Provençal farmer who reported encountering a landed egg-shaped craft and two small humanoid figures in his lavender field on July 1, 1965. Investigated by the French Gendarmerie and later by GEPAN, which retained soil samples from the site.
Maurice Masse was a French farmer who experienced one of Europe's most significant physical trace UAP encounters in Valensole, France, in 1965. He reported seeing an egg-shaped craft landed in his lavender field and two small, humanoid figures examining his plants. Masse's key contribution was his claim of being paralyzed by a beam emitted by one of the beings when he attempted to approach the craft. The case gained immense credibility due to Masse's upstanding reputation and the physical evidence left behind, including a hardened depression in the soil where the craft rested. The Valensole encounter remains a cornerstone of international physical trace phenomenology.