The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 15-Oct-54-Carmaux.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In 2004, in his ufology magazine UFOmania, ufologist Didier Gomez noted that according to the newspaper La Dépêche du Midi of October 16, 1954, the "flying saucer" that a few thousand people thought they saw in Carmaux, appearing as a silver sphere seemingly stationary at very high altitude, was actually a weather balloon.
One of their journalists, equipped with binoculars, was able to describe the craft as two discs; then he observed it with a Wild universal theodolite on a tripod. The journalist continued:
"It would actually be a balloon with the very exact appearance of a serum ampoule made of transparent material, on which the sun cast reddish-orange or silvery reflections. It seems to be an experimental-style balloon."
I can say that this journalist was correct: it must indeed have been the famous cosmic radiation measurement balloon launched by the University of Milan, Italy, which had generated many reports, had been identified by a number of newspapers, and was even recovered.
[Ref. dgz1:] DIDIER GOMEZ:
Source: La Dépêche du Midi, October 16, 1954.
On the same page, there is a note about the observation made in Carmaux a few days earlier:
"The 'saucer' of Carmaux was just a weather balloon
On Friday, market day, a few thousand people believed they saw a 'saucer' appearing as a silvery sphere, seemingly stationary, at a very high altitude. As a journalist and a curious observer, I soon had a pair of binoculars, which allowed me to describe the object as two discs. We observed the object using a Wild universal theodolite on a tripod. It was actually a balloon that looked very precisely like a transparent serum vial, on which the sun cast reddish-orange or silvery reflections. It seems to be an experimental-style balloon.
Additional notes: It is rather surprising to find at this time, probably one of the first official explanations, intended to reassure in light of the numerous testimonies that were beginning to resonate strongly among the population."
At a time when nearly every village in France had its own flying saucer story, it is not impossible that several people were misled by a completely natural or at least explainable phenomenon. Public opinion was raising a number of entirely legitimate questions about the reality of these phenomena, which were being reported across the country day after day since September 24, 1954, the start of the events. In the present case, there is nothing to indicate that the bright sphere observed in the skies over Albi and Carmaux on Friday, October 15, 1954, was anything more than a scientific balloon. I leave it to the reader to judge the content of the accounts. The explanation remains very likely, as suggested by the following two press articles, including the one from Le Provençal, which seems to confirm the weather balloon misidentification on the same day.
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The high-altitude balloon of the University of Padua.
The photo of the balloon by the Haute-Provence Observatory:
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(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Carmaux, Tarn, balloon, negative case, theodolite, multiple, ampoule, sphere, silver, stationary, high, transparent, red, orange, reflections
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | October 19, 2025 | First published, [dgz1]. |
