A Frenchman Vanishes

      4.30 am 26 November 1979, Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, France: Frank Fontaine, 19 is loading a station wagon with clothes for an open market at Gisors. He is accompanied by Jean-Pierre Prevost, 25 and Salomon N'Diaye, 25 who I presume is of African descent. Just then they saw a long, opaque trail of white lights similar to stars, and watched it for three or four minutes, when Fontaine made a prophetic remark: "I'm going there; I want to know." The other two rushed home to find a camera. When they returned, they found the car 200 metres down the road surrounded by a halo of light like a thick fog, with three or four small spheres moving around inside it. Their friend was nowhere to be seen. Then the luminous mist shot up towards the sky, but as for Fontaine, it appeared he had vanished literally off the face of the earth.

     4.30 am 3 December 1979: Fontaine is at the same spot where he disappeared. Neither hungry nor thirsty, he has no idea that seven whole days, or even seven whole minutes, have passed. He remembered moving along in the car, stopped, and noticed on his right a luminous ball which grew larger and larger until it engulfed the vehicle. The last thing he remembered was the irritation to his eyes. So now he is on the street, but where is the station wagon? It must have been stolen.

     He therefore ran to Prevost's house, only to find the door closed. So he went to the home of N'Diaye and managed to get him to come to the door. His friend looked at him, and noticed that he was still in the same unrumpled clothes, with no mud on his shoes or clothes and, as was discovered later, carrying the same sum of money (100 francs) with which he had started. He was even still clean shaven. Fontained looked at N'Diaye and asked, "What are you doing in your pyjamas?" The latter told him what had happened.

     They therefore collected Prevost, along with Fontaine's mother and fiancée, and at 7 am they were telling it all to the gendarmes. (One presumes that Fontaine had originally been reported missing.) They were taken to the court at Pontoise and informed that they could be charged with criminal mischief. However, they stuck to their story, and the police chief concluded that they were telling the truth as they saw it. They were also investigated by the French Government's official UFO organization, GEPAN, which was unable to resolve the matter.

     Prevost agreed to undergo hypnotic regression, but merely repeated what he had remembered consciously. Fontaine refused it. "If I speak under hypnosis," he declared, "all will be divulged, and I don't want that all be divulged." At another time he told reporters, "When I sleep, it all comes back to me, but it not a nightmare. It's special."

     Personally, I think he was right not to undergo hypnosis. Some things are best not remembered.

Reference: 'French abduction: "Travis Walton" style', International UFO Reporter 5(1): p 3 (Jan 1980)