A famous speleologist from Nice died this weekend at the age of 85. It was the president of the departmental council, Charles Ange Ginésy, who announced it yesterday on social networks. “Very saddened to learn of the death of the speleologist from Nice, Michel Siffre. Passionate about speleology since his youngest age and a pioneer of underground confinement experiments, he notably participated in an extreme experiment in 1962 by isolating himself from the world for 2 months to study the notion of time.”
In 1962, the photo had left its mark on the whole of France. Michel Siffre, at the end of his strength, in tears, was extracted by speleologists from the Scarasson chasm, in the Marguareis massif, in the Haute Roya on the Franco-Italian border.
He was 23 years old at the time and this underground feat marked the emergence of chronobiology. At the same time, it marked a true human achievement.
For 60 days, starting on July 17, 1962, in an underground dive called “Experience out of time”, the aim of which was to study the sleep/wake rhythm, the young Niçois remained in the darkness, confined to a depth of 110 meters, without a watch. With no notion of day or night, he quickly lost his understanding of time.
Emerging after sixty days, he thought it was August 20, when the calendar actually showed September 14 (he had returned on July 17).
With NASA
The speleologist would repeat the experiment in temporal isolation, in 1972 in particular. His work had interested NASA. Financed by the American space agency, he had descended for 205 days into the Midnight Cave in Texas.
Michel Siffre’s vocation was precocious. Born in Nice on January 3, 1939, he had already explored the cave of the Parc Imperial high school at the age of ten. He is a true pioneer and a modern-day explorer who has just passed away.
