8 January 1981; first police report 9 January / T153
Trans-en-Provence and the physical-trace debate
Trans-en-Provence, Var
Witness account
A resident of Trans-en-Provence reported that a small, ovoid object briefly descended onto his property and departed. A ring-shaped ground mark became the focus of a gendarmerie and GEPAN investigation, including soil and vegetation sampling. The event is dated 8 January 1981; the police notification was the following day. GEPAN’s detailed Technical Note 16 appeared in 1983.
Public record
The investigation and samples are documented, and GEIPAN retains the case as an unexplained category-D report. That category identifies the agency’s inability to assign an explanation from the available information. It does not establish that an extraterrestrial vehicle landed or that every interpretation of the biological findings is secure.