Trans-en-Provence Landing
On January 8, 1981, farmer Renato Nicolaï witnessed a disc-shaped craft land briefly in his garden in southeastern France. The French government's official UFO agency, GEPAN, conducted one of the most thorough scientific investigations ever, finding biochemical changes to the plants that remain unexplained.
The Trans-en-Provence case stands as perhaps the most scientifically rigorous investigation of a UFO landing ever conducted, thanks to France’s official approach to the phenomenon and a farmer who simply reported what he saw.
The Landing
On the afternoon of January 8, 1981, Renato Nicolaï was working on a concrete water tank in his garden in the village of Trans-en-Provence in southeastern France. He heard a strange whistling sound and looked up to see a disc-shaped craft descending from the sky. The object, which he described as being about eight feet in diameter and resembling two saucers placed rim to rim, landed softly in his alfalfa field approximately 50 meters from where he stood.
Nicolaï watched for perhaps thirty seconds, trying to process what he was seeing, before the craft rose vertically, emitting the same whistling sound, and shot away at tremendous speed. He walked to the landing site and found circular marks on the ground and what appeared to be heat damage to the surrounding vegetation.
The Investigation
What happened next set this case apart from most UFO reports. Nicolaï contacted the local gendarmerie, who in turn alerted GEPAN (Groupe d’Études des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés), the French government’s official UFO investigation unit housed within the space agency CNES.
GEPAN dispatched scientists to the scene within days. They collected soil samples, vegetation samples, and took detailed measurements of the landing traces. The investigation that followed was exhaustive, involving biochemical analysis, electron microscopy, and mass spectrometry. Their findings were remarkable:
- The alfalfa plants showed significant biochemical trauma consistent with heating or radiation exposure
- Chlorophyll levels were reduced 30-50% in vegetation near the landing site
- Soil samples showed unusual compaction and trace element changes
- The effects diminished with distance from the center, consistent with a physical event
The Official Conclusion
GEPAN’s final report, released in 1983, concluded that a physical event of unknown origin had occurred. The investigators explicitly stated they could not identify what had caused the observed effects, but the evidence was consistent with Nicolaï’s account of a landed craft.
The Trans-en-Provence case remains one of the few UFO incidents where a government agency conducted a thorough, scientific investigation and concluded that something genuinely anomalous had occurred. It demonstrates what is possible when UFO reports are treated as legitimate objects of scientific inquiry rather than dismissed out of hand.