Briatexte, FR being encounter — October 9, 1954

Jean-Pierre Mitto was reportedly returning from Toulouse to Briatexte with two cousins at about 8:30 p.m. on 9 October 1954. Near La Caïphe on Route N631, their headlights illuminated two small figures crossing only a few metres ahead. Mitto compared their height with children aged eleven or twelve, braked, and stopped farther along the road. The figures had jumped into an adjoining pasture. After leaving the car, the witnesses allegedly saw a red-orange object rise vertically from the field. Mitto estimated a diameter of roughly six metres and described a rounded, half-spherical form. He compared its abrupt ascent with something sucked upward. Later accounts mention a gendarmerie reconstruction, brown viscous marks at the indicated site, and another local observer’s rising light. The original road encounter did not establish detailed anatomy or clearly show the figures boarding. Contemporary newspapers carried the claim. Subsequently, journalists Michel Agnellet and Pierre Laforêt described staging regional Martian pranks with disguises and fireworks. Some catalogues attributed Briatexte to them; other writers questioned whether their itinerary and dates fitted this particular event. Patrick Gross reviews both arguments. The story therefore retains its substantial hoax context without treating a disputed linkage as an unquestionable confession. The plate combines the crossing and later departure, explicitly labelled as a sequence composite.