The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 8-Oct-54-La-Colmiane.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In 1979, ufologists Michel Figuet and Jean-Louis Ruchon indicated in their book, without giving their source, that on October 8, 1954 at 11:15 p.m. in La Colmiane in the Alpes-Maritimes department, an orange disc moving in arabesques was observed.
I found a mention of the incident in the national newspaper France Soir for October 12, 1954: a loud, orange disc is said to have risen flying in arabesques above the winter sports resort of La Colmiane.
[Ref. fso1:] NEWSPAPER "FRANCE SOIR":
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METZ, October 11 (dispatch "France-Soir").
In POURNOY-LA-CHETIVE, near Verny (Moselle), three children claim they saw a flying saucer and its passenger.
They told their parents, the mayor, and their teacher Mr. Martignon. One of them swore he had a conversation with a Martian, and since Saturday, Pournoy-la-Chétive has been divided into two camps: those who believe it and those who laugh at it.
As for the three children - Gilbert Calba, 12 years old, Daniel Hirsch, 9 years old, and his brother Jean-Pierre, 5 and a half - here is what they declared:
– It was 6:30 p.m. on Friday. The three of us were roller-skating when suddenly, near the cemetery, we saw something luminous. It was a round object, about 2.5 meters in diameter. It landed very close to us. The craft had yellow and white stripes. It landed on three legs.
"Soon, a man came out of it. He was holding a lit flashlight in one hand. This light blinded us, but we clearly saw that the man had large eyes, a hairy face, and was very small - about 1.2 meters tall. He wore a sort of black cassock, like the priest's. The man looked at us. He said something we didn't understand. He turned off his light and, scared, we ran away.
"As we turned back, we saw something in the sky flying away, very high, very fast, and very bright."
Another resident of Pournoy-la-Chétive, Robert Maguin, 16 years old, also said he saw the mysterious craft, but he wasn't close enough to see the details.
Coincidence: a "Martian" matching the same description (shiny eyes, thick mustache, and a flashlight, but no cassock) was seen in Lavoux (Vienne) by Mr. Roger Barrault, a laborer.
[Ref. fru1:] MICHEL FIGUET AND JEAN-LOUIS RUCHON:
The two authors and ufologists indicate that on October 8, 1954 at 11:15 p.m. in Nice in the department of the Alpes-Maritimes, a disc of orange color making complicated manoeuvers was observed in La Colmiane.
The authors do not provide a source reference
[Ref. lhh1:] LARRY HATCH - "*U* COMPUTER DATABASE":
4023: 1954/10/08 23:20 1 7:16:00 E 43:42:00 N 3333 WEU FRN AMR 7:6
NICE,FR:ORG SCR DANCES/SKY:BACK 9OCT+IN St-CHAMAS/2000-2315hr >S
Ref# 30 FIGEUT[sic]&RUCHON: OVNI: Le 1er Dossier Page No. 135 : COASTLANDS
[Ref. lcn1:] LUC CHASTAN:
Luc Chastan indicates that in the "Alpes Maritime" in Nice on Octobre 8, 1954, at 23:15, there was a disc of orange color making complicated manoeuvers.
Luc Chastan indicates that the source is "Ovni, Premier dossier complet... by Figuet M./ Ruchon J.L. ** Alain Lefeuvre pub. 1979".
[Ref. ubk1:] "UFO-DATENBANK":
This database recorded this case twice:
Case Nr. | New case Nr. | Investigator | Date of observation | Zip | Place of observation | Country of observation | Hour of observation | Classification | Comments | Identification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
19541008 | 08.10.1954 | La Colmiane | France | NL | ||||||
19541008 | 08.10.1954 | La Colmiane | France | NL |
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The information is totally insufficient; this may have been a helicopter for example.
La Colmiane is in the mountaine at almost 40 km from Nice.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
La Colmiane, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, disc, orange, manoeuvres
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
---|---|---|---|
0.1 | Patrick Gross | June 4, 2005 | First published. |
1.0 | Patrick Gross | January 26, 2009 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. Addition [lcn1]. |
1.1 | Patrick Gross | February 20, 2017 | Addition [ubk1]. |
1.2 | Patrick Gross | August 14, 2019 | Additions [lhh1], Summary. Explanations changed, were "Not looked for yet." |
1.3 | Patrick Gross | July 10, 2022 | Addition [fso1]. In the Summary, addition of the information from [fso1]. |