France 1954 -> Home 

Cette page en françaisCliquez!

The 1954 French flap:

The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.

< Previous  All  Next >

October 16, 1954, Montcornet, Aisne:

Reference for this case: 16-Oct-54-Montcornet.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

In their 1979 book "La Gande Peur Martienne" ("The Great Martian Scare"), the "skeptical" ufologists Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker noted this case of October 16, 1954:

"Montcornet - 02 - 09:30 p.m.: untraceable witness after investigation."

They did not provide a source, and did not give the name of the "untraceable witness."

Reports:

[Ref. aml1:] AIME MICHEL:

Aimé Michel wrote about the October 16, 1954, 09:30 p.m. meteor:

THE TEST OF THE METEOR. October 16, as if it was purposely, a splendid meteor crossed the north of France towards 09:30 p.m.. It was observed on a score of departments by thousands of people, from the Allier to Lorraine and from the Swiss border to Paris. Naturally many witnesses believed to have seen a Flying Saucer and said so. The newspapers printed "Flying Saucer in Orly", or "in Montididier", or "in Metz." But once again the description made by all these weak brains appeared of a remarkable honesty.

[...]

The innumerable gathered testimonys show indeed that even when the witnesses called "Flying saucer" the observed object, their description is identical on 200.000 square kilometres where the visible phenomenon was visible: an "orange ball followed by a trail", a "large luminous ball with a tail", a "flying egg followed by a trail", a "bottle's bottom with a trail of thirty times its diameter", etc. The same phenomenon is uniformly described.

[...]

[Ref. bbr1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:

The two authors note this case of October 16, 1954:

"Montcornet - 02 - 09:30 p.m.: untraceable witness after investigation."

Further in their book, they claim that "the few serious investigators" who had admitted the fact that it was a meteor which had generated this type of observations were the technicians of the scientific office of the Air Force.

[Ref. jsr1:] JEAN SIDER:

Jean Sider lists among the cases from page 185 and on of Barthel and Brucker's book "La Grande Peur Martienne", which they had summarized and decided categorically without the slightest indication of what they had undertaken to be definitive in their verdict, there was:

Montcornet. Witness not found after investigation.

Sider remarks that this case is on the same date and time as Tergnier's case, but that this time they are most certainly botching by forgetting their explanation "obvious description of a meteor."

[Ref. ubk1:] "UFO-DATENBANK":

Case Nr. New case Nr. Investigator Date of observation Zip Place of observation Country of observation Hour of observation Classification Comments Identification
19541016 16.10.1954 Montcomet [sic, Montcornet] France 21.30 NL

Explanations:

Map.

The meteor of October 16, 1954, at 09:30 p.m.

Keywords:

(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)

Montcornet, Aisne, night

Sources:

[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.

Document history:

Version: Created/Changed by: Date: Change Description:
0.1 Patrick Gross January 30, 2006 First published.
1.0 Patrick Gross December 27, 2009 Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version.
1.1 Patrick Gross February 2, 2017 Addition [ubk1].
1.1 Patrick Gross November 27, 2019 Addition of the Summary.
1.2 Patrick Gross September 23, 2021 Addition [jsr1].

Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict



 Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home
This page was last updated on September 23, 2021.