A
UFO above Le Muy (
A surprising light phenomenon photographed in Southern France
An
UFOCOM investigation by Jean-Noël (ADV team) and Simone (coordinator)
Note
added on Septembre 2004: see also the paper by
Alain DH (ADV team) who demonstrated that this file is a wonderful
hoax. We apologize to our readers who might have bought the Polaroïd
photography. As stated by the journal Var-Matin:
this was “too nice to be true”!. See our
counter-investigation at http://www.ufocom.org/pages/v_fr/m_invest/LeMuy2/LeMuy2.html
1.
The facts
On
October 27th, 1999, around 11h30 pm, in a mobile home in a camp
ground at Le Muy (Var,
France), a man - most likely in his 70’s - was watching TV. Let’s call him
Mr. Polaroïd! As opposed to his neighbors, he
uses to let the window curtains open, to observe the neighborhood. He lives
there with his son. As a sudden, his attention is caught by a powerful light
outside. He
grabs his Polaroïd camera and goes out with his
son. He takes a picture of the phenomenon, but has no chance to take a second
one as the object moves rapidly out of sight. The next day, he showed the
picture to his neighbours, who told him this must be a UFO. He next went to
the Le Muy camera shop owned by Mr. Carigiet,
to show him his picture, and enquire whether it may be possible to reproduce
the picture. He also asked Mr. Carigiet not to
reveal his name and address because he did not want to be harassed by
UFO-freaks and columnists.
M. Carigiet
is a former press photographer. He is very impressed by the picture, a feeling
that prompted him to phone the nationwide distributed magazine « Paris-Match »,
and to propose them the picture. The answer from these folks was clear “we
have boxes full of UFO pictures”. Even
for free, the magazine was not interested, as they
get better cases and documents from
Following
the publication of this paper, the “gendarmerie » (a
french military corps with policy authority
outside major cities) was reportedly “submerged” with over 300 phone calls
from people who made a testimony but did not want to be quoted.
2.
The testimonies
As
soon as Mr. Carigiet exhibited a magnification of
the picture in his camera shops, people started to talk…
Mr.
Carigiet exhibiting the original Polaroid picture
(1).
On
various occasions, he gathered several testimonies from his customers who said
“this stuff, I saw it!”. All the testimonies
were consistent regarding the shape of the UFO, and the fact that it moved at
an incredible speed. They mostly confirmed the strange and intense blue color
of the light that seemed to originate from this machine. They also agreed,
all, on one point: the UFO is often seen south east of Le Muy,
especially above the Roquebrune range (see below).
The
Roquebrune range
More
generally, several inhabitants from Le Muy said
that similar observations have been made in the last 30-40 years. People are
uneasy with this phenomenon, however, and only discuss the observation
reluctantly.
Here
are a few testimonies:
2.1.
- M. Y., who preferred to remain anonymous, was the first customer at Mr. Carigiet’s
shop, who spontaneously recognized that, him also, saw the object in a
stationary flight, at the same time that Mr. Polaroïd.
He lives nearby the camping site from where the original observation was made.
We phoned to M. Y who confirmed his observation (audio
file here – French only).
2.2.
– A witness stated having seen this UFO during daylight, a wide object that
emitted a metallic light. He had the feeling that the object consisted in
“two bodies” and reported also seeing flashes in between the two bodies.
Another witness reported that he almost thought there were two objects because
it / they were moving extremely rapidly from on side of the sky to another.
2.3.
– The deputy of the modern art carver Bernard Venet,
said that, on several occasions in October 1999, he saw an object quasi
motionless over the “Serres Mill” a few
kilometers north of Le Muy (Audio
file here - French only).
2.4.
– On
Later,
this man came back to the camera shop to report that he saw again the object
on three occasions, on the way back from Ste-Maxime.
The object was flying rapidly and he never had the time to take a picture of
it. (Audio
file here – French only)
2.5.
– Finally, Mr. Carigiet was himself a witness
for an event that puzzled him:
One
day, around 2h30 am, he was hiding at a standstill
in the countryside to take pictures of foxes. Mr. Carigiet
noticed a very luminous white object in the sky over his car,
that appeared to bounce three times in the sky over the tree line
looking SW of Le Muy. At first, Mr. Carigiet
thought it was a meteorite moving towards Le Muy.
He was afraid thinking of his family living there. He felt reassured back to
Le Muy as he could notice that nothing obviously
felt over the city. Later on, he got a testimony from a young lady. It
supported his opinion that what he saw was something else than a meteorite.
This young lady, working at the local Police Office, confirmed she was coming
back from Bagnols (SE of Le Muy),
around 2h20 am, with her mother. They saw an object moving from the right to
the left of the road.
M. Carigiet
might have seen this object at the time it was leaving.
To
get the map from Le Muy area, please click here
3.
The Ufocom investigation
After
several phone calls and mails exchanged, we tried to get in touch with Mr. Polaroïd.
On several occasions, Mr. Carigiet told us that he
committed himself not to reveal the identity of this person, a wish he said
was motivated by “personal difficulties”. We gave Mr. Carigiet
a question paper to pass upon Mr. Polaroïd the
next time he come to the camera shop. He never came back to pick up the Polaroïd,
and the questions therefore remained unanswered.
We
went to Le Muy, on Septembre
20th, 2000 to meet with Mr. Carigiet
and try to make our mind about him and his testimony. We were first allowed to
examine the original Polaroïd picture. We next
had a long 3hr-talk with Mr. Carigiet. He is keen
about discussing this question and reporting the numerous witness accounts he
gathered. During this long talk, he appeared truthful and honest. Additionally,
his words perfectly matched the reports he made to us over the phone on
several occasions.
We
next went to the camp round and visited the mobile home section We
noticed that the sky was perfectly visible looking SE, without tree (opposedly
to the other sections of the camp ground). One can see easily the Roquebrune
range over which the observation was made. The camp ground was kind of empty
and it is not sure that Mr. Polaroid still leaves here
4.
Rapid picture analysis
Indeed
the picture is surprising. As said the columnist from Var-Matin
“it is too nice to be true!” What is mostly puzzling is the extraordinary
brightness of the phenomenon. But according the Mr. Polaroïd’s
report to Mr. Carigiet, le light was really
intense. On another hand, the Polaroïd film
sensitivity is high, around 600 ASA. The picture was taken without any flash
light; the camera being devoid of such a device. Because of this, and without
having seen the camera, Mr. Carigiet thinks that
it is a type SX70 camera.
We
next examined the possibility that this picture might be a forgery, the result
of a set up… But first, why having used a Polaroïd
film? And if this is indeed a forgery, only tow persons might be responsible
for it:
(i)
the author of the picture
It
is difficult to conceive that a 70 year-old person would start such a fraud.
The hand writing below the Polaroid might indeed be that of a senior person,
but it is unfortunately too short to allow further fine analysis. Some
additional details, however, were obtained by Philippe (from our investigation
team), who brings the following comments regarding the hand writing: “the
writing appears to be slow going and that of a quiet person. It is
equilibrated. Curiously, date components are separated by comas, which is
unusual. Generally slashes and hyphens are used. May be a
English speaking person could have used this formulation. The writing is not
wobbling, at first glance. The letter reproducibility does not reveal a
willingly transformed writing.”
Another
strange detail lies in the time indication: it is formulated as 11h30 whereas
a younger person would have written 23h30 (note from traducer: in France, time
indication are given on a 24 hr basis, but elder person tends to retain the
use of a 12 hr basis adding “in the evening“ or
in the morning when a confusion may arise). Besides, the location “Le Muy,
Var” suggests that the person was not an
inhabitant of Le Muy, because the indication Var
would have been omitted”.
We
do not really think that Mr. Polaroïd could have
forged the document.
- Mr.
Carigiet.
As
a shop owner, his reputation might be considerably damaged if one could prove
he forged this document. Most of his work comes from photo reports he makes
during weddings or on public meetings. He is well-known in all Le Muy
region. His shop is rather small and full of
photographic materials and films but not of devices allowing picture
modification. In agreement with this, the Polaroïd
picture is reproduced by a professional lab, at a high expense to Mr. Carigiet.
Conclusion
We
are perfectly aware that this investigation is incomplete because, first of
all, the person who took the picture remained unidentified and inaccessible.
Furthermore, all testimonies are coming from a single person, Mr. Carigiet,
who is our main – if not single – contact. As a consequence, most of the
related observations rely upon the “bona fide” words from this person.
However, after the meetings and discussion we had with Mr. Carigiet,
we are convinced that he is sincere and honest.
One
can be surprised by all the reports from Le Muy
region. It is located only 7 km (5 miles) away from Trans-en-Provence.
This location was made famous by a possible “landing”, which occurred on
January 1981, and that generated traces analyzed by the GEPAN (seer report at http://www.ufocom.org/pages/fr/m_invest/trans/index.htm
). On the other hand, Le Muy is about 75 Km (50
miles) from the atomic research center of Cadarache
(Saint-Paul-les-Durance, Bouches-du-Rhône) and
from Digne-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence),
where the Ummites also supposedly landed (see J-P.
Petit’s book: "enquête
sur les extra-terrestres
qui sont déjà parmi nous",
Albin Michel, 1991).
Another
testimony from a pilot suggest that strange events
occur in this region (audio
file in French here).
This pilot flies mostly to take aerial pictures for various clients. By the
end of January, he told Mr. Carigiet that he was
flying above Draguignan, and taking pictures. He
next arrived over Trans-en-Provence and Le Muy.
He had again some pictures to take, but at this moment he realized that his
fuel tanks were empty. He landed rapidly at Fayence,
and noticed that some kind of blinding occurred. First of all, the pictures he
took over Le Muy area were all dark. But also the
fuel tanks were not empty!!!
Whatever,
some UFOs might well be present in Le Muy… Just
have a look at the street maps: they should remind you of something!.
Street
lamp in Le Muy
(1)
Note added on October 2004 : the owner of the camera shop, Monsieur Carigiet,
seems to have vanished from the region
Simone
(UFOCOM coordinator)
ufocom@wanadoo.fr
Mars
2001
Translated
from French by Yves (sci team)
October 2005
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