NOVEMBER 1968  ……FRENCH ALPS

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Dr. X is 43, and the father of a small son. Before stepping on a mine during the Algerian War, he was a gifted pianist, but the resulting paralysis of both limbs on his right side ended his piano play-ing and left him with a noticeable limp. One other fact is pertinent: three days before the episode, while Dr. X was chopping wood, the ax slipped and wounded him on the leg just above the ankle. The wound was treated imme-diately, but on the night of the 1st, he was still in pain and walked with extreme difficulty. Sometime after 3 AM on the morning of the 2nd, during a rainstorm, Dr. X was awakened by his 14-month-old son calling from his crib. In the nursery he perceived, through closed shutters, powerful flashes of light he assumed to be lightning. He gave the baby its bottle, painfully descended the stairs, and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. By then, the rain had stopped, but not the light flashes. At some point Dr. X real–ized he had heard no thunder. He went to the living room, opened the French windows wide, stepped out onto the ter-race, and saw, far down the valley, two identical, luminous disc-shaped objects with horizontal and vertical antennas from which the flashes of brilliant light were being emitted at one second intervals. The two discs started moving up the valley toward him, at the same time drawing nearer to one another. Amazed, Dr. X watched the “inner antennae interpenetrate each other and then disappear entirely” as the twin objects came into contact and actu-ally fused, the two discs becoming one! The single disc continued to approach Dr. X’s house until, at about 200 meters from where he stood, it stopped and remained stationary. Then a light beam emanating from the disc (which was later calculated to be approximately 140 feet long and 35 feet thick) began moving toward him. The rotation of the disc’s lower portion speeded up formi-dably, the disc tilted, and Dr. X “received the light beam, which shone all over him. At the moment when the light beam reached him he instinctively covered his face.” An instant later, Dr. X heard a bang like a firecracker and the object suddenly vanished. Badly shaken, Dr. X returned to the kitchen and made notes on what he had seen, including sketches of the discs. He then went upstairs, woke his wife, and told her what had happened. Suddenly, his wife cried out, “Your leg!” Dr. X, who was striding back and forth and talking excitedly, was no longer limping. He pulled up his pajama leg. The ax wound was completely healed. A short time later all signs of his Algerian War wound — which had re-mained unchanged for 10 years — had completely vanished. He also was able to play the piano again as well as ever.