to land at a place called "La Morte", not very far from the National Road, on a deserted ground. Taken by fear, I ran away."
Thursday evening, therefore, a U.F.O. reportedly landed at the very place where Jean-Claude Silvente claims to have seen it on Monday evening.
Two little girls also saw bright lights on Thursday evening which frightened them and prompted them to flee.
The gendarmes returned to the place. They had obtained that a specialist in "special weapons" come with them, to carry out checks. No trace of radioactivity was detected.
Strange sightings have also been made in other areas.
Thus Mr. Taillefer, mayor of Chaix, declares having seen, on Saturday around 7 a.m., a luminous ball which moved in a strange manner in the sky, towards the East. Another witness saw, in the same area, and at about the same time, a red ball which fell vertically and which suddenly stopped in the sky, before disappearing.
With the mysterious craft that landed on Friday evening near Saint-Nazaire-en-Royans, this creates in Dauphiné a singular grid that we are obliged to attribute to UFOs.
Roger VIGNERON
ROMANS. -- A priori it seems difficult to doubt the word of the witness who observed, last Friday, around 7:15 p.m., in a field on the edge of a small departmental road, not far from the R.N. 92, between Saint-Romans and Saint-Nazaire-en-Royans, the strange merry-go-round of three curious creatures around a craft he had seen landing a few minutes earlier.
Mr. Jean Dolecki passes for a balanced man, not interested in UFO manifestations.
This fifty-five-year-old heating engineer told several times, Sunday morning, to investigators from the "Lumières dans la nuit" ufological group what he had seen.
"It had the shape of an Italian coffee maker," recalls the witness who was even more impressed when he saw three very short shapes around the object placed in the field at the edge of the road. They had, it seems, no arms. Each measured, assures the witness, nearly two meters high. I did not distinguish the shape of one, on the other hand the things each had a kind of telescopic pole that they seemed to handle...".
Disturbingly, overlooking the field where this observation took place, a farm or a couple of octogenarian farmers, Mr. and Mrs. Alphonse Carrus, were watching the program "Des chiffres et des lettres", the same day, "on several occasions, they said, the image was cut off for short moments." The schedule of the program corresponds with the time of the observation noted by the witness.
On the other hand, a farmer living on the edge of the field does not remember having noticed any anomalies on his TV screen last Friday.
"I was with my brother-in-law and we didn't notice anything suspicious, either at the designated location when we were plowing," he told investigators.
This new observation in the Royans region follows a long series carried out since 1974.
Also note that in 1954, the year when a major wave of sightings took place in France, a farmer had observed the passage of a machine over the same field which had greatly impressed him.
Jean-Louis Ruchon
