Report by Jean Tyrode in "Mystérieuses Soucoupes Volantes", book compiled by Fernand Lagarde and the ufology group Lumières Dans la Nuit, Albatros publisher, France, pp 108-115, 1976.
At 01:10hrs and under a clear moonlit sky and a very cold temperature of about -20°C, Gilbert Camus was driving home in his Peugeot 404 car, and had crossed the small village of Trénal. Arriving after the last house of Trénal on a portion of this road which is in straight line for the next kilometre, he drove at 100 or 110 km/h on the road hardened by freezing but deprived of snow and then noticed a rather intense and far away gleam, that he initially thought to be the public lighting of Condamine.
Camus then realized very quickly that the light was not opposite the road as it should be but more towards the line and in front of wood. he was puzzled and observed it with more attention; confirming that the light was well on the line. Continuing and without slowing down Camus very quickly approached the location where this light was. At this point he saw that the light was not a single source but six to eight lights located just in front of the wood, in a slightly marshy meadow on the right of the road. Getting even closer he saw that these lights were laid out regularly at ground level, on a line parallel with that of edge of wood, and that they were rectangles and of a soft bluish colour which seemed fluorescent- not dazzling at all. In total he could see eight lights.
Almost at the same time, he saw above these lights, a kind of dome-shaped object of a dull metallic appearance that shone a little under the moon which was behind and illuminated it. This dome had the vague shape of half-sphere, flattened a little and was was at a lower height than the trees at less than 8 meters and with a width of15 meters. He thinks that without the reflection of the moon on this dome he would probably not have noticed it. He could not distinguish the lower part where this dome and the lights below would join.
He was still driving and apparently without having reduced speed when he then arrived at the level of the third tree counted starting from the wood. Behind this tree, he saw three beings who were climbing to the top of the slope of the verge of the road and were at the level of his car's windowpane. They were on all four, like animals.
Camus described these three beings of almost black in colour chestnut, like tanned, with a head as large as a lion's head and "the shape of an ant's head, with a round lobe framed of two other lobes inflating like cheeks" but he could not distinguish the features of their faces. He passed very quickly in front of these entities and they made no movement.
He was frightened enough at this point but when Camus saw that in the meadow there were some twenty more of these creatures, some standing or almost upright while others were going down on all four as if they were looking for something on the ground. Apart from the noise of his car Camus heard no other sounds.
When he had just passed these beings a huge white or slightly pale blue gleam seemed to come from the rear and filled his car and also illuminating the wood. While Camus was looking at the rear view mirror he had the feeling that some ray was being projected at him. He had the time to notice that some of the beings in the meadow seemed of smaller size than the others and that they had the arms on the ground. But as he was hit by the light he stopped being frightened and was overcome by a feeling of not being in control of what he was doing and the car continued operating on of its own and it was impossible for him to direct it and to avoid an accident. He indicated that it was as if "there was failure of the ignition" and was astonished not to have had an accident. He also states that the car had slowed down considerably on 100 meters without him doing anything for that effect and the speed fell to a few 20 km/h whereas the fourth gear was still engaged. He noticed this fast deceleration, but did not feel the deceleration in his body as would have been the case in an sudden braking.
above; The blue line is departmental road D30, between Trénal in the East and Condamine if the West. Mr. Camus said he drove from Trénal to Condamine. The small wood is still visible, however, the "A" part was part of the wood at that time, although the trees have been chopped down now. The ellipse is the approximate location where the UFO trace was found, the yellow line is the ditch that this trace crossed. The yellow dots near the road is the place where he saw the beings and were the footsteps were found.
A few moments later, he noticed that the engine had become fluorescent but that stopped very quickly before he had reached the wood with the car running at no more than 20 km/h. At this time, the car picked up speed again - although he did nothing (consciously) such as putting his foot down on the accelerator. Completely disorientated, Camus continued his journey at a speed of 50 to 60 km/h until he reached Condamine where he recovered and then drove home in Savigny.
At home, while taking his clothes off, he was amazed to see on its shirt seven or eight traces in the shape of rectangles which measured 4 to 6 cm out of 2 to 3 cm on the left side of his shirt. These traces were of a very shining gold yellow, like phosphorescent, and persisted only five to six minutes after he had taken his shirt off. The gleam of these traces had a similar appearance as that of the rectangles that he had seen on the right when he was on the road.
The next day he drove back to the place with his son to see whether he would find traces of the UFO but nothing was found "at the place where the 'monsters' were." In the meadow at the edge of the wood a kind of half-ellipse of which the large axis was of almost 10 meters length was found indicating a landing(?). The trace was in grass and 2 to 3 cm of depth. It crossed a drainage ditch over a length of almost 2 meters. At the place where this trace crossed the drainage the water was not frozen as elsewhere and his son later told investigators that water gave an impression of having been heated. In the vicinity of the half ellipse trace, snow had partly melted on a space of approximately 17 meters and had also melted at the place where the creatures were this having been noted at 15:00 hrs. There were footstep traces in the grass near the main trace which resembled those of shoes without heels, but with an abnormal length of 40 centimeters. Gilbert Camus took photographs of these footstep traces, said to be "of average quality."
A tree located behind the trace had a large branch that hung down and it appeared that it had been recently broken. This branch later fell apparently on its own. He stated that certain small yellow plants "had disappeared in the space occupied by the ellipse" and Ufologist Jean Tyrode noted that indeed at this trace, the yellow flowers of Leontodron Crispus type, were absent whereas there was many of them in the rest of the meadow.
Gilbert Camus, who was a well-known person locally (a radio-engineer who had a shop in Gevingey and another in Savigny in the Saone-et-Loire, and made frequent trips between the two places and used to make four trips per day on the secondary road D30 and it was on this road that he experienced his encounter) and he told his story to whoever wanted to hear it. Some two days later many locals had been to see the location and a good number of people also saw the traces, while freezing had won again in the drainage during the night. People who crossed the meadow noted that there were many fine prints, resembling those that birds could have left.
Three days after his encounter, Gilbert Camus found rectangles of the same dimensions as those on his shirt appear on his undershirt but they were laid out at different places than on the shirt and of brown colour, or "chocolate" as he put it. These traces proved to be tough: the undershirt was washed in the machine and it took three or four washes to make them go away. While his shirt had shown traces, then his undershirt, his pullover on the other hand did not show any trace.
During the following day (the 6th), the green paint of his Peugeot 404 car faded and left quite visible green traces on the rags during washings. Camus stopped washing it thinking that the paint was going to come off. Jean Tyrode indicates that it looked correct to him that the car had lost its colour.
Before his encounter Camus had suffered from terrible headaches which followed a liver disease. These attacks of pain were unbearable and he despaired for a cure and at times these were so intense that he wished for death so as not to suffer anymore. However, after the encounter, he realized that his liver did not make him suffer any more suffer and at first did not attach importance to the fact but, as this apparent cure was maintained over time, he linked it to the encounter. More than six months later, the pains had not returned. Previously, he had been "unable to eat anything" but after the encounter he could eat anything without being inconvenienced at all.
The Ufologists of the area, from the Lumières Dans la Nuit (Lights in the Night) group, Jean Tyrode and Pierre Lonchampt investigated the location and spoke with the witness, rather quickly, it seems. Tyrode reports that sceptical people suggested Gilbert Camus as an alcoholic but that although he indeed enjoyed the good wine, it was unreasonable to claim that he was drunk every evening and his just seemed to be only gossiping from jealous people adding that it "is to better go visit him in the morning rather than in the afternoon." Tyrode took Camus's character as very sensible and honest; Lonchampt, too, insisted that the man was known in the area to be very honourable and that there is no doubt in his mind that Camus was truthful.
Lonchampt indicates that if the fine traces were perhaps those of birds, the other traces were too large to be human shoes as if someone had such big feet it would be known in the area. He excludes snow racket (snow shoes) because the shape did not match.
Ufologist Charles Garreau who had discussed the case with these investigators had suggested checking the military authorities and whether there were manoeuvring troops that night, but there wasn't. Colonel Sirven of 60e Infantry Regiment is said to have looked into this for over a month in vain and commented that soldiers under hoods and heavy clothes could have been an explanation in December, but that there was nothing in March.
Lonchampt notes anomalies in Gilbert Camus' story. A missing tree he said was on the left was actually on the right. Here I would like to point out that this is not really an "anomaly". A UFO observer once told myself and a colleague that a low level object that was sighted was near a tree on the right hand side of the road (the tree had a gouge in the trunk where something heavy had fallen from a lorry and hit it). So we went looking for the tree but there was no tree on the right hand side of the road...there was one on the left hand side of the road and it did have a gouged trunk. A photo was taken. This got us confused because the witness was adamant that the tree was on the right. I burst out laughing and said "I wonder...the observer was entering the village--" my colleague looked at me then the penny dropped. We went back to tell the observer we had found the tree but on the left not right hand side of the road. "Yes" came the nod and response, "enter the village and its on the right and when you leave the village its on the left",
The claimed speed of 100 - 110 km/h is doubted, as Lonchampt thereafter drove to the place behind the witness' car and he was going no faster than 40 km/h. Lonchampt adds that it would be much more logical that he drove at about 60 - 70 km/h to record all that he said he saw. In fact, Camus may have been travelling slower to maintain contact with the car behind whereas by himself at night he would be travelling faster.
In 2006, Camus' daughter again formally contradicted the allegations of alcoholism made against her father and confirmed the details of the case and considered it very regrettable that the Gendarmerie could not give her a copy of her father's statement, telling her that the official reports are only kept for 20 years (in the UK general police reports were only kept 5-6 years then destroyed to make more space for up-to-date files.
I gritted my teeth on reading that the clothes were repeatedly washed -taking any evidence down the drain. That the shirt and vest had the marks but not the jumper almost suggests that the jumper was removed(?) before whatever left the other marks. The Peugeot was not, it seems, checked out for residual evidence -EM or other. At least I cannot find indications of this in the only source I have.
Everything in the report seems to read like an old style UFO abduction case (before Hopkins et al destroyed the subject). We know that the time of the encounter was around 01:10 hrs -some sources I have seen state 22:00 and even 01:00 hours (incorrect)- but at what time did Camus get home? Could he account for all of the time? (clearly from his account he could not).
There was much reticence to look too deep into these cases and and later use of hypnosis such as the Helene Giuliana case in 1975 was totally botched up and recognised as having been botched up. We will never know what happened that morning and the percipient held up under scrutiny and then faded back into every day life.
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