Réunion Island — 'Michelin Men' Encounter

On July 31, 1968, at approximately seven in the morning, farmer Luce Fontaine was working at his farm in the mountains of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean when he observed an oval object hovering silently four meters above the ground at the edge of his property. The object was approximately five meters wide and three meters tall, with a transparent section through which Fontaine could see the interior. Inside, two small humanoid figures were visible, described as roughly one meter tall, wearing one-piece suits with helmets, giving an appearance he compared to the Michelin Man — bulky and segmented.

Fontaine froze. The figures appeared to notice him; they looked in his direction for several seconds. The craft then emitted a brilliant flash of blue-white light that temporarily blinded Fontaine, and when his vision cleared, the object was gone. He estimated the entire encounter lasted less than a minute.

Fontaine reported the incident to local authorities, and the case came to the attention of Captain Legros of the local gendarmerie, who conducted a formal investigation. Legros visited the site and, using a Geiger counter, detected elevated radioactivity at the ground position directly beneath where Fontaine had reported the craft hovering. The reading was significantly above background levels for the area. Legros documented his measurements in an official report that was subsequently forwarded to French national authorities.

The case was investigated by GEPAN (Groupe d'Étude des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés), France's official government UAP investigation body, which took a particular interest due to the physical traces and the gendarmerie's formal documentation. GEPAN's analysis found Fontaine to be a credible, non-sensational witness with no history of unusual claims, and the radioactivity measurements were considered genuine.

The Réunion Island 1968 case occupies an important position in the French close encounter literature because it combines a reliable witness, official law enforcement investigation, and physical evidence in the form of measurable radioactive contamination — a combination that distinguishes it from cases relying solely on eyewitness testimony. It was one of several Réunion Island incidents that led to the island becoming one of the most densely documented UAP locations in the Southern Hemisphere.