Compelling Pictures: Lac Chauvet, France, 1952

This is one of my favorite UFO cases. In my opinion, this is one of the few mysterious and genuine UFO photographs we have today. These four pictures were taken near Lac Chauvet, France in 1952. The photographer was an engineer named Andre Fregnale. Despite being unable to explain the photos, Fregnale believed he must have seen some sort of unknown natural phenomenon. He didn’t believe extraterrestrial races could cross the vast distances between stars. Anyways, Fregnale was allegedly hiking around France’s Lake Chauvet when he observed what appeared to be a disc shaped “flying saucer”. Fregnale was a photographer and claimed that he always took a camera with him when he went hiking. When he saw the UFO, he took out his camera and began shooting. He took 4 photos, about 8 seconds apart. As the UFO got further away, Fregnale saw it through his pair of binoculars. After a few seconds, the object allegedly disappeared. The whole sighting lasted only one minute.



The 4 Original Photographs




Photos zoomed in





Here is a newspaper article that appears to have been written a few days after the sighting.

(roughly) Translated:

A flying saucer has been photographed in the Auvergne
"The craft was between 3.000 and 8.000 meters and I did not hear any sound"
states the geologist who took the photographs
Paris. -- An electrical engineer of Le Puy claims to have seen a flying saucer Tuesday evening. "It was, he said, spindle shaped, after having made a sudden half-turn it took the shape of a disc of gray colour."
But a resident of Clermont, Mr. Frégnale, residing at the Martes-de-Veyre did better: he photographed a saucer. He was hiking in the area of Bessem Friday in search for geological curiosities, when suddenly, whereas he was near Lake Chauvet, he saw a kind of disc that crossed the sky from West to East.
Without wasting time, he directed his camera (which he always has with him when he goes hiking) and...

continued:

A flying saucer in the Auvergne
Continued from page 1
took four shots of the mysterious machine... With his binoculars he studied the "flying saucer" during a few seconds.
- "It was approximately 6 p.m., told Mr. Frégnale, when I saw the saucer. Being unaware of its diameter, I cannot say at what altitude it flew. Apparently it was between 3.000 and 8.000 meters. I do not think that the altitude could be higher, for then, because of the thickness of the atmosphere, the craft would have had a bluish metallic colour which it did not have.
Four clichés
"I had the time to take four shots very quickly. I saw the machine approximately during 50 seconds and after having taken the photographs I observed the craft with binoculars. According to my observations and calculations I made afterwards, if the saucer were at 3.000 meters it was going at approximately 300 meters per second. If it were at 8.000 meters its speed was larger obvioulsy and could reach 800 meters per second. I heard absolutely no noise.
"The craft - as often told - had the shape of an oval saucer. Below and in the center it seemed that there is a light bulge, but I am not certain. Around the circular part, a brilliant circle appeared. I suppose that above the apparatus, a rotor, or some other gyroscopic system, rotated very quickly, which would explain the reflection that one very clearly sees on the photographs that I took."

There have been numerous analysis of these photos, all of which have concluded that they are authentic (a quite detailed one can be read here although it must be translated from french). To me, the only question seems to be, what was the object? In my opinion it is one of the most convincing photographic UFO cases that we have.


I understand this probably won't convince the skeptics, or change many minds in general, but it is certainly a good case for discussion. Assuming the photos are real and Fregnale did see this object as he described it, what could it be? A balloon? No, not one that can simply "disappear" or travel at such high speeds that it would appear to do so. Not to mention the shape of it is unlike that of a balloon. IMO it appears manufactured, leaving me with few reasonable explanations. Secret government vehicle? Non-human craft? As usual when it comes to UFOs, I don't know.


Souces, Further Reading
www.ufoevidence.org...
LOTS of info here and many theories discussed, but translated from french: adelmon.free.fr...

What do you think....

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


This is one that I believe. What always gets me and I have had this happen to myself. every time you see something like this, it's going away from you. Why can't they ever be coming at you where you can get a close-up picture as it flies over. This just never seems to happen. A star for you my friend!

1952... Meh.

It has been documented that the Nazi's were working on UFO'esk technology and flying discs.

Could simply be a US Pilot returning the craft to Area 51 to be disassembled and reverse engineered.

Never heard of this case before. Thanks.

A quick google search provided me with this study in to the sighting. Quite in-depth at that. Take a look.

Scientificexploration.org

This is a great case, very believable and one I haven't heard of before now. Thanks!
S & F

reply to post by thesearchfortruth

This is indeed one of the most interesting French photographic case, that haven't been found to be explained yet. Thanks for sharing!

Lots of prosaic explanations have been proposed, but, for the main authors that analyzed the photos: Pierre Guerin and Alain Delmon, none appear to be adequate, and at least conform to the geometrical measurements done by them.



Thanks to Alain Delmon, hi-resolution scans of the original slides as well as enlargements are still available and can be found here, on my divshare account:
- Originals
- Close-up1
- Close-up2



The original study of Pierre Guerin done in 1994 for the "Journal of Scientific Exploration" can be read here, in English.

With Francois Louange, this is one of the cases that we would like to study, using our IPACO software, dedicated to UFOs photos/videos analysis.
However, and it's an essential preliminary work to do, we haven't found the time yet to deeply study what have been done before on this case. Maybe at the end of this year or in 2015...

thesearchfortruth

I've never heard of this case before.At least the date of 1952 gives it some degree of credence compared to modern reports where people just crave fame,book sales or are jumping on the bandwagon as many others do.
But..............because of the sharpness of the above image,this to me looks like a small object (maybe 1 metre or so in diameter) close to the camera rather than a large one a long distance away.Even on a day with perfect weather conditions,there's always a loss of sharpness caused by atmospheric pollutants the further away you get from the camera or the viewer.I doubt very much if after you've allowed for 1950s optical and film technology,you could get a sharp photo of an object at a greater distance moving at any kind of speed with a handheld camera.
To me this particular photo makes the object look close enough to be able to reach out and ALMOST touch it.

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


I find it interesting that the images were taken in 1952 even more so in July 1952 which seems to be a busy month for saucer sighting in a year of a so called UFO flap.
July 1952 was also when Delbert Newhouse filmed the Tremonton Utah UFO footage, described by Newhouse as like two saucers one inverted over the other.


Here's a list of other cases from July 1952 courtesy of NICAP , July and August seem particularly busy months for disk sightings...
The 1952 Sighting Wave

Thanks to elevenaugust for posting the scientific analysis of the pictures

France has had some intriguing ufo reports and encounters from the 50's to the 60's. I believe there was at least one that had an occupant sighting as well. I don't recall the name, or year, but I recall it was a close encounter of the third kind.

Dear ATS friends,

A new and original analysis report has been added to the IFOCAT Gallery of our IPACO UFO photos/videos website. This report addresses a very old, well known and controversial set of photographs which constitute the main evidence in "The case of Lac Chauvet".

Work on this case has involved the whole IPACO team for over a year now. It included close cooperation with a team of very highly experienced investigators, who along with IPACO and in partnership with the Sigma2 Commission of the 3AF Society, conducted an on-site reconstruction of the case in July 2015.

The "Case of Lac Chauvet (1952)" is now in the "IFOCAT" directory. and can be read here

a reply to: elevenaugust

Wow, the work that has gone into that report is amazing - and the conclusion very interesting !

a reply to: elevenaugust

Wonderful work. It took me quite a while to read through it and it's an impressively-detailed and thoughtful report.

I generally take the light-hearted view that all saucer photographs were hoaxed. It saves on energy and it's a successful perspective in terms of not being mistaken yet. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy seeing images of some saucer-style flying object that resists identification. It'd be good to see a 'mystery' image even though we both know it wouldn't necessarily *prove* anything whatsoever.

In this case, I'll take your word for it. The number of angles you've used to analyse these images is heart-warming. From the motion blur of leaves to compare to the notion blur of the object and calculating the object was within the DoF - clever stuff! Bravo!

originally posted by: elevenaugust
Work on this case has involved the whole IPACO team for over a year now. It included close cooperation with a team of very highly experienced investigators, who along with IPACO and in partnership with the Sigma2 Commission of the 3AF Society, conducted an on-site reconstruction of the case in July 2015.

Brilliant

I assume that very thin, hardly noticeable white line across the top half of those photo's is just a scratch on the negative?

But if so...why does it appear on more than one photo?

Could it be a thin piece of string or fishing line strung between trees...a model could be hung, then moved to a new position for anoher snap.

The motion blur could have been a fortuitous gust of wind blowing the model.

Not saying this is so, just trying to be a little objective, as i tend to jump feet first into things like this and end up with egg on my face.

ETA: Download and look closely at the PDF to see the thin, white line on several of the photos..it's too difficult to see in the posted images in thread.

originally posted by: MysterX
I assume that very thin, hardly noticeable white line across the top half of those photo's is just a scratch on the negative?

But if so...why does it appear on more than one photo?

A small piece of dust trapped between the film and pressure plates will cause a line on ALL frames if it's not cleaned out.

a reply to: Kandinsky
Thank you Kandinsky!

If you have any suggestion to improve the report for the next update, you're welcome!

originally posted by: MysterX
I assume that very thin, hardly noticeable white line across the top half of those photo's is just a scratch on the negative?

But if so...why does it appear on more than one photo?

Could it be a thin piece of string or fishing line strung between trees...a model could be hung, then moved to a new position for anoher snap.

The motion blur could have been a fortuitous gust of wind blowing the model.

Not saying this is so, just trying to be a little objective, as i tend to jump feet first into things like this and end up with egg on my face.

ETA: Download and look closely at the PDF to see the thin, white line on several of the photos..it's too difficult to see in the posted images in thread.

Yes, this is a clever idea that we already thought of. However when you look closely at enhanced versions of the UFO enlarged version prints, these scratches are everywhere and randomly distributed:







So I guess that these are just scratches on the negatives.