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The article below was published in the daily newspaper Libre Artois, Arras, Pas-de-Calais, France, page 3, on October 6, 1954.
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Flying saucers, flying cigars and other mysterious craft continue to appear everywhere. During the last weekend, the presence of strange craft was reported in the skies of Ivory Coast, in the Finistère, in the Deux-Sèvres and in the Indre.
Many people, including officers from the High Mountain School, said they saw for more than an hour, a brilliant craft moving between Mount Lachat and Mount-Blanc.
Pilot Guiron indicated that, flying approximately 2,000 meters above Faverges, he saw a craft which, he said, had no resemblance to a normal aircraft. In addition, the direction followed at high speed by this craft excluded the hypothesis of a sounding balloon.
Our region has not been spared either, and there have been numerous reports of bizarre craft appearing.
Bernard Devoisin and René Condette, 18 years old, two young people from Vron, in the district of Abbeville, returning from their work by bicycle, saw a machine in the middle of the road.
Rolling with all pedals, to cover the 150 meters that separated them from the craft, they saw it fly away while they were still about 70 meters away.
Bernard Devoisin, who pedaled at the front, saw a man dressed like a kind of diver, who bypassed his craft, which left immediately.
As for the orange-colored saucer, it was shaped like a beehive, with a pointed roof. It was about the width of the road, about three meters.
In the evening from Saturday to Sunday, two Jeumont residents stated that they had seen while driving on rue de Soire-le-Château, a saucer-shaped object which, after having moved a few seconds above the city, rose vertically and disappeared.
Miss Anne-Marie Perrut, 26 years old whose father is a policeman at the Marcoing brigade a few kilometers from Cambrai, told the next story:
"Sunday, around 8:30 p.m., going to the window, I saw two large luminous balls: a large one and below a smaller one. It seemed to move slightly from right to left, like a gondola balloon.
"I called my father who laughed at me. I insisted and, finally, he came to see and it was then that he alerted the other gendarmes present in the barracks. The families joined us and so around twenty people could see what we had seen.
"For a quarter of an hour we saw this luminous appearance comparable to the moon, but larger. Round, the object took the form of a cigar, then a crescent. It set off towards Villers-Plouich then came back to disappear forever."
The gendarmes who confirmed this fact to us declare that these luminous balls could be at an approximate altitude of 600 to 700 meters.
Sunday, between 9 p.m. and 9:20 p.m., a craft, in the shape of a golden half-moon, crossed in the center by a greenish line, hovered above rue Fleury, in La Chapelle d'Armentières. All the residents observed the object for a long time. One of them brought binoculars to better define its contours, then suddenly the saucer disappeared in the direction of Fleurbaix.
Sunday was the ducasse in Chéreng, a small town not far from Lille. At 07:20 p.m., some residents saw a cigar which landed on the Marque footbridge. The landing, preceded by a shower of sparks was made without noise, but the craft disappeared before the arrival of the witnesses. With the joyous atmosphere of the party suggesting a joke, many people did not believe the accounts of the witnesses - but the confirmation was made on Monday.
Sunday, around 9:20 p.m., several people were able to realize the presence of unknown type of vehicles on the Lorette plateau.
Mr. Lecocq J.-B., of Liévin, distinguished in the sky around the lighthouse of Lorette, a luminous machine having the shape of a crescent which oscillated slightly. He stopped several people to make them notice this apparition. From this oblong-shaped craft, the lower part detached and descended towards the ground and came to resume shortly after its position against the upper part. The saucer then descended into the valley.
A flying saucer was seen in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, on the evening of Sunday, by Mr. Louis Lherbier, general agent of insurance, rue Marcel Lancino. The latter being in his yard, was intrigued by the presence of a small reddish ball seeming to move in the air. He called his wife, as well as Mr. Robert Mairesse, an employee of the mines and his wife. The four people saw very well the thing which ultimately took the form of a pot spinning on itself. Then after a few minutes, this strange object rose quickly in the air and disappeared.
