Little green or gray men with huge black eyes - aren't such associations occurring when the word "aliens" is mentioned? However, there is another category of aliens, the mass appearance of which was observed in remote places in Spain, Argentina and the United States in the 70s of the last century. The anthropoid creatures in the ringed inflated suits, which eyewitnesses have compared to Bibendum, the mascot of the French tire manufacturer Michelin, associated with several UFO incidents, are still poorly understood.
One such incident occurred on Sunday, March 14, 1976 in the province of Castellón in eastern Spain. Vicente Corell and his wife Carmen were returning from the CIR-7 recruiting office, where they accompanied their son to military service in the Marines, along small roads to his hometown of Almenara. Around 10:00 pm, the couple encountered a strange phenomenon - a shiny white oval object appeared in the night sky to the left of their Renault 4L. Believing that these were the headlights of a car on a nearby hill, they continued to move along the road, but did not manage to drive several tens of meters when something strange began to happen. The alarmed couple in the headlights of their car saw a "glowing tornado" rising above the ground and were amazed when they saw that it was a man.
“I believe he had two legs,” Vicente Corell told the prominent Spanish researcher Juan José Benítez, who was investigating the case, “because he reminded me of a human figure. But since the legs were close together, he looked more like a column than a man. He was tall, handsome and dressed in a one-piece overalls …"
The outlandish creature stood on the ground like a soldier at attention and looked directly towards the car. The couple's initial interest changed to fear as the headlights of their Renault were suddenly extinguished, leaving them in pitch darkness. The smell of burning wires soon filled the passenger compartment, and Corell was forced to stop. When all this happened, the object disappeared into darkness. The car's electrical system burned out, and Vicente and Carmen Corell were left wondering what had happened.
According to researcher Benitez, Carmen Corell remembered everything that happened much better than her husband, and added an interesting detail: the suit on a tall figure was made of "narrow and slightly inflated stripes" from the neck to the waist. She compared the object to the Bibendum, the world famous Michelin symbol.
Ufologist Manuel Odidge, reviewing this case, said that the notorious Michelin, in addition to having a physical body, also radiated its own energy. The fact that the figure grew in size as the car approached suggests that its electrostatic charge, ionizing the air, increased to saturation point until it began to produce light. In addition, the figure, consisting of negative ions, did not touch the ground. Therefore, it can be assumed that the car could come into contact with the electrostatic charge of the object, as a result of which the humanoid lost its brightness due to the fact that its potential decreased to a value insufficient for ionization, and the car became negatively charged, which led to a short circuit.
Although the comparison with the Michelin man will make some people smile skeptically, such a creature has been seen more than once on the Spanish peninsula. In the summer of 1960, Miguel Timermans, a schoolteacher from Prado del Rey in southern Spain, took a weekend trip to Jerez on his Lambretta motorcycle. It was a clear morning with unlimited visibility. As he climbed the hill between Prado del Rey and the city of Arcos, a colossal figure, dressed in a "swollen" red jumpsuit, suddenly appeared on the sidelines. The giant creature was slowly moving towards him along the edge of the highway. The shocked teacher was overcome with such an overwhelming feeling of dread that he abandoned his motorcycle right in the middle of the highway.
Recalling this event, Timermans noted that the creature's costume consisted of "concentric rings", which also reminded him of the Michelin man. The incredible figure swayed forward, took several steps. And then the teacher saw that behind the giant appeared a second creature a little more than a meter tall, in exactly the same suit, but one of its legs was encircled by something that looked like a glossy black "shoe". He moved very awkwardly, as if limping. The mysterious figures crossed Timerman's path diagonally and disappeared from view after 30 seconds. Lifting his motorcycle, the teacher walked to the place where he had last seen the creatures, but found no trace. This amazing case was published in the Stendek magazine.
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These strange Michelin-mens, apparently, were not limited to roadside walks in the Iberian Peninsula. Figures in inflated overalls were seen in the North American state of Kansas in 1976 and Argentina in 1972. The latest case associated with them became most famous due to the fact that his hero Ventura Maceiras, a seventy-year-old night watchman from Argentina, very quickly grew new teeth and even increased his intelligence level.
There must have been other incidents, but due to language barriers, they remained unknown to the UFO research community.
Researcher J. Cresson received a testimony from a resident of the French city of Dinant by the name of Droguet, who was returning home from a cinema one evening in May 1955 and was struck by a beam of blue-green light emanating from a strange object floating above the ground. Near the object were two other creatures, dressed in voluminous metal overalls, "similar to a Michelin man." On their heads were large helmets, and both figures in gloves were busy, it seemed to an eyewitness, collecting soil samples. One of the creatures stopped, looked into the "porthole" of a nearby ship, and the frightened man realized that there were the same inhabitants inside. He said that then he felt a state familiar to many eyewitnesses of close contacts of the third degree. He desperately wanted to escape from there, but unknown forces kept him in one place,and he realized that the humanoids knew of his presence. He then thought that instead of collecting soil samples, they could even pick up one or two people.
Fortunately, his fears were allayed when the Michelin men returned to their ship and carefully climbed the stairs into it. The man was intrigued by the movements of these probably space visitors, who reminded him of the behavior of divers on the ocean floor, and their "boots" with metal rings. The ship began to rotate at high speed and slowly rose into the air. Only then was Monsieur Trembling able to move, as if freed from an invisible force. Terrified, he closed in his house and for a long time could not come to his senses. The man was silent about this event at the age of fifteen and spoke about it only when asked to do so by representatives of the authorities. An article about this case was published in 1970 in the June issue of the prestigious French publication Lumieres dans la Nuit.
The Michelin People will reappear a few years later in another remote location, off the east coast of Africa on the island of Madagascar. In 1968, a farmer collecting grass for his animals encountered a shiny oval object with a clear windshield "similar to the windshield of a Peugeot 404." Inside the facility, the farmer saw two small figures “dressed in Michelin-style costumes. Realizing that they were being watched, the figures decided to retreat, and the farmer was blinded by a white flash of light with a rush of heated air. The oval UFO just disappeared, it did not take off into the heavens to the distant stars, but simply disappeared. The farmer, a man of impeccable reputation, did not hesitate to tell his story to the local police, who immediately went to the site and found traces of radiation on the ground and, more alarmingly, on the farmer's clothes.
Another intriguing incident occurred in Madagascar, which, although not associated with figures in puffy overalls, fit the description of such events.
On a sunny day in December 1976, a detachment of 23 soldiers of the French Foreign Legion, participating in a reconnaissance operation in the desert area of the island, saw a luminous object of a smooth oval shape without identification marks, having the color of a new coin shining in the sun, which very quickly fell to the ground and caused a powerful shockwave. The soldiers were paralyzed, just like Monsieur Droguet in 1955 and an unnamed teacher in 1960.
“We all saw the craft landed and flew away again, but none of us noticed the loss of time,” said one of the legionnaires, adding, “We were free of paralysis after the object flew away. We were in the same place all this time, but when we checked the clock, it turned out that we did not notice how three hours had passed."
This had serious consequences for the detachment, which could not communicate with the base by radio, and the legionnaires were forced to reach it on foot.
Brazil, which is a UFO hotspot, also has a history of these outlandish humanoids, which took place on August 30, 1962 in the Itabiritu community. The three friends left the local movie theater around midnight, and when they reached the corner of the street, their lively conversation was interrupted by a sharp whistling sound. They looked up and saw an object in the night sky hovering about 30 meters above the eucalyptus grove, which was 50 meters away from them.
According to Luis Gonzaga, one of the three friends, a small creature was heading towards them, bearing a strong resemblance to a "figure from the Michelin tire factory." Eyewitnesses saw how a fat figure with a large head, short arms and legs, dressed in a jumpsuit made of a material resembling thin leather, paced rhythmically towards them.
Two young men ran away with screams of horror, and only Luis Gonzaga remained on the corner, who could not budge. A minute later, this state passed, while the stocky fat man disappeared, and the object in the sky became so bright that it illuminated the entire area. The light from the UFO diminished and Gonzaga was able to move again. After this incident, the eyewitness suffered from headaches for the whole month.
Voronina Svetlana
