Case description
On 27 September 1954 around 08:40, three children aged ten, eight and a half, and five were going to school near Ceint-d'Eau, east of Figeac. Their teacher alerted the gendarmerie that evening. The children were interviewed separately the next morning, and the resulting report preserves substantial contradictions rather than a single consistent encounter.
The oldest girl described a bald man about 1.2–1.3 metres tall in a red coverall, carrying a rifle, with a roughly metre-wide crate in the adjoining meadow. She said a gunshot frightened them away and that at noon she saw him join the crate and depart rapidly through the air. The younger girl instead described a figure only 0.5–0.7 metres tall holding a box 30–40 centimetres across, placing the departure in the morning and seeing nothing at noon. Her agreement about red clothing relied on what the older child told her. The five-year-old said he saw nothing.
Investigators found no traces or independent corroboration and noted that newspaper versions differed from the separate statements. The report's heading contains a July date, while its body repeatedly dates the event 27 September; GEIPAN uses September and classifies the case C for contradictory, insufficient information. Later claims of a hoax or retrospective confirmation are disputed additions. The plate labels the oldest girl's version, before the frightening episode, with no weapon shown and no invented saucer around the box.
