The 1954 French flap:

A flying cigar spotted in the Champagne sky...

Reims, October 8 (F.T). -- The Champenois, who had been feeling for some time that something was missing, now have, like everyone else, their flying cigar. It was a mechanic from the Panhard factories in Reims, Mr. Joseph Roy, 30 years old, who reportedly saw the craft a few meters from the Reims–Rethel road, on a side path.

Mr. Roy lives in Le Châtelet-sur-Retourne, an Ardennes village located 25 kilometers from Reims, and he returns home each evening by motorcycle.

On the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, just after passing through the village of Isle-sur-Suippe (Marne), on national road N° 51, he suddenly saw a bright light in front of him, which he thought was the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. But the light was reddish and located on the right side of the road. Suddenly, it disappeared. But as Mr. Roy reached the spot where he had first seen it, he noticed on the right side, at the roadside, a strange object about three meters long, shaped like a large shell and dotted with portholes. At the front, he distinguished a vague silhouette. This sight gave the mechanic such a fright that he sped away as quickly as possible.

- "I only started to calm down," he said, "once I reached the railroad crossing at La Gentillerie, three kilometers away."

Mr. Roy, whom we interviewed for over an hour, did not change his account. He is a man highly regarded by those who know him and not one given to joking.

Hoax and saucer

Another barrel (maybe) and definite Bengal lights

Angoulême, October 8 (F.T.). -- The flying barrel of Ronsenac (Charente) may have reappeared, this time to Mr. Vignaud, a baker in Juillaguet. Circular marks 10 cm in diameter resembling footprints were arranged in a straight line, as if the space pilot had been one-legged.

More precise is the sighting of a saucer on Wednesday evening by Claude Bourneix, 17, from Puymoyen (Charente), who saw a craft landing 500 meters from the farm in the middle of an orange glow.

Mr. Bourneix's father grabbed his rifle, went toward the saucer which was vanishing eastward, and found nothing. However, the next morning, alerted gendarmes found the ashes of about a dozen Bengal flares arranged in a circle, lit by a prankster.