The article below was published in the daily newspaper Combat, Paris, France, page 10, on October 12, 1954.
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Several people, on the bridge of Saint-Laurent-les-Mâcon, saw a disc above the Saône which disappeared after a short moment. A new detail: this disc was not bright, but dark.
A worker, Mr. Magnier, and some truck drivers, saw in Montluçon a luminous ball crossing the sky at high speed.
In Tourriers, 17 kilometers from Angoulême, about thirty people saw during the night of the 8th to the 9th a "sort of cigar" that remained stationary about forty meters above national road number 10 for around twenty minutes. The craft, which had two small fins, then took off at a speed of approximately 250 to 300 km/h.
Mrs. Lebert, caretaker of the Château de Pont-Chapelle in La Ferté-Macé (Orne), observed in the middle of the afternoon a mysterious object in the sky. This object, which resembled a rocket, was silently rising vertically while leaving a faint white trail behind it. It could be observed for several seconds before quickly disappearing. A woman and children living on the outskirts of the town were also witnesses to the phenomenon.
Meanwhile, Mr. Christian Couette, son of a plumber from Tesse-la-Madeleine, was cycling toward Rânes when, near the Londe-Forêt pond in the commune of Beauvain, he was overtaken by a strange luminous object that, at high speed, skimmed the treetops. The object, about 4 meters in diameter, had the shape of a fireball bulging on top. It could be seen for about ten seconds.
In Münster, Westphalia, Mr. Hoge, a cinema operator by profession, told the DPA agency that he saw four men emerge from a flying saucer Saturday night near Münster.
These men, about 1.20 meters tall, had broad chests and large heads. However, their lower limbs were short and thin.
Mr. Hoge was on his way home when he saw a blue light in a field about sixty meters from the road. He thought it was a crashed plane. Then he realized the light came from an object shaped like a cigar. Four men in rubber suits were working under the craft. None of them spoke a word.
Mr. Hoge watched them work for ten minutes without approaching because he was afraid. Finally, the four men climbed back into the cigar-shaped object via a sort of ladder. A few meters after takeoff, it turned into a saucer projecting a blinding light.
Also in Germany, a "flying saucer" was observed for about two minutes by thirteen members of a gliding school above the Ockstadt airfield near Frankfurt.
The thirteen pilots and student pilots were watching the flight of an instructor when they saw, above the glider in flight at about 3,000 meters altitude, a "slightly bulging silver disc" moving without the slightest sound. The witnesses, including several former Luftwaffe pilots, firmly stated that they could not have been the victims of an optical illusion.
In Egypt, several hundred residents of Alexandria reported seeing a luminous object in the sky that appeared to move while changing color from red to orange, then to green and bluish-gray. Officials from the meteorological service at Alexandria’s airport called the Helwan Observatory near Cairo, requesting that the phenomenon be photographed. However, it disappeared before the special telescope could be set up.
BELSON [sic] (New Zealand), October 11. -- Mr. K.M. Gibbons of Nelson was able to take a series of telephoto pictures of three flying saucers.
After he had taken two snapshots of the three mysterious craft, they disappeared vertically at high speed. Nevertheless, he continued to take photographs in the direction where the saucers had been. The developed film shows cylindrical objects with a kind of dark core.
Several trustworthy individuals claim to have witnessed one of those phenomena known as a "flying saucer" last night.
They include Colonel Cauvin, director of hygiene and prophylaxis services in Cameroon; Dr. Menu, chief physician at the Yaoundé hospital; Mr. Dumont, director of security services in Cameroon; Mr. Poilleux, councilor of the Territorial Assembly of Cameroon; Mr. Moreau, deputy mayor of Yaoundé; and their wives.
All these people, gathered at the chief physician’s house, were preparing to go to the cinema when they were startled by the behavior of the household dog, which suddenly began growling and bristling. Thinking that strangers might be prowling nearby, Dr. Menu went outside and saw a bright object in the sky. He immediately called out to his guests, who all later stated that they had seen, almost directly above the plateau where the hospital is located, a huge, brightly lit disc, motionless at an altitude of about 600 meters.
This sighting lasted fifteen seconds. The object had the exact shape of a mushroom—that is, a very luminous disc (whose diameter the witnesses could not determine precisely), beneath which slightly swayed a cylinder as long as the disc’s diameter and equally illuminated.
Suddenly, the "saucer" moved eastward, and its size appeared to shrink visibly. Then it stopped again for a few seconds before quickly gaining altitude and disappearing.
