The article below was published in the daily newspaper Combat, Paris, France, page 10, on October 15, 1954.
|
* TOULOUSE. -- An investigation was opened by air safety authorities following the discovery in a field near Leguevin (Haute-Garonne) of a document written in a Vietnamese dialect, near the spot where, according to a local garage owner, a "flying saucer" supposedly landed. The investigation revealed that it was simply two pages from a brochure published by the services of Prince Buu Loc, likely left in Leguevin by Vietnamese individuals who had come there for a picnic.
The brochure in question dates from last January 12, and the information it contains, the military authority emphasizes, presents no elements likely to lead to further developments in the matter. It discusses, in fact, the arrival of ships in Indochinese ports and fish landings.
* Still in the same region, it is reported that oily traces were found yesterday morning in several places on a vacant lot located in a suburb of Toulouse.
According to statements by three witnesses, the mysterious craft, piloted by a figure wearing a diving suit, allegedly landed on this lot yesterday at 7:35 p.m.
The air police interrogated the three people, including an industrialist, who maintained their testimony, specifying that the mysterious individual, measuring about 1.2 meters, stuck out of the craft by the head and therefore had to bend down to enter it.
One of the witnesses stated that the saucer was surrounded by iridescent reflections and emitted a faint mist around it.
He added that when he tried to approach, he was stopped about twenty meters away by a paralyzing force, and when the craft rose into the sky, he was violently thrown to the ground.
* NIMES. -- Several hunters from the town of St-Ambroix (Gard) reportedly recently saw seven tiny beings whose shape vaguely resembled that of a human body. When they tried to approach, the beings rushed toward a phosphorescent craft, which took off immediately.
At the spot where the flying saucer’s pilots had been, the hunters discovered on the ground a number of oddly shaped seeds, which they had examined by seed experts. The experts were unable to classify them as any known species.
METZ, October 14. -- Following the investigation opened by the military authorities after the publication of reports stating that soldiers operating a spotlight at the Metz Fair had seen a mysterious luminous circle on Sunday evening, the military government released the following statement:
"The press reports the observation of unknown craft by an anti-aircraft forces post stationed at the Metz Fair. There is no reason to give any credence to this information in this particular case."
"There are zones of vegetation on the planet Mars," affirms Mr. G. A. Tikhov, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in an article published in the journal *Sovietskaya Kultura*, in its latest issue received in Paris, under the title: "New Data on Mars."
Mr. Tikhov, who participated with a group of Soviet scientists in the study of Mars from the astrophysical observatory in Abastumani, Georgia, notes that this year the cloud cover over Mars has been significantly less than usual. He adds that certain dark areas of the planet have changed shape. This, according to him, supports the Soviet scientists' hypothesis that the dark areas on Mars are zones of vegetation.
Mr. Tikhov also states that nearly 700 photographs were taken during the observations and that they have been handed over to astro-botany specialists, who have begun examining them [*].
[*] It was later understood that during the Martian summer, frozen carbon dioxide beneath the surface sublimates, pushing away the lighter-colored surface dust and creating seasonal darker zones. The dust is then blown back by the wind until the next summer. The observations made in 1954 were accurate, but the interpretation was not.
