4km Ese / Bressuire, FR being encounter — October 3, 1954

Angelo Girardo, a slaughterhouse employee from Breuil-Chaussée, told coworkers that he had encountered an unusual object while travelling to work near Bressuire at dawn on 3 October 1954. The earliest local newspaper interview described him on a moped near a grain silo, seeing a luminous form perhaps 1.5 metres high, bulging like an upright barrel. A small, bareheaded man in very dark coveralls stood two or three metres away and made hand gestures. Girardo continued and found everything gone when he looked back. The story changed in national newspapers and later books. The object became a three-metre circular craft, the clothing acquired a diving helmet, and the witness supposedly watched the being board before a spectacular departure. The local interview does not support that observed takeoff. The location, transport and dimensions also vary between retellings. This case has a documented hoax history. Investigator René Pacaut reported that Girardo’s widow described an invented story intended to fool workmates. Girardo’s son subsequently gave Frédéric Dumerchat a similar family explanation, recorded in 1983 and published with a detailed source comparison. The son’s account was largely based on his mother’s recollection, rather than his own precise childhood memory. The plate labels the alleged scene and the later family hoax explanation.