The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 19-Oct-54-Noyon.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
An article in the regional newspaper L'Oise-Matin for October 23, 1954, reported several observations of "flying saucers", in the Oise department, among other places.
The newspaper indicated that in Noyon, "young people and several other trustworthy people" claimed to have seen "Tuesday evening", therefore on October 19, 1954, "around 9 p.m., 'a mysterious luminous craft, having the shape if a cigar at both ends and fairly representative of the profile of a saucer'."
According to the statements of the witnesses in this newspaper, the "craft" was "of variable color, brilliant and indefinable", and carried out vertical oscillations above the village of Vauchelles.
The phenomenon would have been observed for half an hour, then the saucer appeared to dive towards the ground and disappeared behind the hills of Porquericourt.
[Ref. lon1:] NEWSPAPER "L'OISE-MATIN":
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IT IS, in our region, in Noyon, in Morenval, and in Mesnil-en-Thelle, in the rest of the country, in the regions of Bray-sur-Seine, Lagny, Moret, Thoméry, Melun and the Rochelle, that "saucers", "cigars", "disks" and other flying craft - with and without "Martians" have been reported in the past 24 hours.
In Noyon they are young people and several other reliable people who claimed to have seen Tuesday evening, around 9 pm, "a mysterious luminous craft, having the shape of a cigar tapering at both ends and representing rather well the profile of a saucer."
The craft; which according to the statements of the witnesses was "of variable color, brilliant and indefinable", carried out, they say, vertical oscillations above the village of Vauchelles.
The phenomenon concludes the witnesses could be observed for half an hour, then the saucer seemed to dive towards the ground and disappeared behind the hills of Porquericourt.
Tuesday evening, Mssrs. Baquet, a schoolteacher in the hamlet of Morenval, and Letombe, his neighbor, took advantage of the moonlight to hunt for wild boars.
Both leaving, rifles on their shoulders, they reached around 9:30 p.m. a cornfield located at the place "la pointe de Blérancourt" along the Tracy-le-Mont-Blérancourt road.
Suddenly, Mr. Letembe, looking up, saw a luminous craft in the shape of an "elongated spheroid"; which moved horizontally in the sky, at a dizzying pace. Mr. Letombe, calling for the attention of Mr. Baquet, the two hunters were able to follow for about ten seconds, the course of the craft which, without the slightest noise, continued its course from east to west, until it disappears on the horizon.
The same phenomena woas reportedly also seen more or less at the same time, by residents of Attichy and Carlepont.
For their part, Mssrs. René Didelet, technical agent at the S.N.C.F., and Omer Van de Sompaele, farmer, living in Mesnil-en-Thelle, declared that they saw "towards the south, a red sphere the size of a fist, which moved horizontally at breakneck speed, leaving behind an incandescent trail."
Numerous witnesses living in the municipalities of the regions of Bray-sur-Seine, Lagny, Moret, Thomery, also declared having seen, at nightfall, a strange phenomenon: an oval-shaped machine, yellow-orange in color, measuring more than 20 meters, at an altitude of 300 or 400 meters.
The craft stood still for some time and disappeared at breakneck speed.
One of the witnesses, Mr. André L ..., a weather specialist, who live in Thomery, estimates that the speed of the craft was of the order of 10,000 kilometers per hour.
Mr. L ... specified:
"I am absolutely certain, because I am familiar with this matter, that it is neither an airplane nor a weather balloon."
In Melun itself, several young girls coming out of an evening class, claim to have seen a similar machine in the sky, which, after stopping for ten minutes, would have risen very quickly in the sky.
However, a luminous ball resembling a car headlight reportedly appeared, on six occasions, at two industrialists from Melun who were circulating on the national road Melun-Rubelles. The appearance of this luminous focus would have caused each time a very large flash of lightning illuminating the region.
For their part, several riders from a horse riding center in La Rochelle, claim to have seen a character flee from their park.
"He was strange, they say, he could only be a Martian."
Finally, a motorist from Cherbonnières was driving on the road to Souzou, near La Rochelle, with his 3-year-old son, when he felt a tingling sensation all over his body similar to electric shocks which increased as his car moved forward. The child, who felt the same discomfort, began to cry. Soon the engine of the car stopped, and the headlights went out. At the same time, a bright glow was seen, going from bright red to orange. Blinded, the motorist was however able to distinguish a machine motionless in space for a few moments then it soon disappeared. Immediately afterwards, the driver was able to restart the engine of his car.
Many disks, saucers and flying cigars were also reported yesterday in the skies over Italy. Several people said they saw these craft flying over Milan, while residents of Perugia, Bologna, and other localities in the north of the peninsula also claimed to have seen incursions of discs or flying cigars.
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I note that on October 19, 1954, around 9:30 p.m., there had certainly been a meteor pass, as the descriptions of other observations show in the Oise in particular.
But here we are dealing with an observation duration of half an hour; if this was not invented, it would obviously exclude a meteor.
The duration, the oscillations, the variable colors, can make think of a star. We can also think that the disappearance behind the horizon, after half an hour so at 9:30 p.m., would be that of the meteor.
The witnesses would have been in Noyon, the "craft" was first above Vauchelles, then disappeared by a dive towards the ground behind the hills of Porquericourt:
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In view of the extent of Noyon and as we are not told of the exact position of the witnesses, the direction of observation is rather vaguely defined; but in any case it is probably between the west (267°) and the north-west (343 ), with a median at 294°.
I note that astronomically, between the west and the northwest, there was no star then known for a particular brilliance, neither plants, nor moon, nothing special there which could have caused an obvious astronomical misinterpretation.
The first half hour of observation therefore remains unexplained; at best I can suggest that the end, the dive towards the ground, might have been the passage of the 9:30 pm meteor.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Noyon, Oise, young people, multiple, night, craft, luminous, cigar, saucer, change of color, brilliant, oscillations, vertical, Vauchelles, duration, descent, Porquericourt
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | May 12, 2021 | First published. |
