GEPAN Technical Note 16, Trans-en-Provence Investigation (Enquête 81/01)

Brief

On January 8, 1981, at approximately 17:00, Monsieur COLINI observed an unidentified craft descend between two large conifers onto the terrace of his Trans-en-Provence property, rest on the ground for an estimated 30-40 seconds, and depart rapidly to the northeast; he was between 30 and 70 meters from the object throughout. Gendarmerie arrived the following morning, photographed the site, auditioned the witness, and forwarded soil and plant samples to laboratory analysis per standard protocol. GEPAN, the CNES group for unidentified aerospace phenomena, was notified January 12, 1981, and conducted a supplemental collection mission February 17. The published dossier integrates witness testimony, gendarmerie records, and site topography with laboratory findings of soil compaction consistent with mechanical loading, iron and phosphate traces, sub-600°C thermal indicators, and biochemical changes in alfalfa specimens graded by distance from the landing point.

Metadata

Agency

GEPAN / CNES (Centre national d'études spatiales)

Release

1983-03-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

67 pages

Programs

GEPAN, Enquête 81/01, Technical Note 16

Tags

disc-shaped, ovoid, ground-trace, soil-analysis, plant-biochemical-analysis, Trans-en-Provence, Var, France, 1981, Enquête-81/01, single-witness, restanque-landing

Key points

• GEPAN opened a formal inquiry because two independent evidence types were present: a single-witness account and physical ground traces — the agency's stated threshold requiring that both be confrontable and comparable.p.4
• The gendarmerie arrived January 9, 1981, at approximately 11:30, auditioned the witness, photographed the site, and collected soil samples forwarded to INRA laboratories; heavy weekend rainfall struck the site before GEPAN could intervene directly.p.5
• GEPAN was notified January 12 via its gendarmerie message recorder; a supplemental plant sample collection was conducted February 17, 1981, six weeks after the event.p.5
• The witness described the object as shaped like two inverted plates against each other, approximately 1.50m tall, lead-colored, with a circumferential ridge; four openings were visible underneath from which no flame or smoke issued.p.17
• GEPAN's investigator described the same object as an ovoid vehicle with two unequal hemispheres separated by a flat protruding rim of at least 15 cm forming a ring around a lead-aluminum-type metallic mass.p.18
• The ground trace was a circle of approximately 2 meters diameter, with skid-type marks at certain points on the circumference; the trace was still visible in a photograph taken 39 days after the observation.p.16
• Estimated object dimensions: exterior diameter approximately 2.50m; height on ground between 1.70m and 1.80m, slightly clearing the top of the 2.50m restanque wall.p.22
• GEPAN reconstruction placed the witness between 30 and 70 meters from the phenomenon at all times; total observation duration was estimated at 30 to 40 seconds.p.20
• The diameter-to-height ratios from three separate drawings of the object were mutually inconsistent: 5.66 from COLINI's GEPAN-session sketch, 2.25 from the private investigator's sketch, and 1.42 implied by his verbal dimensional estimates.p.22
• Multiple private investigation groups, alerted by local press, reached the site before GEPAN; one, coded 'XYZ,' dispatched an investigator on January 13, 1981, to conduct an independent inquiry.p.5

Verbatim

• Je n'ai ressenti aucun trouble de la vue ou de l'ouie

  p.18

Most interesting

• COLINI was a former construction foreman ('conducteur de travaux') who had suffered a cardiac infarction in 1973 and was retired on disability; GEPAN noted he was extremely fatigued during the February 17 interview and had to rest mid-session.
• The gendarmerie was not contacted by COLINI directly — his wife phoned their neighbor Monsieur URBAIN, who came with his wife, was shown the ground trace, and then advised the couple to alert the authorities.
• The object's approach and departure both passed through the same gap between two large conifers at the far end of the terrace, though COLINI noted the landing and takeoff trajectories were not identical.
• COLINI persistently attributed the craft to an unknown military type throughout — before and after the gendarmerie visit, and still at the time of the GEPAN interview — citing the nearby Camp de JOUVAN; he admired its flight performance and ruled out a helicopter specifically because the object landed too close to the restanque wall.
• The terrace where the object landed was almost never used by the owners except occasionally for pétanque; COLINI himself described the valley as offering far more practical landing sites for conventional aircraft.
• The document anonymizes all place names (coded as 'Al' and 'A2') and the private investigation group ('XYZ') but identifies the witness by surname throughout.
• GEPAN's stated methodology, articulated at the outset of TN 16, explicitly excludes single-witness cases lacking physical corroboration; the ground trace was the evidentiary threshold that qualified this incident for formal investigation and multi-laboratory analysis.
• Three separate drawings of the object produced wildly inconsistent proportions: the diameter-to-height ratio from COLINI's verbal description implied 1.42, his sketch for the private investigator produced 2.25, and his sketch for GEPAN produced 5.66 — a spread GEPAN flagged as notable.