“The magic is not so much in the UFO as in the testimony”

2023-11-19 11:02:39

The pear, the UFO and the cheese ; Hallu collective beach of Chambrette ; The UFO, please, the UFO… Told in a “noir series” style in an offbeat and often funny tone, the fifty stories grouped together in the work Uncertain skies, UFO stories in the Southwestby Jean-Charles Chapuzet, which has just been published by Le Festin, shows us the sky as we have never seen it before.

Taken from the archives of Geipan (study and information group on unidentified aerospace phenomena), these stories tell stories of UFOs – unidentified flying objects – in the South-West, from 1950 to the present day. We navigate from the completely crazy to the truly inexplicable, passing through natural phenomena, flights of night birds, satellites or drones, always in a lightness of tone which has the talent to make us smile without (almost) never falling into Mockery. “There are very few crazy testimonies, but on the contrary real sincerity,” Jean-Charles Chapuzet explains to us. These people truly believe they have seen UFOs, we must respect that. »

“Airplane trash fell on Mumu’s car”

Historian, journalist and writer, Jean-Charles Chapuzet had already distinguished himself in 2018 with his book Bad plan on the cometa look back at the story of this peasant who had built a flying saucer in his garden in Germignac in Charente-Maritime, convinced of being in connection with extraterrestrials, and who had been the subject of an episode of the famous show “Strip-Tease”, The saucer and the parrotin 1993.

“It was from this book that Le Festin editions contacted me to find out if I would like to work on the Geipan archives,” says the author. I said why not, and by delving into the archives of this service of the Cnes (National Center for Space Studies) based in Toulouse, I realized that the magic is not so much in the UFO as in the testimony. »

The writer Jean-Charles Chapuzet. – Thibault Stipal

Jean-Charles Chapuzet has clearly unearthed some real gems. Like the story of Murielle, a young woman who contacted the gendarmerie on the evening of March 1, 1986, in Limousin, after her orange R5 was impacted by “a blue stone” that fell from the sky and who was “in the process of to melt. » Photos and samples are taken. Vials are even sent to an American laboratory for analysis. Then Geipan asks for a comparison with the detergents used by airlines: it is an icy block of aircraft toilet effluent. In short, “airplane trash fell on Mumu’s car.”

“I also really like the story of this couple who tanned in October 2017 on the Chambrette beach at the tip of Verdon in the Médoc,” continues Jean-Charles Chapuzet, “when suddenly they noticed that an object flying and shining turns around above them, and at the same time white filaments fall from the sky. » Are UFOs throwing “smut”? After investigation, the Geipan found the trace of a Dassault Falcon that had come to do tests in the sky at this location, as for the white filaments, these are « ballooning »a means of aerial locomotion used by spiders who use their silk threads to move with the wind.

Geipan “often breaks myths”

Throughout the pages, we learn lots of things about what is happening in the sky. “This is why I did not want to report only the unexplained cases, to show the work of science, in particular that of Geipan, which explains the reflections of satellites, the misunderstandings that we can have with Venus, the flights of birds at night whose plumage can be illuminated with the lights of the city… These scientists carry out remarkable work, even if upon arrival, they often break myths. »

Jean-Charles Chapuzet relates the stories with great detail – when the testimonies allow – while having fun. “I took great pleasure in writing this book” admits the writer. “There is a lot of poetry in all these stories, and often underneath there is a love story, a neighborhood conflict, and a real notion of territory. » These testimonies are also revealing of their times. “In the 1960s and 1970s, there was the psychosis of the Cold War, then there were quite a few stories with Thai lanterns, which were launched into the sky on Halloween evening in particular, and which often been confused with UFOs, and for the past ten years, it is more often drones that give rise to confusion…. »

From Bordeaux to the Basque Country and from Ariège to the Île de Ré, Jean-Charles Chapuzet takes us throughout the South-West over a period of seventy years, sketching along the way the evolution of morals and our society . All complemented by very beautiful illustrations produced by the Festin teams, “based on sketches delivered by witnesses to Geipan, and which sometimes relate to outsider art. » In short, this book is a real UFO.

Uncertain Skies, Stories of UFOs in the South-West, by Jean-Charles Chapuzet, published by Le Festin, 160 pages, 23 euros.