French Town Refuses To Permit Aliens, Spaceships Will Be Towed Away

There’s a small village tucked away in the southeast corner of France that really doesn’t like the idea of space aliens landing their flying saucers in their corner of the world.

Claude Avril, the mayor of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, refuses to overturn a ban on aliens and their UFOs that has been in place for the past 62 years, according to France Bleu.

“Any aircraft, known as flying saucer or flying cigar, which should land on the territory of the community will be immediately held in custody.”

There has never been a confirmed alien sighting, but that didn’t stop the town’s former mayor, Lucien Jeune, from banning extraterrestrials after an unidentified Frenchman reported seeing two deep sea divers emerge from a cigar-shaped UFO.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape decree from 1954 banning UFOs pic.twitter.com/Ju0daRCtZM

— Colm McGlinchey (@ColmMcGlinchey) October 27, 2016

The 1954 sighting came a few years after the Roswell incident in New Mexico spawned a whole string of alien conspiracy theories, Elie Jeune, the former mayor’s son, told France Bleu.

“At that time, people were talking a lot about extraterrestrials and the unknown, it was in fashion, and there were loads of stories circulating. [The mayor] wanted to make a bit of an advertisement for Châteauneuf. It was an excellent publicity stunt… and free.”

Fast-forward to today, and the town’s current mayor, Claude Avril, refuses to overturn the ban on aliens and their UFOs because it serves as a nice advertisement for the town, according to France Bleu.

“I’m not going to touch the ban. It spices things up a bit. It creates a harmless kind of buzz, and no one is getting tricked.”

Far from being the French equivalent of Area 51, Chateauneuf-du-Pape maintains its quintessential medieval look, complete with a ruined castle perched atop its highest slope. The area, home to about 3,000 people, is known for its wine and almost all the cultivated land in the area is given over to vineyards.

UFO sightings were once common in France and one California vineyard, the Cigare Volante, even named itself after the small French town’s ban on space aliens and their UFOs.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape isn’t the only place in the world with weird laws concerning unscientific creatures. Skamania County in Washington state banned hunters from shooting Bigfoot in 1969, decreeing the willful slaying of Sasquatch to be felony punishable by a $10,000 fine or five years in jail.

Rumors of the massive hairy creature first began to surface in 1811 in Alberta, Canada, but over a hundred years later, Bigfoot hunters were flocking to Washington with high-powered rifles to hunt the mysterious creature.

Fearing for the safety of residents in the sparsely populated area, Skamania officials enacted the ban on hunting Bigfoot to protect innocent people mistakenly being shot in the woods. In 1984, the crime was changed from a felony to a gross misdemeanor and the fine was set at $1,000 and/or a year in jail with one stipulation.

If, after examining the corpse of Bigfoot, the coroner decided the hairy creature was humanoid, the shooter would be charged with homicide. Then, in 1991, neighboring Whatcom County declared the entire area to be a Sasquatch Protection and Refuge Area, creating the nation’s first ever Bigfoot sanctuary, according to Skamania County records.

“In the prosecution and trial of any accused Sasquatch killer the fact that the actor is suffering from insane delusions, diminished capacity, or that the act was the product of a diseased mind, shall not be a defense.”

Most states have laws protecting endangered species, which of course Bigfoot isn’t because there’s no proof of his existence. If you did want to shoot Sasquatch, however, the best place would probably be Texas, which allows the killing of any unprotected game as long as there’s permission of the landowner before hand.

There’s also Yellowstone’s Zone of Death to consider. Because of a weird constitutional loophole, there’s a small sliver of Yellowstone in Idaho where someone could technically get away with murder, as Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt tells Vox.

“[T]he loophole looms, waiting for a murderer to exploit it. I feel like I’ve done what I can to prevent this; the blood will be on the government’s hands.”

What do you think of the French village’s ban on space aliens?

[Featured Image by efks/iStock]