The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 3-Oct-54-Meyrieux-Trouet.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In his "Catalog of Possible or Certain Confusions with the Moon," published in the ufology bulletin S.E.R.P.A.N. in 1994, French ufologist Eric Maillot recorded - using codes - a case from the Lyon press that occurred on October 3, 1954, at 9:10 p.m. in Meyrieux, on the road to Lyon.
It involved a white glow and / or an orange crescent taking on a pear shape at 10 degrees of elevation, seen by a farmer, and which corresponded to the Moon.
I thought that it was in fact the Heyrieux case rather than "Meyrieux," and Eric Maillot confirmed to me in 2025 that this typographical error had indeed occurred.
[Ref. emt2:] ERIC MAILLOT:
|
19541003 21 10 SU M1O,8 69 MEYRIEUX, LYON road(4546N/0450")=Coll Mâs
1 1 0 0 0 0E ?NO O
HUE white =S.W D=? H°low(<10°) ALTI?.@BEAN CRESCENT v ORANGE 4xPL.MVT?LENT E->W SWNW.
SHAPECHANGE%OVALv(pear) 2x black line. DISAPPEAR L to R VEIL.
d?
*MOON 6d SET: H*2/AZ°229+CLOUDS.The witness is a farmer! EMT
LYON PRESS
[Ref. emt1:] ERIC MAILLOT:
Eric Maillot wrote in an article about misinterpretations having the Moon as cause:
[...]
The cases of [...] Meyrieux 10/03/1954, [...] etc... show that the social origin, the level of study or the profession of a witness are in no case a guarantee of objectivity and of not being mistaken. Sometimes farmers are fooled by the Moon just like pilots are fooled by Venus, a weather balloon probes or an atmospheric re-entry. No man is infallible and the arguments of authority, aiming at making believe the opposite, always hide the weakness of the argumentation.
[...]
|
Insufficient information, the Moon.
I guess the location is Meyrieux-Trouet in the department of Savoie.
Another possibility is that Eric Maillot misspelled the name of the place, which would actually be Heyrieux where a sighting that same day was reported.
Update as of February 27, 2026:
In June 2025, Eric Maillot confirmed to me that there had indeed been a typographical error in the initial of the place name (M instead of H) in his Moon/UFOs database.
He specified that the case of the farmer from Heyrieux, in light of the astronomical and testimonial data, rightly belonged in his previous catalog of confirmed lunar misidentifications (the case was classified there as E, as explained).
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Meyrieux-Trouet, Savoie, Moon, misspell
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 10, 2010 | First published. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | April 22, 2022 | Addition [emt2]. |
| 1.2 | Patrick Gross | February 27, 2026 | In the Explanations, addition of the "Update as of February 27, 2026" part. Addition of the Summary. |
