Tonnerre, FR being encounter — September 4, 1953

An unnamed woman in Tonnerre, Yonne, reportedly saw two objects on the ground around 9:30 p.m. on September 4, 1953. The account was preserved in a later GEPA publication and summarized by Jacques Vallée as catalogue case 117. No contemporaneous witness deposition or detailed original interview was retrieved for this entry. Three figures approximately 1.5 meters tall ran toward the objects. They had unusually large heads and wore helmets and boots. One entered an elongated object described as five meters long and 1.5 meters wide. That object allegedly extended winglike structures, giving it a butterfly appearance, then tipped into a vertical position on a tripod before taking off. The other two figures entered a separate spherical object, which departed with the first. Traces were reportedly found at the location afterward, but the accessible catalogue does not identify an independent examiner, supply measurements or present a laboratory result. A modern retelling’s stronger characterization of independently proven trace evidence therefore goes beyond what was verified here. The report is unusual for its claimed change in craft configuration, yet that detail remains a witness claim rather than an established engineering mechanism. The plate depicts the approach to the two objects, with approximate winglike extensions and indistinct helmeted figures; it does not invent facial anatomy, conversation, an exact property layout or a confirmed trace analysis.