Maurice Masse, a local farmer near Valensole, France, reported in 1965 that he saw a UFO land in a lavender field and two alien beings outside the craft.
He used to work in the fields just north of Valensole, in France’s Basses Alps, and, to his surprise, during the last week of June 1965, it came to his notice that someone had been picking the shoots of lavender plants. Though the damage didn’t seem to be concerning but annoying, he decided to catch the culprit.
The Valensole UFO Encounter By Maurice Masse
Prior to starting his tractor and getting started on the day’s work at 5:45 am on July 1, Masse smoked a cigarette. To his east, he had a vineyard with a seven-foot-high debris pile, and the lavender field was to his south. Suddenly, a whistling sound started, which made him frightened. In order to detect the source of the sound, he stepped out from behind the pile.
Masse’s first thought after hearing the noise was that a plane might have landed. To his surprise, it was an enigmatic aircraft, and its shape resembled a rugby ball. Its size was that of a Dauphine automobile, and it rested on four legs. It also had a center pivot that was firmly embedded in the ground.
Approximately 200 feet from him, in a lavender field on the south side of the vineyard, He saw a UFO. Some 70 feet of open space separated it from the vines. Two figures stood next to the object, which he subsequently compared to “8-year-old boys” in terms of size and overall appearance.
“I knew that it wasn’t with men that I had to deal and I watched them the whole time as I was moving across (through the vineyard). Both these beings were down on the ground. They were squatting down. One had his back to me and the other one was opposite him, and it seemed to me that they were looking at a lavender plant.”
Maurice Masse recalled this six weeks later
While trying to remain hidden from the two figures, Masse walked through the vines. In spite of the fact that he could no longer hide in the field, he kept going.
The entities became aware of him as soon as he was spotted. Then they stood up, and Masse had a nice view of them from a distance of 15 or 20 feet. These entities had pumpkin-like heads and wore grey-green overalls. Their hands were also bare, but they had a more human aspect than their heads. Their mouths had no lips, and their eyes were large and slanted. It appeared like it was not a mouth but a little hole. Each of the entities had a narrow, angular chin. In spite of the grunting sounds connected with them as they spoke, their mouths did not move in response to them.
Aside from claiming that the entities were pleasant and “human,” they were actually from some other planet. Masse never discusses what happened immediately after that. All the investigators’ pleadings and proddings went in vain. Masse was adamant about not saying anything. He only hinted that he and the entities had some telepathic communication.
When he was in close contact with the entities, one of the entities pointed a pencil-like object at him, which made him unable to move. Then the object was placed back into the case on its left side. (Each carried a small case on its left and a larger one on its right.) Moving with surprising agility, they entered the spacecraft through the sliding door. Before vanishing within seconds, the spacecraft shot itself with a whistling sound at enormous speed in a westerly direction. On the other hand, Masse was able to regain complete control of his body in just 20 minutes.
When he regained his body control, Masse went to the landing spot of the spacecraft. There, he noticed that the ground had marks where the pivot and legs had met.
Masse, who had been badly frightened, decided to travel into town and tell a buddy who managed a cafe about his encounter. His friend believed him. Even though Masse had a good local reputation, he insisted his friend contact the authorities. Suddenly, Masse realized that he shouldn’t reveal the incident, so he disguised it as a joke. After he left, his friend, who was certain that Masse had been serious the entire time, started telling the story of this strange encounter to everyone. In a short span of time, the story was now known to the whole village and soon to the whole country of France. After that, in no time, he was surrounded by cops, reporters, and ufologists.
Ground Traces And Other Effects After The Valensole UFO Incident By Maurice Masse
Masse and his 18-year-old daughter returned to the spot in the evening. When he assessed the traces, the central hole had changed. The hole had been transformed into the shape of a reverse funnel. Liquid mud filled the hole in the morning, but now that mud had hardened like cement. Masse tried to keep his daughter away from it. He thought the site might be dangerous because it might be filled with radiation or other harmful energy. Later, tests found that it didn’t have any radiation.
“I was able to establish the existence, in a lavender field with light, freshly hoed soil, of some strange and more recent marks. These consisted of a shallow basin about 1 meter 20 in diameter, in the center of which there was a cylindrical-shaped hole 18cms in diameter and 40cms deep. Also to be seen were four shallow grooves, each 8cms in diameter and approximately 2 meters long, which formed a sort of cross, having the cylindrical hole as its center. The earth at this spot was densely packed.”
Description of the site by an individual who visited that day
He began to feel drained three days after the experience. On the first and second days, he slept for 12–14 hours and 24 hours, respectively. He would have certainly slept more than 24 hours if a concerned family member had woken him up and urged him to eat. His pre-encounter sleep patterns returned to normal after several weeks.
Aimé Michel, one of France’s most prominent ufologists, visited the site on August 8 and interviewed Masse. He observed that “the traces of the lavender are visible for a good hundred meters or so along the take-off trajectory, as far as a little shanty towards Manosque, and even beyond. These traces are a degeneration of the young shoots prior to July 1, which are going dry and falling off, and a singular vitality of the shoots after July 1. “
“One or two sprigs (sometimes more) that are desiccated, exactly similar, so far as one can see, to the twigs that have been dried naturally by great heat or by the autumn. These twigs crumble to dust between the fingers. On August 8, such plants as these, with desiccated twigs, were found over a distance of about 100 meters beneath the trajectory of the alleged take-off. The non-desiccated twigs (of these plants that had the desiccated twigs) showed nothing particular. This phenomenon of desiccation could be seen over a width of 2 or 3 meters.”
Examination of each plant under the microscope by Aime Michel
No laboratory investigation of the traces has been conducted even till now. Therefore, what would have been major proof of a UFO occurrence was never adequately recorded.
Michel and Flying Saucer Review editor Charles Bowen interviewed Maurice Masse on August 21, 1967. Now that Masse had a contrast change, he appeared much calmer than two years ago when Michel last saw him. Masse had long since plowed through the imprint marks, but there was still clear proof of the earlier event. At the landing site, “a circular area of land in the midst of the precise rows of lavender plants,” only a few weeds grew. The area is about 3 yards in diameter, the investigators wrote, “and around the perimeter, a number of lavender plants are stunted and withered-looking. They are certainly not healthy plants like those in the rest of the field. “
In November 1968, French astrophysicist Pierre Guérin was able to easily distinguish the site from the rest of the farm as the site was now overgrown with weeds, but still, no lavender could be spotted. On a subsequent visit, in March 1969, the location was still clearly visible. During the same visit, Guérin interviewed Mrs. Masse at her house while her husband was at work. Mrs. Masse revealed that her husband thought about the entities almost every day and that he also thought that the meeting was a spiritual one. Her husband wanted to keep the spot where they landed in the family’s history sacred forever. However, he tried to make it look like he was no longer interested in his UFO encounter with people who didn’t know what he was planning.
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