What happened
Early in the morning of November 26, 1979, three young men from Cergy-Pontoise near Paris – Franck Fontaine, Jean-Pierre Prévost, and Salomon N’Diaye – were loading a car with goods for a market. According to Prévost and N’Diaye, Fontaine had stayed in the car, around which a luminous sphere and mist appeared, and when they returned, both the car and their friend were gone. The police and gendarmerie searched for Fontaine for a week. On December 3 he reappeared in the area, claiming he remembered nothing and thought only a few minutes had passed. The case caused a media storm in France, and Prévost began talking about contacts with extraterrestrial beings and their message for humanity.
Witnesses
Jean-Pierre Prévost and Salomon N’Diaye, who claimed to have seen a luminous sphere and mist around the car.
Explanations and hypotheses
Investigators had doubts from the outset, and in 2004 Jean-Pierre Prévost announced that the whole abduction had been a hoax they had planned together to draw attention to themselves and their ideas; Fontaine had reportedly been hiding with friends during that time. Prévost’s confession is widely regarded as closing the case, although for a quarter of a century it had been considered the most famous French abduction.
Hoax A proven or admitted hoax.