The article below was published in the daily newspaper Var-Matin - République, France, on April 24, 1976.
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It is 10:40 p.m. on March 19, 1976. Mrs. Pelle, a quiet old lady from Rayol-Canadel is formal on the hour, because the television program "Au Théâtre" this evening has just ended.
A number of unusual disturbances interfered with the broadcast.
Thinking of a thunderstorm for the night, she goes out on her terrace. That's when she sees "the thing": a rather large, round and slightly elliptical object, orange-yellow, very bright in the middle, turquoise green on the edges.
The object is moving. It comes from the North-East leaving two parallel lines that disdain the perspective and disappears behind the hill that dominates Pramousquier.
She notes all these details in a school notebook, but doesn't dare talk about them. It is so easy to pass for a madman or a crank. Simple people fear ridicule.
Saturday afternoon, November 13, a conference takes place in Cavalaire on UFOs, under the aegis of the Association for the detection and study of spatial phenomena (A.D.E.P.S.).
A hundred people who speak very seriously about these phenomena. Gaining confidence, she takes out her school notebook and tells her story. Not only does one not take her for a madwoman, but those in charge are extremely interested because her testimony exactly matches, shapes, colors, direction, time and place, that of a German national, Mrs. Ostergat, residing near Rayol, who had made the report in a statement not yet made public.
Such a coincidence would be too extraordinary. Ones has to face the facts, something strange crossed the sky of Cavalaire-le Rayol, this evening of March 19, 1976. Flying saucer, meteor, chemical phenomenon? We are not in a position, of course, to provide an answer.
But more than ever, these phenomena fascinate public opinion and the files continue to multiply in the archives of specialized associations.
C. CAIETTI
