This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Méridional, France, page 20, on July 19, 1978.
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It is said in Toulouse that four unidentified flying objects were observed on July 10 close to Tarbes.
In the night of the 10th around one hour of the morning, four U.F.O. were seen by three young monitors in a vacation camp in Tarasteix (the Hautes-Pyrénées).
Pierre Barrieu, aged 17; Alain Dieumegard, aged 16, and Daniel Sauneuf, aged 15, initially saw a first object moving in the North-South direction. The machine, which had the silhouette of a sphere, while it rose and after having swung took and oval form of an apparent diameter of a dozen meters. The object showed two twinkling lights, red and blue, at its front. The second object, which followed the same direction, presented the shape of a cigar and was also "enlightened" at the front by lights of the same color.
Nailed on the spot by curiosity, the observers noticed a little later and still following the same direction, a group of gleams of similar nature.
Finally, a fourth U.F.O., of rectangular form this time, was seen evolving very close to the ground, three meters away of the witnesses, according to their statements, and it emitted a blinding yellow light. This last object passed fivetimes in front of the amazed witnesses. Each observation lasted only one to two minutes approximately.
The youth waited several days before reporting to the gendarmerie of Tarbes about the phenomena they had witnessed.
The services of the C.N.E.S. (National Center for the Space Studies) of Toulouse, alerted, carried out the first observations. While no trace could be found on location by the services of the gendarmerie of Tarbes, the sightings of the three young people nevertheless were considered to be "interesting" at the same time because of the agreement between their reports, and the personality and the seriousness of the witnesses, as well as because of the nature of the precise details reported and the short distance of observation.
