The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 25-Nov-54-Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The newspaper La Liberté du Morbihan, of Lorient, reported on November 26, 1954, that several people from Saint-Fiacre in the Loire Inférieure (now Loire-Atlantique) had noticed, at 7 p.m., a luminous red and yellow ball moving from East to West. After spinning twice on itself in a fairly wide circle, it disappeared on the horizon.
The phenomenon lasted only a few seconds.
The newspaper did not explicitly give the date; we can only suppose that it occurred the previous day, November 25, 1954.
[Ref. lmn1:] NEWSPAPER "LA LIBERTE DU MORBIHAN":
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NANTES.
Several people from Saint-Fiacre (Lower Loire) noticed, at 7 p.m., a luminous red and yellow ball moving from East to West. After spinning twice on itself in a fairly wide circle, it disappeared on the horizon.
The phenomenon lasted only a few seconds.
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An explanation that the scant description does not allow to rule out would be that of a rocket plane, the rocket flame remaining at least partially visible from all angles.
We can then think of the SO.9000 Trident, which made its first flight on March 2, 1953. The first flight with its rocket engine ignited took place on September 4, 1954, reaching a speed of Mach 1.63. But the test flights then involved a single prototype, and they took place in Istres in the south, during daylight, and none took place in late November 1954.
Moreover, the observation time of "a few seconds" when there were supposedly two circles "over a fairly wide radius" leaves little room for any commonplace explanation.
I therefore leave the case as "unidentified."
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, Loire-Atlantique, red, yellow, ball, mulitple, tour, circle, fast, duration
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 16, 2025 | First published, [lmn1]. |
