Legendary Creatures of France | Documentary

France. A land which has long been regarded as a hotbed of paranormal activity. From ancient tales of a servant of death prowling the countryside in a creaking wagon, to encounters with strange visitors alleged to have come from the sky that have left researchers puzzled to this day, to the famous story of a creature which, verifiably, left almost a hundred dead in a desolate region of France but was never identified with certainty, there are a great many deeply mysterious events which have occurred in France throughout its history. Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Fire of Learning. This is the Campfire Series. Join us in this video as we explore some of the most bizarre, most disturbing, and most interesting paranormal incidents claimed to have ever occurred on French soil. Before we begin, we would like to thank James Freeburn, Sophie, and Apollon Sergal for being our most recent supporters on Patreon. They join these supporters listed here who help to make videos like this possible. Brittany, in the northwestern corner of France, is among the nation's most culturally distinct regions. It was settled by Celtic Britons, fleeing the Anglo-Saxons in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. To this day, it retains many cultural and linguistic commonalities with its Welsh and Cornish cousins. An example of this can be found in the folk beliefs retained by the Bretons in entities from Brythonic Celtic tradition that serve as psychopomps and harbingers of death, known as onkous. Many cultures around the world have a belief in an entity or entities that warn individuals, and perhaps those connected to them, of an impending death, or in a psychopomp, a term for an entity tasked with collecting and guiding those whose time has come to the afterlife. In Breton folklore, the onkou fill such a role. The onkou mythology varies heavily by region, but generally, onkous take the form of a tall man, generally haggard, corpse-like, or even skeletal in appearance. Their eyes are often hollow, their hair long and white, their head may turn in a complete circle, they are generally said to be dressed like a historic Breton peasant, wearing a long black coat and a large black hat. Today, onkous are often portrayed wielding a scythe for the purpose of reaping souls, however, the scythe appears to be a more recent addition, seemingly the result of influence from related but separate entities, namely the Grim Reaper. Indeed, it can be difficult to distinguish the original onkou mythology from later alterations. More traditional depictions of onkous portray them holding an arrow, often specifically an elf arrow, or a spear, javelin, lance, or a similar projectile weapon. An onkou launches its projectile by hand at its intended target to claim his or her soul. Because onkous also serve the role of gravediggers, they have also traditionally been depicted holding shovels or similar tools. Onkous travel the countryside in a screeching black cart or coach pulled by two horses. It is sometimes held that one horse is healthy and robust, the other emaciated and weak. In some versions of the myth, onkous are accompanied by two ghostly figures on foot. One leads the horses while the other opens gates and doors. A barn owl may also sit atop the shoulder of the onkou. An onkou's arrival is preceded by a powerful gust of wind, a chilling of the air, and the infamous grating creaking of its cart. To see an onkou may, but does not necessarily always mean that one's own time has come, though it does generally at least mean that someone connected to the witness's time is coming. In some regions, it is held that to see the onkou's face is the sign that the witness themselves is nearing death, for only the person for whom it has been sent may see it. All others will only see the face of an onkou concealed by its large black hat. To see an onkou at a crossroads or on a street is sometimes said to be a sign that one is to die, either within the calendar year or upon getting their affairs in order. Likewise, disembodied knocking on one's door may mean the same. When the time has come, the soul of the one who has been chosen is then loaded into an onkou's cart by his ghostly helpers and carried off into the next life. To avoid looking at an onkou will not change one's fate, its arrow will strike regardless. While sometimes viewed as a personification of death, traditionally it is more correct to view onkou's as servants of death. Onkou's do not actually kill, they are merely sent to carry a soul which has already been called by a higher power to its fate. They then serve as a guide into the next life. Furthermore, onkou's do not judge the dead, they are impartial, their purpose is to act more as a ferryman. Onkou's are also sometimes seen in graveyards, watching over corpses as a kind of guardian. Many historic Breton churches carved stone statues of onkou's inside the parish closes to remind churchgoers of their own mortality. The onkou is sometimes described as a single immortal entity, however this also seems to be a more recent development. While there are multiple separate stories explaining the origins of onkou's, it seems that in the traditional Breton mythology there is not one single onkou, rather each Breton parish has their own individual onkou. Furthermore, the role is said to be rotated each year, being filled by the last to die in each parish from the previous year when the new year begins. Likewise, the ghostly figures accompanying and assisting onkou's are held to be other members of the parish who passed away in the prior year as well. We hope you are enjoying this video so far. If so, we ask that you consider giving the video a like and invite you to subscribe to our channel to keep up with more videos like this in the future. Now back to the video. Givaudan. A sparsely populated region in southern France. Quiet. Rugged. Eerie. This region bears a painful, haunting memory. Something very mysterious and very disturbing happened here just a few centuries ago. Something that struck fear into the entire country and beyond, and which escalated to the point that the situation was overseen by the king of France himself. The story we are about to tell you is not a mere story. Scores of people were, in fact, attacked and killed by... something that roamed here throughout this period. In spite of all the attention that it received, however, to this day it is not certain what the culprit responsible for these gruesome deaths even was. It is remembered simply as La Bête du Givaudan. The Beast of Givaudan. In the 18th century, Givaudan was a cold, remote, desolate, dangerous, crime-ridden backwater of the kingdom of France. The population of the region was then also relatively sparse. The capital and largest settlement of the region, Monde, was essentially just a large village home to about 5,000 people. Most of the population were impoverished, subsistence farmers. The land and climate were generally too rough to depend on for growing crops, and so most survived on pastoral herding, raising cattle, sheep, goats, etc. There were only a of proper roads in the region. The people here lived surrounded by untamed wilderness, mountains, ravines, moorland, swamps, heaths, and occasional pockets of dark forests. Here nature had endured, spared from some of the encroachment of man. Should there have been anything from an ancient or another world clinging to our own, it would very well have persisted in such a place as this. It was here that it all began, over 260 years ago. The first incident, at least the first recorded incident, occurred in the late spring of 1764. It was reported that a young woman tending to cattle was approached suddenly by an unusual creature that she described as quote-unquote like a wolf yet not a wolf. The creature charged and attacked her. Her dogs fled in panic, however the bulls from the herd charged the beast and drove it away. Persistent, the creature tried to attack again but was again driven off by the bulls. The girl was reportedly injured but survived. The next recorded incident occurred on June 30th of that year. Here the victim was not so fortunate. It was reported that Jeanne Boullée, a 14-year-old girl, was attacked by the beast near the village of Les Zoubaques while tending sheep. She did not survive. On her burial certificate it was written that she was a victim of quote-unquote the ferocious beast. This wording would suggest that the beast was already well known to the area by this point and that Jeanne Boullée was possibly not the first fatality. Throughout the rest of summer 11 more known victims, women and children, were reportedly killed by the beast. The remnants of an attack were distinctive. The beast was said to have gone for the throats of its victims, sometimes to the point of decapitation, leaving behind a gruesome scene. Those who were found alone in the countryside were the most vulnerable, but several incidents demonstrated that the beast was fearless. It attacked entire groups of people. It attacked people in the middle of villages in broad daylight. Word of these disturbing random deaths and the beast lurking here among the wilderness held responsible quickly spread throughout the entire country and soon reached the ear of the French king Louis XV himself. This was clearly quite out of the ordinary. The people were frightened. Thus the king tasked a military unit stationed in the area with finding and dealing with the creature. This force was led by Captain Jean-Baptiste Duhamel and a government official named Etienne Lefant. It was bolstered by volunteers who were encouraged by the promise of a great financial reward for slaying the beast. It is worth noting that when the government forces arrived, communication was actually impeded between them and the locals by a language barrier. Though all were French, Jean Vaudan at this time spoke a similar but not mutually intelligible Romance language called Occitan. There were a number of translators active, but this factor allowed room for misunderstanding about what the locals were seeing and what the government forces were directing. Throughout the winter, the locals and soldiers hunted for the beast. Hunting parties roamed the forests. Poison bait was left around the area. Soldiers even stood alone in fields dressed as peasant women in an attempt to lure the beast to them. As a result of these efforts, the force slew over a hundred wolves in the area. But the gruesome attacks did not stop. The true monster remained at large. By February of 1765, dozens of people had been killed with no end in sight. Further professional hunters were sent to the region, but they too failed. The people lived in terror. To be outside was no longer safe. Accounts of the beast were printed in newspapers as far away as Boston. The king was furious. Both his and his kingdom's pride were on the line. France had recently suffered a devastating defeat in a major war. Could he not even defend his people from what was surely a mere beast? In July, the king sent an officer of the crown, François-Antoine, to handle the situation. Antoine arrived and began his hunt. After a few months, on September 20th, 1765, he reported success. He encountered the beast near the abbey of Lachaise-Dieu in Auvergne. He fired upon it and killed it. The creature he shot was a wolf, noted to have had a white throat. The wolf measured nearly six feet in length and weighed over 130 pounds, or nearly 1.8 meters and over 59 kilograms. On the large side for a gray wolf, but nothing necessarily extraordinary. An autopsy was performed on the wolf to look for human remains within its stomach and intestines. None were found. Antoine had doubts, but multiple alleged witnesses were called to view the creature, and a number confirmed it as the beast they knew as the monster. Furthermore, the beast had wounds on it that appeared as though they had come from people defending themselves from it. The animal was taxidermied, sent to Paris, presented before the king, and placed in a museum, though this specimen was later lost. Antoine returned to the wilderness, as locals had claimed that the wolf had sired offspring. He succeeded in hunting its mate and pups by November. At last, peace came to Gévaudan, until December. On December 2nd, 1765, further deaths were reported, followed by more in February and March. Clearly, the work of the beast, which locals had been assured, was dead. The locals requested help from the king, but this was refused, as he considered Antoine's wolf the culprit, and the matter, therefore, closed. As victims continued to be claimed, another nobleman, the Marquis d'Apchey, set out with a group of hunters in the late spring to settle the matter once and for all. On June 18th, one of the hunters, a local farmer named Jean Chastel, spotted a large, reddish, wolf-like animal, which he shot and killed near Montmouchet, in the north of the region. At least 24 witnesses confirmed it as the which had been troubling them, with many even recounting personal stories of attacks in a later report. This animal was studied by naturalists, and, like Antoine's wolf, was taxidermied, although the fate of this taxidermy is unknown, with some sources suggesting it was destroyed. Following this, no further incidents pertaining to the beast were reported. Modern estimates place the total death toll at around 90 people, possibly more, with another 50 or so having been injured. Contemporary reports also state that nearly 700 wolves in the region were killed throughout the period in the effort to stop the attacks. What happened here? Descriptions of the beast varied considerably, making it difficult to narrow down what it could have been. However, the creature was most often described as either a wolf or something wolf-like, but not quite a wolf. Reports often tell of a reddish-brown or tawny-colored creature, with one or multiple stripes, a white heart-shaped mark on its underbelly, pointed ears, a tail longer than a wolf's with a tuft at the end, and a long head with a flat snout. It was primarily active at dawn and dusk. Captain Duhamel described it as a creature with, quote, a breast as wide as a horse, a body as long as a leopard, and fur that was red with a black stripe, end quote. He presumed the creature to be some kind of monstrous cross between a lion and some other animal. He wasn't quite sure what. Etienne Lafon, the government official involved in the hunt, described it by saying, quote, It is much bigger than a wolf. It has a snout somewhat like a calf's and very long hair, which would seem to indicate a hyena. As historian J. M. Smith, author of the book Monsters of Gévaudan, noted, other witnesses likened the beast to something more like a werewolf, claiming it could walk on its hind legs, was capable of great leaps, had fire in its eyes, could repel bullets, and, if killed, could even rise from the dead. One of, perhaps the most important description, comes from what is known as the Morin Report, which was the autopsy report of the final beast, the reddish wolf-like creature killed by Jean Chastel, performed by Rochette M. Morin. Though it is important to note, Morin examined the corpse only after others had had access to it and had damaged it in the process. Morin said the beast he examined, quote, appeared to be a wolf, albeit an extraordinary one, quite different in its appearance and proportions from the wolves typically seen in this region, end quote. He stated that several hunters and many knowledgeable persons agreed, saying that the animal only clearly resembled a wolf in its tail and hindquarters. Its head was described as monstrous. Its neck was covered in a very thick fur of a reddish-gray color, crossed with black stripes. It had a large white mark on its chest, shaped like a heart. Its paws had four toes, each armed with large claws that were much longer than those of ordinary wolves. Its ribs did not resemble those of a wolf. Its eyes were of a cinnabar-red color. Human remains were discovered within this beast's stomach and intestines. This is a mysterious description that does not identically match any known animal. But then, it was, again, only one of a number of different descriptions. If this were the beast responsible for the attacks, why did descriptions deviate so much from this? It is important to consider that there is nothing that necessarily guarantees that this was all the work of a single creature. Situations of high stress and fear tend to kindle legends. What may have been the work of multiple different animals was, amid hysteria, attributed to a single monster. In fact, if multiple animals were involved, it would explain certain oddities, like why descriptions varied so much and why the death of Antoine's wolf, the gray wolf first believed to have been the monster, seemed to have led to a decline in attacks but did not end them completely. Furthermore, some attacks appear to have occurred in separate locations, miles apart, on the same days. Some witnesses even claim to have encountered multiple culprits. However, even if there were multiple animals involved, this is all still very unusual. Researchers have argued that the simplest explanation for creatures described as wolf-like active in France are wolves. As far as wolves go, they do attack people, though it is not as common as one might think. French researcher Jean-Marc Morisseau estimated that between the years 1200 and 1920, there were around 10,000 wolf attacks in France alone. This is a rough estimate, but it averages to about 14 attacks a year throughout the entire country. In the three years during which the Gévaudan attacks occurred, however, there was an average of about 47 attacks a year in a single region of the country. It is hard to verify all the figures, but this would suggest that this was not sensationalism. This suggests that there really was a huge spike in attacks. Why? Certain circumstances can cause wolves to become more aggressive towards humans. Rabies, for example, is one, but nothing in the primary sources points to rabies or anything like it. Another is environmental hardship. Wolves prefer not to attack people if they have another option. It's extremely risky to attack humans, but if environmental hardships deprive them of food, they may feel forced. J.M. Smith favored the idea that the attacks were caused by an unusual infestation of wolves who, because of overpopulation, would have been in an intense competition for food. While this is all relevant, the problem remains that there were far too many witnesses who described the beast as something like a wolf, but not quite a wolf, for that detail to be ignored. Indeed, those descriptions did not merely come from frightened witnesses who described the creature in fleeting encounters. The Moran Report wolf, studied closely by professionals, met that description. The description and measurements Moran provided do point to a canid, a member of the taxonomical family to which wolves belong, but it deviates too much from what one would expect of the kind of wolf typically found in France. Alternate explanations include things like different species of wolves, like the Italian wolf. The Italian wolf is a bit closer in description, having tawny fur, but it still doesn't satisfy most irregularities either. Another is bears. Bears would have been easy to identify, however, and not many descriptions point it to them. More exotic explanations, such as hyenas, lions, and tigers, have also been proposed, as these would have been more difficult for even a naturalist of the age to identify. However, what would such exotic animals have been doing in the south of 18th century France? It is possible that animals like this could have escaped from something like a local menagerie, the closest thing to a zoo in the 18th century, though there are no reports of such a thing. Some have argued that a female or adolescent male lion could fit the reported descriptions and behavior as well, and could have avoided identification because of the lack of a developed mane. Furthermore, as Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com noted, another popular explanation is wolf dogs, a cross between a wolf and a dog. This would explain why the beast seems so strongly to be a canid, and yet had unusual features that made it difficult to identify. As mentioned, some maintain that the creature cannot be reliably identified because it is not of the animal kingdom, but something supernatural, that dark forces beyond our understanding were active in the There is one final explanation to consider. Some witnesses considered that the ferocity of the beast was too extreme for it to have been driven by mere hunger. Furthermore, it is also very important to note that, while historical records are imperfect, the impression they give is that, while livestock attacks were recorded, the beast actually went after humans more than livestock, which is very much contrary to what would be expected of a wolf or any other wild animal. These points may or may not be true, but either way, one wonders if this animal or animals, whatever they were, were driven by some other motive. Could they have been trained to behave this way? It has been suggested that someone may have been using these animals to attack the peasants of the area intentionally. Various motives have been suggested, but it could have simply been the work of an 18th century serial killer. Another point tied to this is that some witnesses claimed that they would shoot at the beast, but could not bring it down. As mentioned, some said they would hit it and see it stumble, but that it would get back up and run away. This encouraged the suggestions of supernatural influence, but it has also been suggested that the creature could have been wearing armor. Ultimately, it seems that time has buried too much of this case for it to be possible to definitively prove any of these possibilities. Unless new evidence emerges in the future, the identity of La or Les Bêtes du Gévaudan may forever remain a mystery. The Breton encu is often held to be a figure of folklore, a personification not of death itself, but of the inevitability of it, not something real. However, there is a lighthouse in Brittany that has influenced a different view. Tévenec Lighthouse is regarded as one of the strangest lighthouses in the world. It is located on a small island off the coast of western Brittany, along the Raz de Seine. The Raz de Seine is a strait of water used by sailors sailing between the Atlantic Ocean and English Channel. It is an important and favored route, as going around it requires a ship to add around 20 to 30 miles to its journey around the Chaussée de Seine. The shortcut comes at a cost, however. The Raz de Seine is a rather dangerous route. The strait is littered with rocky outcrops and shoals, which require careful navigation to travel through. This is made difficult by the nature of the channel, which gives rise to violent waters. The area, as a result, has a long history of shipwrecks, some within living memory. The currents would often carry the remains of shipwrecks to the island on which Tévenec Lighthouse was built, thereby associating the island with death even before its construction. During the Napoleonic Wars, for example, the French warship Sédouissant wrecked on the nearby rocks, drowning hundreds of soldiers. Breton legend has held that an enkou dwells here among the rocks. The drowned would meet this enkou on a ferry to be taken to the next life. The association between the island and enkous is allegedly very old. Another legend tells not necessarily of an enkou, but of a sailor who became shipwrecked on the island, and who remained stuck here for days, unable to be rescued because of the currents until he finally passed away in anguish. His tormented spirit is said to linger here and cry out whenever the waves become violent. To attempt to reduce the risks of traveling through the strait, in the late 19th century the French government began to establish lighthouses in the area, including the Tévenec. During the roughly six years it took to construct the lighthouse, its builders are said to have had a number of strange experiences, including hearing voices in the Breton language telling them, meaning, Regardless, the lighthouse was finished and its operation began in 1875. The first lighthouse keeper was a man named Henri Gouzenec. He was employed to stay and maintain the lighthouse for a year, completely on his own, with only occasional contact with the outside world in the form of ships bringing him supplies. However, it wasn't long before Gouzenec reportedly began to have strange experiences in the lighthouse. According to legend, he began to hear rattling and howling as well as voices telling him to get out. The voices allegedly drove him insane and thus he did not renew his term there. His story was likely doubted. Psychological strain among lighthouse keepers, especially in such locations, was not unheard of. Living alone on a barren rock in the middle of the sea with limited contact with the outside world took a toll on many. Gouzenec was replaced by another man, known only by his surname, Manu. He too, however, is said to have experienced similar voices in the night, demanding he leave. When a supply ship arrived only a few weeks after his tenure began, he demanded to return to the mainland with them. Following another incident, the local government mandated that the lighthouse be manned by at least two people. This did not fix the strange occurrences here. Over the years, multiple keepers, including one of the men from the very first duo, were found dead by their counterparts. Some of their corpses allegedly showed signs of struggle. One man took the job on the condition that he could take his elderly, ailing father there to care for him. As the days went on, his father began to tell his son of shadows moving around his room at night, though his son did not believe his stories. Eventually, his father was reportedly found dead. Another keeper moved in with his wife. One night, while she was giving birth, one of the walls of the room in which she was laboring was knocked down by a storm. Not every keeper is said to have experienced such incidents, but enough did for the association between the lighthouse and the supernatural to endure. Indeed, locals had given Tivinec Lighthouse the name Le Maison de l'Ancou, the House of the Ancou. In 1893, an exorcism of the island was performed by a priest with crucifixes placed all around it. It is said that no further incidents of an unusual nature have taken place there since. In 1910, the lighthouse was automated by the French government. Some have called these stories into question. It has been pointed out that there do not appear to be records verifying that many of these incidents took place. Only one keeper can be proven to have died during his tenure there and from liver failure at that. But, to be fair, if these things had happened, how much evidence for them would remain to this day. Modern researchers have also discovered that there is an underwater grotto that runs to the islet which, when air is pushed through strongly by the waves, produces a noise that could be interpreted as howling, explaining the noises reported by many visitors. Throughout the 35 years the lighthouse was occupied, it housed 23 keepers, a rate substantially higher than the average, though not necessarily unheard of for lighthouses which placed physical and mental strain on its keepers. And so, what is Tebenik Lighthouse? A place of misfortune which has, consequently, become the setting of fictional ghost stories, or a place of misfortune which has, consequently, truly attracted the supernatural? Var. A region in southeastern France. November of 1962. A Frenchman in his fifties who identified himself in his report only as Mr. S is driving along an empty road in the French countryside on a violently stormy night. As he was rounding a curve in the road, he noticed a group of figures in the middle of the road about 80 meters or 260 feet ahead of him. He began to slow his car to avoid hitting them. As he did so, the group suddenly split off into two, moving left and right of the road. Mr. S opened his window and leaned his head out to try to determine what these people were doing. It was then that he had the horrific realization that they were not people. Rather, he described them as, quote, beasts, some kind of bizarre animals with the heads of birds and covered with some sort of plumage, end quote, later adding that they were, quote-unquote, nightmarish. The figures, he claimed, then ran in his direction and hurled themselves towards his car on both sides. Mr. S panicked, rolled his window up, and sped off, driving another 150 meters or so down the road. Then, he stopped to look again behind him. He claims he then saw the figures running with, quote-unquote, a sort of flapping of wings towards an unusual object that had appeared behind him. He described it as a luminous dark blue object that resembled two plates upside down and placed on one another, which hung in the air over a field on the other side of the road. He claimed the bird-like entities were sucked into the object as if by a whirlwind. Then, he heard a clack noise, and the object rapidly flew away and disappeared. Mr. S continued his drive home, utterly perplexed by what he had just witnessed. Nothing more came of the incident. He would report this incident, years later, to a young UFO researcher from southern France by the name of Lionel Trigano. His encounter was published in 1968, six years after the incident occurred, under the title, Strange Encounter in Var. It is considered a highly distinct, close encounter of the third kind, that is to say, an encounter with alleged extraterrestrials themselves, due to the uniqueness of the bird-like beings described. Such beings are sometimes categorized as avian extraterrestrials. Very few other encounters with beings that resemble them have been reported throughout the history of ufology. Avian extraterrestrials are sometimes portrayed as bird-like humanoids, though it is unclear whether the beings of the Var encounter met this description, as Mr. S's description was limited. Unique though this report itself might be, UFO incidents in general were not uncommon in France, especially at the time. Thousands of UFO reports had emerged in France throughout the prior few decades. The autumn of 1954, in particular, witnessed a huge spike in reports of extraterrestrial encounters of all kinds. This wave of reports was called the 1954 French UFO wave. It occurred alongside a spike in UFO reports across many different countries, though France seems to have experienced a disproportionate number of them among the European nations. The French media was in an uproar about les saucers. Many encounters were mere sightings in the sky. Some described situations in which witnesses had been paralyzed shortly after close encounters with craft or their occupants, which then often left the scene soon after. Perhaps France's most well-known UFO incident occurred a decade after this wave in 1965, known as the Valençol encounter. This incident took place on July 1st of that year at roughly 5.45 am near the village of Valençol in southeastern France, not far from the Var encounter. It was then that a 41-year-old lavender farmer named Maurice Mass was smoking a cigarette before work when he noticed an oval or rugby ball shaped craft the size of a car emerge in the morning sky. The object flew over the lavender field in front of him, making a whistling sound, and then landed in it behind a patch of stones a mere 200 feet in front of him. Mass believed it was some kind of helicopter and approached it to demand of its pilots an explanation as to why they had made an unauthorized landing in his field. As he approached the craft, he was able to determine that it was grey, had a sliding door, and was like a spider in the sense that it was supported by six legs in a central pivot. The top of the craft was transparent. As soon as he saw the craft, however, he noticed its occupants. There were two figures which he claimed he quickly realized were not humans standing outside the craft. He described them as stocky, short, not quite a meter in height, with oversized bare heads, no neck, large ears, no chin, no hair, only a small opening for a mouth, eyes somewhat similar to a human's but without eyebrows, and a light skin complexion. He added that they were wearing what looked like dark, grey-green, one-piece suits. They were both squatting on the ground, appearing to be examining a lavender plant. When he came within seven meters of them, they noticed him, and one of the figures pointed what was described as a tube-like object at Mass. Mass immediately found himself paralyzed. He felt no pain or any other symptoms, but was simply unable to move. Mass claimed the figures stood there for another four to five minutes, communicating without opening their mouths, with what he described as grumbling sounds. He said he thought they appeared to be making fun of him, but that their attitude did not make him afraid because he did not have the impression that they wished him harm. In fact, he would later describe them as quote-unquote good, though he wasn't sure why he felt that way. The figures then entered the object. Mass heard a dull sound that did not resemble a noise made by any craft with which he was familiar. Then the central pivot on the machine came out of the ground, and the object's six legs began spinning clockwise. The craft rose about seven meters off the ground and flew away, without disturbing the ground. It was out of sight once it was about fifty meters away. Mass was uncertain if it were incredibly fast or had simply vanished at that point. Mass remained frozen. He was terrified he would be stuck like this and eventually die, but after a further fifteen minutes he finally regained mobility. Mass claimed that he then walked to his tractor, smoked a cigarette, and then finished his morning work. C'est la vie. In truth, he did claim to be perturbed by the incident and later told friends a version of what had happened, sparing the more dramatic details for fear of looking mad. His companions then went on to inform the entire village. The incident was reported to the gendarmerie, or local police force, and an investigation ensued. The site was disturbed by villagers walking through the area before it could be investigated. However, many unusual details had been preserved. A hole, which was eighteen centimeters in diameter and forty centimeters deep, was discovered. They also observed four shallow grooves, about eight centimeters wide and approximately two meters long each, forming a kind of cross centered on the cylindrical hole. The soil at this location was reportedly compacted. The edges of the hole had blackened by the following day. Many of the lavender plants, within an area over a hundred meters in size, were found dead. Nothing would grow in that area for years following this incident. The soil in the area in which the craft was said to have landed had an unusually high concentration of calcium, 18.3%. Mass also noted that he had observed a moist area in the soil, left behind by the craft, that had hardened like concrete by the same evening. Months later, Mass would also claim that he suffered from nightmares and hypersomnia, an excessive need for sleep, for months following the incident, symptoms confirmed by his family. He claimed he found it difficult to stay awake for more than four hours at a time, a stark change from his previous lifestyle of working from sunup to sundown. The Valensol incident went public and became famous throughout the country and even the world. Many ufologists were taken aback by the unusually high amount of evidence left behind at the scene, and to this day it is regarded as one of the most convincing cases France and even Europe has ever produced. However, not everyone was convinced. Skeptics discovered that French military helicopters were active in the area, participating in military exercises at the time the incident took place, specifically Alouette 2 and Alouette 3 helicopters. It was considered certain that they had flown over Mass' field, and very plausible that they might have landed in it. The French journalist Claude Moguet proposed that the helicopter was actually an American spy helicopter. The excessively high calcium detected in the field was argued by the French skeptic Dominique Codron to have come from a liquid lime fertilizer tank owned by a neighboring farmer. Indeed, while an essential plant fertilizer, if an excess had been spilled, it could explain why so many plants in the vicinity were dying, and it also could have been what created the hard, concrete-like area. It was argued that the rest of the experience may have been filled in by something like an early morning dream. However, for all or even just some of these things to have happened at roughly the same time in the same spot, along with the unexplained sudden onset of transient hypersomnia, would have been an incredible coincidence in itself. Perhaps the incident was a hoax, the markings on the ground forged, the chemicals intentionally spilled. The local villagers who were interviewed, however, generally stated that they did not believe Mass would orchestrate a hoax of this nature. He had been a dedicated member of the French resistance during the war, a hard-working farmer, and was regarded by the village as an honest man. Another explanation was that this was some form of secret military experiment, though what could explain all of these details is uncertain. Mass's hypersomnia resolved within months, thereby crossing out explanations like narcolepsy. Mass stood by his statements, adding that while he did not know what this craft was, and would not venture to guess, he did know what a helicopter looked like, and that this craft, which he was certain did not have a rotor nor blades, was not one. It is worth noting again that his initial story was less dramatic. Many of the more remarkable details, like the paralysis, emerged in the following days, as he claimed he was worried people would think he was mad. Once the full story was out, however, it does not appear to have ever changed. Mass died in 2004. According to the book Passport to Magonia by the famous French UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, Mass later claimed that he had had a feeling that the visitors had communicated something to him. He was not sure how, nor was he ever even able to convey what they had communicated, but he felt it was somehow very important. Indeed, though Mass became annoyed by the attention he received over the years, eventually selling his farm and becoming a recluse as a result, he regarded the incident itself as a kind of spiritual experience, which he did not regret. Despite how fantastic this incident might sound, the attention and thorough professional investigation that followed did not lead to a natural explanation that adequately explained all the details. It remains one of France's and Ufology's greatest mysteries to this day. We hope you enjoyed this video. If so, we invite you to give this video a like, and to come check out the rest of Fire Learning, and to subscribe to see more videos like this in the future. To support the channel, there is a link to our Patreon in the description. A special thanks to our current supporters listed here. Thank you for watching, and we hope to see you around the campfire.