The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 6-Oct-54-Bayonne.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
A note in the regional newspaper Le Journal de Biarritz et de la Côte Basque of October 14, 1954, reported a third-hand case and its ordinary explanation.
The columnist Peillic and his friend "the Eye of Bayonne" had spoken about flying saucers, and "the Eye of Bayonne" told him what he had heard from "a lady most worthy of trust, as respectable for her age as for the perfect balance of her faculties."
On October 6, 1954, at 2:00 p.m., the lady was about to enter the Bayonne Cathedral through the porch facing Rue de l’Abesque, when she saw, above the tall trees rising behind the old bishopric, a long white column, rising straight up into the sky in small jerks, and reaching at least twice the height of a large house. At its top, she saw a sort of propeller spinning around.
She had gazed at this phenomenon for a long time and without the slightest fear, having no one around her whom she could take as a witness to this vision. When she left the cathedral, everything had disappeared.
She had expected to see the newspapers mention it the next day, because it could not have gone unnoticed; but they did not make the slightest allusion to it.
When "the Eye of Bayonne" spoke about it to others, he was told that it was certainly the long vertical white trail left behind by a jet plane, which would have been "the propeller seen at the top"; a plane, precisely that day, had passed through the sky of Bayonne.
[Ref. jbz1:] JOURNAL "LE JOURNAL DE BIARRITZ":
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We were talking about it the other evening, the Eye of Bayonne and I. With much honesty, and also a touch of shame: "At the risk of lowering myself in your eyes," he said to me, "I confess that I have not yet seen one. But I am far from despairing.
"I can, however, tell you of an event whose authenticity I guarantee. A lady most worthy of trust, as respectable for her age as for the perfect balance of her faculties, confided the following to me.
"On Wednesday, October 6, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I was about to enter the Cathedral through the porch facing Rue de l'Abesque when I saw, above the tall trees rising behind the old bishopric, a long white column.
"It was rising straight into the sky in small jerks and reached a height at least double that of a large house. At its top one could see a sort of propeller whirling around.
"I gazed at this phenomenon for a long time — and without the slightest fear — having no one around me whom I could take as a witness to this vision. When I left the cathedral, everything had disappeared.
"I expected to see, the next day, the newspapers report an apparition that could not have gone unnoticed. They did not make the slightest mention of it. Yet I am certain I was not the victim of a hallucination..."
"I didn't quite know what to reply to this confidence," continued the Eye of Bayonne. "But when I, in turn, shared it with others, the explanation was immediately given to me. It was certainly the long white vertical trail left behind by a jet plane (the propeller seen at the top) which, precisely that day, passed through the sky of Bayonne."
So this time, then, a mystery clarified. Could not many of the extraordinary cases readily cited by the newspapers be resolved with the same simplicity?...
PEILLIC
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Negative case, jet plane contrail.
"The propeller" must in fact have been the plane itself, performing rolls.
The "anecdotes" of this type in 1954 should in my opinion be regarded with some caution: sometimes they are only supposedly "edifying" stories invented, or greatly exaggerated, by journalists and columnists. Here, for example, the lady states that she no longer saw the "thing" when she came out of the Cathedral, whereas of course she could not have seen it from inside. Omission of the mention that the lady would have stopped observing in order to enter the cathedral, simple clumsiness of the writer, misunderstanding, or a "suspicious" detail?
A negative case is one explained as having an ordinary cause, right away, without the intervention of ufologists or other investigators, by one or more witnesses, or by relatives or third parties.
Often silenced, negative cases are nevertheless important, in that they allow for comparative ufology through the collection of possible ordinary explanations and the comparison between explained and unexplained observations.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques,
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | August 26, 2025 | First published, [jbz1]. |
