Your sighting reports:

Subject: UFO sighting
Date: March 6, 2008
From: [Firstname] [Name] [firstname inital, name]@free.fr

Hello,

While making a search on google which has absolutely nothing to do with ufology, I stumbled on your website, and that gave me the idea to find a text which I had written in 2002 in which I reported an observation I made with other people, more than thirty years ago, and for which I did not find an explanation so far. This observation does not really have anything exceptional at all and can somehow seem trivial, it however remains that I could never explain it to me.

I guess that it is not really the kind of report you hope for, but I deliver it to you nevertheless, I would say almost as for getting rid ot it.

First of all I thank you for time that you will spend reading this report and to perhaps try to provide a commonplace explanation to the phenomenon which is reported here. These facts date back thirty years approximately. I readily admit here, I have been thinging about it for thirty years and I was unable to find the rational explanation I hop for myself. Perhaps this is a known phenomenon the nature of which I am unaware of. So obviously, this story makes think of the UFO phenomenon and ET's, I must admit that by quickly surfing the Internet, I did not find yet a similar observation report, and in fact the video animation files are not missing in this field as far as I could see. Undoubtedly by natural mistrust, I hasten to say that I do not believe in any of bits of the footage I saw. Lastly, I would not be completely honest if I did not say that I read in a book a few years ago something approaching what I am going to describe, but I hesitate to mention it insofar as the case in question proved to be a huge hoax (see note).

I will start with two very bad points, first of all I have a doubt about the year, although by checking the most plausible period is the autumn of 72. Secondly, I do not remember any more exact place where I was in the countryside of Bordeaux at this time there. That year, I was employed with a friend to go harvest the grapes. I do not know if this practice is still going on nowadays, but I believe to remember that we had passed by the town hall of our city (Rochefort sur mer) or perhaps it was the [State] Employment Agency which broke down the applicants at the liking of the needs formulated by the farmers of the south-west.

As far as I remember, we were in a small plantation (there was not more than a ten of seasonal workers) owned by rather young owners (at the time). One day (I do not remember any more if it were after breakfast or after lunch), we were going back to the vineyard leaving the farm behind us, when, while looking back, my attention was drawn by a spherical form seeming to float rather low in the air far on the horizon. At first sight, and from where I was, it was difficult to measure the distance which separated us from the object. The first idea which came to me was that it could be a weather balloon which rose in a sky of a crystalline blue sky in the distance (I must say that I never saw this kind of balloon elsewhere than in television reports), quite simply because the sphere appeared completely smooth to me, or at least I imagined that, and its metallic aspect reflected the rays of the sun.

When I realized that the object moved right in our direction whereas I imagined that it should rather have been rising (its apparent diameter certainly had to increase), I alerted the other vintagers and asked them whether they had an idea of what it was. All, like me, thus saw this quite visible sphere very low in the sky.

Things started to become more puzzling when, at the end of a while the object suddenly changed trajectory (at right angle). The sphere did not seem in rotation but I could not be affirmative on this point, it did not give the feeling to have started a turn either, but quite simply to have changed the direction of his displacement (to clarify the meaning of suddenly, for in fact there was nothing sudden in its movement). Everyone had to realize at this time there that it was really very close to us and we could then appreciate its side displacement. It had undoubtedly passed in front of a background that I could use as reference mark (there was a sort of thicket which skirted a way and which was composed of slim trees), and I then understood that the object was not in the distance as I had imagined initially. With time, I need to say it, this concept of distance became uncertain, but I estimate it was about sixty meters approximately, what I remember it that it was a shock to know the sphere was so close of place where we were and that it was actually flying over in fact the yard which faces the farm that we had just left (from where we were, I believe that we were a little above the building).

No sound was audible. Its dimension was roughly that of a soccer ball, if my memories does not betray me. I think that all the others remained awestruck, like me, by this vision: the sphere moved with an absolutely rectilinear trajectory at a very very slow speed, but constant and only a few meters above the ground (5 to 7 meters maximum). The regularity of displacement, and I should say flight, had something overwhelming, for there were no doubt left that it was under control. The sphere actually had positioned in front of the barn and it was driven slowly towards the opening located at the top of the frontwall, it penetrated there quietly just like a car entering a garage would have done, as if with much caution. Once the sphere was inside the building, we naturally lost the visual contact with it. I do not know how much time we remained stunned to observe the phenomenon which occurred under our eyes at a speed so slow that it was engraved in my memory like a slow motion cinematographic effect.

Here it is as regards the observation itself or what I still can restore about it. That is not frankly spectacular, but I am forced to acknowledge that I remained disturbed about it in spite of the many years which went by since. I think that for all those who attended the scene, there could not be any doubt that the sphere was directed, and moreover, with an extreme precision. In all the cases, to me, that there was no shadow of a doubt that it was, and this is why a panic which I had managed to dissimulate was gradually seizing me owing to the fact that I did not understand how what I saw could be possible. I however specify that I never believe to have imagined that the sphere itself was inhabited, probably because of his very small dimensions. I am unfortunately not very courageous and I really believe that the only thing which made me stand there is quite simply that there was ten people around me who did not move either. I think that the others on their side were not to feel particularly at ease either for, indeed, it would have been extremely easy to go by foot to the barn in a few seconds. I hoped besides that our hosts would do it, for after all this foreign object had penetrated on their property, but they did nothing of it, nor alas none the members of our small crew.

For thirty years, the attitude which we had that day continued to haunt me. How is it that we set out again in direction of the vines as if nothing weird had just happened? Besides I do not have any more memory of comments or discussions between us about the phenomenon we had observed together (what I do remember, is that in the evening I went to bed not very reassured). And the true mystery which remains now, is foremost our behavior. There was really something intriguing there for reason and it only asked to be elucidated. One minute would have been enough to be sure of it, and this minute must have seemed like an terneity to all of us, which besides is prolonged today in a vague feeling of shame to me; shame to have been afraid of going there to see more closely and shamed for all of us who did not know to find in our collective the strength of character which was missing individually to us.

PS : to be complete, as much as that is possible considering the number of years which passed, it I must specify that the friend who accompanied me was victim of a psychotic accident a few days after the events that I have just reported. Besides, his parents had to get him in psychiatric hospital during some time. I mention this incident because several years later I wondered whether we could have all been the subjects of a collective hallucination produced by his disturbed mind (insofar as this could be possible). This explanation really does not satisfy me insofar as I was the first to observe the phenomenon, and if I had not looked back nobody would have noticed anything.

Best regards,

[Firstname] [Name]