The Cergy-Pontoise Affair (1979)
At 4:30 AM on November 26, 1979, 19-year-old Franck Fontaine vanished from a Cergy-Pontoise parking lot as two friends watched, claiming a glowing mass had descended onto his car. He reappeared seven days later, in the same spot, wearing the same clothes without a speck of mud. He would later describe waking in a laboratory with glowing dials and small talking orbs.
Witnesses
2 witnesses, police
Why it endures
The case triggered a considerable police and media investigation, becoming one of France's most famous ufology cases — until the truth came out.
Official version (contested)
Confirmed hoax: one of the two witnesses, Jean-Pierre Prévost, admitted in 1982 that he had made the whole thing up. GEPAN concluded it was staged. The case remains famous as France's biggest ufology hoax.