The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Est Républicain, Nancy, France, on January 5, 1994.
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It all begins at precisely 00:05, when Mr. and Mrs. Michel Lopez, living on Rue des Coquelicots, in the "Comblés" neighborhood in Tronville-en-Barrois, are getting ready to go to bed after the end of a television film.
"As I was closing the shutters," recalls Michel Lopez, "an extraordinarily dense light coming from a nearby vacant lot floods the room.""
Michèle, his wife, and their seven-year-old daughter Priscillia, who is next to him, experience the fear of their lives.
"We were literally dazzled," emphasizes Michel Lopez, "but the light didn't hurt our eyes."
Then the light calmed down, giving way to a ballet formed by a multitude of "fluorescent" flashes.
"After a moment, from the window, we clearly made out a strange craft," continues the father. "Like a sort of saucer covered with a transparent dome, inside which stood three tall silhouettes dressed all in white."
Delphine, 17, the couple's other daughter, is pulled from her bedroom to take part in the show that is taking place barely fifty meters from the family home, as well as the neighbor - who was fast asleep - from the nearest house.
"I didn't want people to think we were crazy or mad," adds Michel Lopez. "We've seen people end up in psychiatric centers for less than that..."
Then, the entire Lopez family decides to leave the apartment to appreciate the phenomenon more closely. A friend of Delphine's, David Dupont, joins them.
"I am absolutely certain that it is neither an earthly vehicle, nor a plane and even less a helicopter..." maintains the latter.
Driven by curiosity, the group heads towards the craft, while maintaining a "safe space" of thirty meters.
"We were able to distinguish the smallest details of the thing," adds Mrs. Lopez. "It was a very bright, circular craft that emitted a strange whistling sound. It was beautiful. And the beings inside seemed to mean us no harm. So we wanted to get even closer..."
At that moment, the craft lit up brightly, then disappeared completely into the night.
"It was as if we had just woken up outside, in the middle of the night..."
But convinced that they had not dreamed, the Lopezes went at daybreak to the precise spot where the saucer had stopped: and noticed strange "crushing marks" on the soft ground.
The gendarmes of the Ligny-en-Barrois brigade, who do not neglect this type of case, have opened an investigation whose report could very well be of interest to SEPRA (Service d’expertise des phenomena de rentrée atomique), based in Toulouse.
Jean-Mary CHRISTIANO
BREAKING NEWS
Yesterday evening, we learned that a final witness, also called by the Lopez family, had provided a decisive element for the investigation. This witness, Mr. Fontaine, had observed the reported location through binoculars from his window. To note the presence, with all lights on, of a motor vehicle in which there was a single person. The driver then apparently got out, walked around the vehicle while lighting an electric flashlight, then got back in to take the Salmagne-Tronville road.
How then can we explain such a distortion between the scene observed by this last witness and what other people thought they saw? Could the fog have amplified certain light effects? Here are some headlights that would have caused a very strange... optical effect.
