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The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Courrier Picard, France, page 2, on October 18, 1954.
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LILLE, October 17. - M. Maurice Ruant, farmer in Sinceny, near Chauny (Aisne), almost fell victim to the panic that is caused to some people by the appearance of saucers and other flying objects.
Friday evening, he was busy repairing his car, in a meadow near his home, when two shots from a hunting rifle were fired in his direction. The pellets crashed onto the vehicle body, not far from its head.
Mr. Maurice Ruant complained and the investigation immediately opened made it possible to quickly find the author of the shots, who was a neighbor of Mr. Ruant, Mr. Faisan.
The latter told the police.
"I thought, seeing a silhouette moving in the light of two headlights, that I was in the presence of a Martian repairing his flying saucer. I went to get my shotgun and I fired."
Despite his good faith, Mr. Ruant will be prosecuted.
The flying saucers once again honored of their presence the most diverse regions of France: in Metz, in Saint-Malo, in Issoire, in particular, mysterious craft have been seen.
In Metz, Mr. Hellers claimed to have seen an oblong luminous craft cross the sky from East to West at breakneck speed. The object, orange in color and the size of a chicken egg, glided silently through space, leaving behind an incandescent trail. The witness estimated the speed of this craft to be approximately ten times that of a jet plane.
This testimony was confirmed by an air police station sentry on the height of Plappeville, in the suburbs of Metz.
In the Ille-et-Vilaine, in Paramé, a plasterer, said he saw two luminous discs going up and down in the sky at an extraordinary speed. A third luminous disc seemed to follow a line parallel to the horizon, at a much slower pace than the other two. The discs, moving away, left behind a tail like that of a comet.
Finally, the staff of the Issoire-le-Broc airfield and the chief pilot Hébaut, who was in flight, observed a brilliant craft of circular shape which hovered during nearly two hours at very high altitude before moving slowly towards the West.
ROME, October 17. - Many Italians having observed "disks", "saucers", "cigars" etc... flying in the sky of the peninsula, the "Giornale d'Italia" interviewed professor Antonio Eula, holder of the aerodynamics chair at the University of Rome.
This eminent scientist about the possible origin of the so-called spacecraft from other planets, said in particular: "We do not fully know the mysteries of our solar system. Astronautics, when it can be put in practical use, will perhaps allow us to penetrate them. But we already know that beings similar to us cannot exist on the currently known planets. If they exist, they can only be profoundly different. Thus is it absurd to speak of Martians capable of human-like activities."
In response to another question, Professor Eula said he did not believe he was authorized to exclude, in an absolute manner, that it could be "experimental craft intended for military use, and protected by an impenetrable secret." In conclusion, the professor said: "If this last hypothesis corresponds to reality, the time will come when their secret will be revealed, because no secret of a technical nature can be preserved indefinitely."
