Renato Nicolai

Farmer

Renato Nicolai was the sole direct eyewitness to the January 8, 1981 Trans-en-Provence event. Your current archive correctly identifies him simply as a farmer, but the surviving French records give us a considerably richer picture.

Who was Nicolai?

Nicolai was a middle-aged resident of Trans-en-Provence, in the Var department of southern France. GEIPAN's case record identifies the observation at approximately 17:00 on January 8, 1981, with Nicolai about 30 metres from the object.

Contemporary descriptions identify him as a farmer who was working on his property that afternoon. He was constructing a small masonry shelter around a water pump when something caught his attention.

That circumstance is actually important when assessing him as a witness: he wasn't outside looking for unusual objects. He was occupied with ordinary work on his property when the event occurred.

What did he say he saw?

According to his statement to the gendarmerie, Nicolai heard a faint whistling sound behind him. He turned and saw an object descending toward a lower terrace of his property.

He described it essentially as two saucers placed together, with a central ridge around the circumference. He estimated its height at roughly 1.5 metres and described the colour as similar to lead/grey metal.

He also described structures underneath which he thought might be feet or propulsion units, and circular features that appeared to him like openings or trapdoors.

One particularly useful aspect of his testimony is that he did not claim to understand what he was seeing. He essentially described the physical characteristics and left the interpretation to investigators. The official GEIPAN record classifies the observation as an "eng[in]" / object and records the sound as mechanical-type whistling.

The observation itself

According to Nicolai's account, the object descended to the lower terrace and settled on the ground for a short period, before lifting off and departing.

He reported that the object was:

roughly 1.5 m high
disc/saucer-like
grey or lead-coloured
surrounded by a raised rim
apparently equipped with structures underneath
without visible flames or conventional exhaust
essentially silent apart from the faint whistling

GEIPAN records the object as a single phenomenon, with changing flight level/direction and variable apparent speed.