Northeast / Manosque, FR being encounter — 1812

Dr Louis-Joseph-Marie Robert’s July 1812 account of earthquakes around Beaumont records a striking story on the Manosque–Villeneuve road. Unlike later catalogues that assign March or simply 1812, the reproduced original passage specifies 4 May. Seven travellers in a coach associated with Digne were reportedly frightened enough to stop at the Quatre-Tours inn instead of continuing toward Manosque. A luminous, balloonlike appearance was said to flutter near the road as the coach approached. It divided into four lights. Robert wrote cautiously that the travellers’ vision became disturbed and they thought they saw four men, each enclosed in something resembling a lantern, moving around them. The passage does not describe a solid spacecraft, detailed anatomy, conversation, landing or departure. Later versions sometimes turn the figures into men carrying lanterns, altering the original relationship. Patrick Gross reproduces the historical text and compares the changing dates and translations. The context was a sequence of earthquakes and reported luminous phenomena, rather than an independently documented volcanic eruption or alien visitation. Hatch’s precise evening time is not supplied by the original passage. The account supports a historical report of frightening lights and perceived figures; it does not settle whether they arose from natural effects, misperception or another cause.