The 1954 French flap:

Every day its own crazy story...

Are the Martians cousins of Bao Dai?

Two loose pages from a brochure of the Prince of the Loch, discarded by Vietnamese campers, were mistaken for interstellar messages

CONTRARY to what some colleagues print, the file on "flying saucers" is not open in France because, for the moment, it would contain nothing but hot air. What is wide open, however, is the malfunctioning tap of those same colleagues and of the press agency that continues to feed us the most fanciful reports, mixed with clarifications and denials, indiscriminately, in bulk, as if they were road accidents and "incidents."

Among this uncontrolled flood, from which we have now decided to spare you, let us nevertheless gather, for the edification of our readers, these little pearls of imagination from some of our contemporaries.

On a vacant lot in Toulouse, three witnesses - including a teenager - saw, on October 13 at 7:33 p.m., a small diver-like figure, with a head large in proportion to its body, descend from a spherical craft and

Jacques DEROGY.

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FLYING SAUCERS

Continued from p.1, col.7

reddish. The diver-like figure shone like glass and rolled two enormous eyes. This is a classic portrait from so-called science fiction literature. But this time the green ray was missing.

Better still, in Montluçon, an SNCF employee, while crossing the tracks near the Gers bridge, encountered a 4-meter-long torpedo resting near a diesel fuel tank intended for railcars. Nearby stood a terribly hairy being.

"What are you doing there?" the railway worker reportedly asked, intrigued.

- "Diesel," replied the unknown, who was no doubt refueling his craft, since a few minutes later the vision vanished vertically without leaving any trace.

But as for traces, there are always "witnesses" ready to provide them. Witnesses such as the hunters of Saint-Ambroix (Gard), who, having seen seven tiny beings rush into a phosphorescent craft, discovered at the spot seeds of a strange appearance which no seed merchant in the region - emphasizes the report - was able to classify within any known species.

"Martians write in Quoc Ngu"

The best story of the day is nevertheless this one from Haute-Garonne, where a mechanic from Léguevin, Jean Marty, 42, claimed yesterday morning to have seen, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a luminous disc 7 meters in diameter and 2.5 meters high land in the middle of a field.

When the "witness" tried to approach, the disc rose into the air, silently, vertically, and at a dizzying speed. On the grass, at the spot from which the craft had taken off, Mr. Marty picked up two glossy sheets of paper, covered with printed characters, neither soiled, nor crumpled, nor damp, as if they had just been placed there. A former Indochina serviceman living in the region was able to decipher the text written in "quốc-ngữ," the Romanized script of the Vietnamese language, dealing with matters concerning Vietnam and the Viet Minh! From there to confusing the flying saucer file with that of "leaks" was only a step, one which a quick investigation prevented certain overactive imaginations from taking. Investigations immediately undertaken by air safety authorities revealed that they were in fact two pages torn from a brochure published by the services of Prince Buu Loc (representative of Bao Dai in France and cousin of the "emperor") and left at Léguevin by Vietnamese who had come to picnic... They dealt with ship arrivals in Indochinese ports and fish deliveries...

Saucers and balloons

Thus do the finest bubbles burst. It is enough to investigate. In the same way, the military authorities of Metz, who had opened an inquiry into the "mysterious" luminous circle caught Sunday evening in a searchlight beam, concluded that there was no need to take the published reports on the matter into consideration.

But military authorities should not be the only ones authorized to investigate the observations reported here and there. If we truly want to address the problem of the phenomena observed in our skies these days, we must put an end to this avalanche of hoaxes, rumors, and more or less fanciful tales, either by questioning the alleged witnesses, or, when their good faith is not in doubt, by investigating and informing the public about events that are often at the origin of serious observations.

Thus, a clarification was made yesterday by a resident of Croth-Sorel, Mrs. Omonts, regarding the "saucer" reported Saturday around 6:30 p.m. over the Saint-André region.

- The object was nothing more than an ordinary balloon, bearing a design painted in red at its top, and a gondola held by ropes.

We would no doubt also have been informed of a strange phenomenon in the Savoy sky, observed this morning in Modane, in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, in Aiguebelle where buses and cars stopped, in Chambéry and in Grenoble, where it was simultaneously attributed the shape of a flying serum bottle, if a radio amateur from Besançon, Mr. Brunet, had not at 1:30 p.m. picked up the following message:

University of Padua, in Milan (Italy), has launched balloon for nuclear research. Due to radar failure [!], craft has crossed the border heading toward Grenoble or probably at 5 p.m. GMT. Warn population as balloon may be dangerous [!] upon landing or afterward."

Toward the end of the evening, the prefecture of Isère received elsewhere two telegrams from Milan and Paris requesting "assistance for recovery of balloon carrying scientific equipment for the study of cosmic rays"... The parachute had been recovered in Briançon at 5:30 p.m., and the balloon envelope around 10 p.m. at the outskirts of Grenoble.

Cabaret owner - physicist

These examples show the possibilities of honest reporting. It does not consist of opening a "file" full of press clippings, excerpts from science fiction, and unchecked dispatches from agencies or correspondents. Still, such an "archive file" would have to be complete. It is rather amusing to read in the "file" opened four days ago by "France-Soir" that "the physicist George Adamski, who takes it for granted that the passengers of the saucers come from another planet, Mars or Venus, adds the decisive detail that the "Navy" is preparing brigades of specialists whose mission will be to welcome visitors from another world." Our colleague "Paris-Presse" had, in fact, ten days earlier, let the cat out of the bag - and others before him: "Finally, a certain George Adamski, a cabaret owner in California, made a fortune by describing the splendid blond youths from Venus who came in lampshade-shaped saucers and with whom he had the advantage of conversing at length."

Information has a positive role to play by submitting to specialists the plausible, precise, complete, and consistent accounts of good-faith witnesses, such as the observations reported yesterday by five residents of Toulon and by inhabitants of Le Luc, Cavalaire, and Saint-Jean-du-Var, who saw between 6:10 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. a fireball coming rapidly from the sea and disappearing behind the Cannet des Maures, leaving phosphorescent traces around it.

THE WEB GOES BACK IN TIME

Sunday story: Flying saucer alert!

Every Sunday, the Dauphiné delves into its archives and makes you relive an event from the past. This weekend, back in 1954, when the South East saw aliens everywhere...

By Sylvaine ROMANAZ - August 11, 2019 at 06:05 - updated on Apr 18, 2020 at 11:07 - Reading time: 4 min

In public gardens, on café terraces, on sidewalks, thousands of motionless people staring up at the sky. On this October 14, 1954, alert in Grenoble: a flying saucer crosses the sky. No doubt for the most informed, the Martians are coming!

In the afternoon, the switchboard of the Dauphiné Libéré is overwhelmed by calls. And at 6 p.m., at the exit of the factories and offices, the crowd increases again in the streets. "But I'm telling you it's a weather balloon!" a passerby shouts. Wasted effort. Not one convinced witness.

Better still, the collective hallucination of the Grenoblois spreads. From Chambéry to Gap, from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse to Faucigny, same stories. "A large vertical cigar" for some, flaming red or green and gray, orange or shiny, an unidentified object travels the South-East.

In Fontaine de Vaucluse, the case is growing. This white disc which hovers above the city, here is something strange nevertheless... The witnesses who observe it with binoculars go there for their details: the disc is surmounted by a spherical cap, and looks like a silver bowler hat. And to describe in the Dauphiné Libéré, a "lower circular border which intermittently carries powerful lights, varying from white to purplish through red". The object begins to intrigue so much that around 2 p.m., two jet planes take off from Caritat air base. But the "saucer" goes too fast, and disappears in the sky ..

So, Martians or not Martians? The answer comes very down to earth... from the prefecture of the Isère. They receive a message from a Mr. Polvani, director of the Institute of Physics in Milan: "We are asking for assistance in identifying and recovering a stratospheric balloon loaded with scientific material, passed in France." The device is intended for studying cosmic rays. End of the craze? Not at all.

Because the scientists are offering a bonus of 20,000 francs to anyone who will help recover the balloon by calling "Odéon 99-17". What push everyone to scan the sky again and again. Moreover in Grenoble, on the airfield, specialists try to locate it and estimate its height when the object passes over their heads.

It is hard to miss, the ball is 28 meters in diameter and weighs 110 kilos. Being able to climb up to 33,000 m, it is however very difficult to chase...

The Grenoblois hardly look up that it is at Bourg-Saint-Maurice or Modane, then further in the Ubaye, that the gendarmes are alerted by citizens more or less frightened, more or less curious. And when everyone begins to agree with to the scientific explanation, blam, a second craft is seen simultaneously. This time the witnesses rather report a "ball of fire". But still no Martians. The Saint-Michel observatory near Digne is formal, that's a meteor. And for the first one, same certainty, it is a balloon.

Yet two appearances at the same time is too suspicious for many minds. So the tongues are loosened. And one cross-checks all the testimonies from the four corners of the country.

In the Dombes it is an insurance salesman who remembers having seen "a very short machine which descended slowly." In Moulins, it is a teacher and his class who saw in a field "a metallic-looking craft" with around it "three shapes which seemed to be the passengers of this apparatus." What do aliens look like? "An almost normal human trunk with two arms ending in a hook. A single leg ending in a spherical base". And the head? "Conical with three eyes in a triangle". As for the clothes, one of the children was very precise: they wore the same leather jacket as Louison Bobet! No need to ask us for the photo, this invasion has never been immortalized. Martians are not photogenic enough or too shy...

More timid in any case than the witnesses who throughout the 50's and 60's seem happy to be filmed or to be questioned by journalists to describe what they saw...

So many stories that snowballed to the point that the debate eventually reached the Assembly. Ignoring the scientific balloon (which continued its route in the Rhone valley, in particular above Crest then the Ardèche), the deputy of Ariège Mr. Dejean addressed a question to the President of the Council to know whether "a service was created in charge of gathering the existing documentation and studying the nature and origin of the said devices." Service that exists today.

The Geipan is very officially responsible for looking into unidentified aerospace phenomena. If during your Sunday walk the aliens say hi to you, you can contact them. Be careful though. In October 1954, workers at a construction site near Naples said loud and clear: seeing a saucer could be dangerous. The Pekingese dog who was with them at the time of the apparition looked at the saucer, barked... and fell dead.