Your sighting reports:

Subject: UFO sighting
Date: August 1, 2005
From: [Name]@laposte.net

Hello,

Having recently discovered your splendid website, I send to you, for whatever purpose it may serve, the account of 2 experiences which I lived a long time ago.

* 1st observation

August 1976 (I do not remember which day) - Approximately 04:30 p.m.
Location: Raphèle, a small village depending of the community of Arles, Bouches du Rhône, France

In my garden, while looking up towards the sky by chance, I saw a motionless object in the sky, direction south-western. Seen with the naked eye or with binoculars, it was an object in the shape of an equilateral triangle, but whose sides and the angles were "rounded". It was of yellow orangeish color and gave the impression to very quickly constantly change color passing from a clear yellow to a dark orange and vice versa.

The sky was blue, clear, there was wind (a rather strong Mistral). It was difficult to estimate the distance and the size of the object, it seemed to be of approximately a quarter of a full moon. The object seemed very high and very large.

I alerted my parents, as well as a neighbor who saw it too. We observed it during approximately an hour with the object not moving. I am sure that it did not move at all, for, resting against a wall, it did not change location compared to the trees in front of me. If that had been a planet, it would have moved, in one hour, because of the rotation of the Earth. The sun moved during this period. Additionally I never saw a planet in broad daylight, and it was too large to be a planet.

My neighbor, who was a police officer, alerted his colleagues of the police station of Arles by phone.

At one time the object started to move and moved very quickly towards the north. Very quickly we lost sight of it. It moved much more quickly than a plane, without any noise or smoke. Moreover it started to move without apparent accelaration. It was motionless and the next second it moved very quickly. We lost sight of it in perhaps 2 or 3 seconds.

A few minutes after 2 military planes, (Mirage 3 or 4?), arrived and took the same trajectory than the object, which was now out of sight.

The planes were at least at 3000 m of altitude, which can give an indication on the altitude of the object. They came certainly from the base of Istres, within a few kilometers. They flew supersonic (one heard the noise afterwards) but however gave the impression to fly very slowly compared to the object. They took approximately 1 minute to disappear from our sight.

The next day the gendarmes came to question us. The police station of Arles had alerted them. One of them really wanted to have us say it was a planet (in broad daylight?), a helicopter (without noise?), a weather-balloon or a "hallucination". The policeman neighbor even became a little angry. They nevertheless confirmed us that the 2 planes had taken off following the alarm started by the police station of Arles. We could not learn anything more. I never heard speak of nothing in connection with this story anymore.

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* 2nd observation

September 1978 (I do not remeber which day) - Approximately 03:30 p.m.
Location: 2 to 3 km south of Raphèle, village depending of the community of Arles, Bouches du Rhône, France.

I was fishing in the marshes in the south of the village. It is an area which resembles the Camargue, although apart from the delta of the Rhone. I had the river in front of me, and on the other side, at approximately 200 meters, were ten camargue horses which quietly ate. The weather was beautiful, the sky blue and clear, there was no wind. At one time the horses panicked (noises, gallops), and this made me look up.

I saw an object in the shape of a disc, gray-black, which passed very low (20 or 30 meters) above the horses, from the left to the right (more or less North-South) at the speed of a private plane but with an odd trajectory, zigzaging, floating. The weirdest was that it did not emit any noise. The object passed behind a hedge of poplars which was located at approximately 300 or 400 meters of my line, then it suddenly immobilized within approximately 10 meters of the ground. Birds (of the brushes, and ducks) flew away from where the object was, obviously thrown into a panic. At this time there, a car came on the road, behind me, and it slowed down, the driver had perhaps also seen the object.

The object remained motionless a few tens of seconds, then set out again vertically at a vertiginous speed, always without any noise. I followed it with the eyes until it disappears high in the sky, and that took, I would say, less than 10 seconds. It was confusing! I am not sure, but I would say that it set out again when the car arrived its height. The car then started again, I did not have any contact with the driver.

The total observation lasted approximately 1 minute and a half to 2 minutes.

The object was, all in all, of the size of an airliner. It passed very close to me, within approximately 200 meters, then was hovering within 400 meters of me, behind the hedge of poplars, which partly hid it to me. I could not distinguish any detail, no port-hole or drawing on its "fuselage". Once that it was gone, I went where it had been hovering, but I did not see anything abnormal. The horses spent time to calm themselves. They were obviously afraid. I was not very reassured either. I went back home immediately. Following the bad memory which the gendarmes had left me during my first experience, I spoke about that only to my parents and friends.

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I often thought of these 2 experiences. 2 object so different... In the 2 cases, their characteristics "eliminate" the assumption of a human object. If one could fly as quickly as that and without noise, you would know of that!

I am really convinced that these objects were not human, and even less natural. I already saw weather balloons, and they do not resemble that at all. I already saw planets (in the night or in the twilight), satellites, shooting stars. They do not resemble that at all. In the 2nd case, the horses and the birds also seemed to see the object, which frightened them, which "eliminate" the assumption of a hallucination.

In the 1st case, the object resembled a little the "triangles" seen in Belgium in 1990. In the 2nd case, it's rather like the object photographed in the Lake Chauvet in 1952 (your website is very useful!).

I have only one regret, it is have no photographs. At the time of the 1st observation, I took photographs (which I do not have any more). But I had only a cheap Kodak apparatus, and the photographs did not turn out good, you only saw one dot in the place of the object.

Anyways, although skeptic before, I am convinced since of the existence of the UFOs.

Best regards,

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[Firstname] [NAME]