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The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Aurore, Paris, France, le 14 déCembre 1976.
(The "Chasseurs Alpins" is a mountain infantry corps of the French Army.)
One, two, three, four "unidentified flying objects" flew over the Col de Larche, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence, last week, to the great fear of the alpine hunters of Maison-Méane who witnessed, unwillingly, this strange vision. Staff Sergeants Gaborit and Charrin were traveling by car last Wednesday evening, says Commander Vason, of the Barcelonnette Alpine Hunters Brigade, when one of them noticed a dark circular object in the sky of the size of a large plane, luminous in its center. They stopped and this shape, which could have been 600 m above them, then stabilized before disappearing behind the mountains. The phenomenon, which lasted less than a minute, struck them hard enough for them to decide to come back the next evening at the same time (11 p.m.), in the same place. Thursday, they were accompanied by another non-commissioned officer and a customs officer. Increasing their attention, these men saw, strictly at the same hours as the previous evening, four identical craft of a dark red color. Coming from Italy and heading north, the four U.F.Os. moved in line and without noise. Then suddenly one of them broke away from the others and, growing bigger, headed towards the witnesses, who were very frightened. But the craft stabilized very quickly, then disappeared along with the three others.
Coincidence! Alerted by the Alpine hunters, Captain Jean-Yves Monfort, head of the Barcelonnette gendarmerie brigade, himself spent Friday evening at the Col de Larche to try to see the phenomenon. But the four U.F.Os. did not reappear, despite the constant surveillance of the sector by a gendarme on duty. A disturbing coincidence, the avalanche dogs of Maison-Méane howled to death on the two evenings when these mysterious halos appeared, at the precise time when the phenomenon occurred.
"These men are trustworthy and completely sound in body and mind," insisted Captain Monfort, who is leading an investigation into this case, "but the most striking fact is certainly the attitude of the dogs. On the rest, the shape and the color of these flying masses, one can of course discuss". (Sophie Huet.)
