Case description
Gilbert Lelay's story belongs near Sainte-Marie-en-Erbray, close to Châteaubriant in Loire-Atlantique. Later catalogues often distorted this into Sainte-Marie d'Herblay and even relocated it near Paris. The thirteen-year-old boy reportedly described a nighttime encounter in October 1954. Contemporary and retrospective versions disagree between October 9, 12 and 16, and some later sources substitute an afternoon hour.
In the familiar account, Lelay saw a phosphorescent cigar-like object in a meadow and a man in grey clothing, boots and a grey hat nearby. The man allegedly carried a sphere emitting coloured flashes, spoke ordinary French and warned him to look without touching. Lelay said the visitor returned through a door, with coloured controls briefly visible inside, and the apparatus rose before making two turns or loops and disappearing. No unusual alien anatomy was described.
Vallée's 1964 letter to Flying Saucer Review is a material correction: it identifies the duplicated Lelay/Erbray entry and explicitly calls the story a hoax. The account nevertheless continued through later books and catalogues. This assessment should not disappear behind an otherwise vivid narrative. No independently recovered physical evidence was established in the reviewed sources. The plate therefore uses neutral family-and-storytelling context, with the claimed craft only as an artistic paper sketch, and does not present an actual encounter or a documented family interview.
