The 1954 French flap:

A Lyon resident claims: "I saw a flying saucer over my garden"

LYON, August 31 (Disp. "France-Soir"). -- A cigar-shaped flying saucer was seen last night in Lyon by Mr. Henri Tardy. He was taking a digestive walk in his garden around 8:15 p.m. He had stopped to admire the twinkling lights on the Lyonese hills when he saw an elongated object, like a short, thick cigar, moving from east to west. The object had a blue-green hue, and from its rear end came a shower of sparks.

The sighting was very brief and disappeared within seconds in the direction of the Mont Verdun lighthouse, which guides aviators over the Lyon region.

Mr. Tardy cannot say how far away the flying saucer was, but he specifies:

- I was not the victim of a hallucination. Nor was I influenced by reading articles about flying saucers.

At last, a real (fake) flying saucer was seen

DARMSTADT, August 31 (Reuter). The Darmstadt police is finally in possession of the first authentic report of a flying saucer. It was a wooden disc suspended from balloons and lit up with light bulbs.

A passing motorist managed to identify the flying saucer for what it was by shining his headlights on it.

The police suspects it is the work of a prankster.

THE FILE OF A TROUBLING ENIGMA

Appearances of flying saucers in the European sky

While we were attempting, in our last article, to give a logical and human conclusion to this investigation, the hunt for flying saucers resumed. It is, after all, a summer subject, as once were, for more than a century, sea serpents – with the difference that the flying saucer does indeed exist. But this year, we must note a new fact, which carries weight for Europeans. For seven years, it was mainly the Americans who had the good fortune to observe flying saucers. This time, it is Europe which, for the past few weeks, seems to have become the favored place for the seasonal manifestations of these craft. What does this change of sector imply?

Let us then review the appearances of recent times. Two sisters from Oeydalen, in northern Norway, who were picking blueberries in the mountains, saw on August 21st a man crouching behind a tree. The man stood up and began to laugh. Believing him to be mad, the two young women were preparing to flee, but the stranger gestured for them to come closer. One of them held out her hand, but he began clapping and shaking his head. He was very dark, "like a gypsy," had long hair, and wore a khaki jumpsuit. He did not understand Norwegian, English, French, or German. The two sisters could not make sense of his words.

- Then, adds one of the young women, the mysterious stranger began to draw on something resembling a sheet of paper, the sun, the moon, the earth, pointed to the latter with a finger, then to me with the same finger, repeated the gesture for another planet and for himself.

The man led the young women to a meadow in the middle of a clearing. There they saw a strange craft.

- It must have been a flying saucer, said one of them. It was between four and five meters in diameter and looked like two giant pot lids stuck together. The man prevented us from touching his craft. Then, he grabbed one of us by the arm, pointing to the roots of a tree. We did not understand what this meant. He then climbed into his machine, waved goodbye, and the craft began to spin on itself, slowly at first, making hardly more noise than a bumblebee, before finally taking off at a terrifying speed and disappearing on the horizon...

Alerted, the Oeydalen police opened an investigation. Accompanied by three policemen, the two sisters went to the scene of the adventure. The officers found no evidence of any landing. The entire Norwegian press, from which we draw this information, began to speak of the arrival in Norway of a man from space. But Major General of the Norwegian Air Force, Birger Notzfeldt, explained to journalists that it was an American helicopter participating in maneuvers in northern Norway. On this point, American pilot Marly Faurot, passing through Oslo, declared that he was the hero of this adventure and that the two sisters had mistaken his helicopter for a flying saucer and himself for an inhabitant of Mars. The case seemed closed when the police officer who conducted the investigation in Oeydalen stated that it was physically impossible even for a helicopter to land in the clearing he had inspected. The American pilot retracted, adding that he had not gone into that clearing. The newspaper Norlands Fratmid, of Oeydalen, for its part declared that no helicopter had landed in that area. And the investigation continues.

But here is a more serious case. The event took place in Zurich, on August 7th last, at 4:15 p.m., and the observation was made by a first lieutenant of the Swiss Air Force. The Zurich newspaper Die Tat published the report that this first lieutenant sent to his superiors. Let us summarize: while he was watching from the window of his apartment, at Schaffhouse Square, the maneuvers of sport planes over the city, the first lieutenant suddenly saw "a dark disc the size of a penny, which seemed to be under the cloud ceiling."

- At first I thought it was a child's balloon, adds the first lieutenant. But curiously this disc, unlike a balloon, was not carried away by the wind. I immediately grabbed my binoculars and observed the craft.

The officer saw that it had the shape of an inverted saucer, whose thickness was about one-sixth of its diameter. A large circular ring could be distinguished surrounding a circular surface, whose diameter represented half that of the object. The color of the ring changed constantly, going from silvery to pink, then to blue. The hue turned red, and the contours of the craft became blurry and incandescent. A dark brown smoke trailed behind the object and dissolved in the air.

- The size of the craft is certainly no more than about fifteen meters, concluded the first lieutenant.

This appearance was confirmed. That same evening, two brothers saw around 10:30 p.m., above Kloten Airport, a very bright object that rose vertically, changed from yellow-white to red, became white again, and disappeared. It returned a few minutes later at extraordinary speed, before disappearing for good.

Meanwhile, France too was the stage of such appearances. Two policemen and a young chemical engineer of 25 years old, saw above Vernon, in the Eure, on the night of August 26–27, a large cigar-shaped object shining motionless. Five saucers detached themselves one after the other from this cigar. The last one descended lower than the others and could be observed by the witnesses. It was red at the center, black on the edges, and it disappeared northward at dizzying speed. A year earlier already, flying saucers had been observed at Vernon.

Some 120 kilometers from Geneva as the crow flies, the people of Lyon saw on August 30, around 8:15 p.m., an elongated mass, like a short, thick cigar, flying from east to west. Mr. Tardy, who observed it, specified that this object had a bluish-green color and that from its rear part sprang a shower of sparks. The craft disappeared in the direction of Mount Vernon.

If the new facts that we report here add to the file that we have opened for the readers of this newspaper, they bring, curious as they may be, no new element towards solving the enigma posed. This, moreover, is the impression acquired in all the countries where observers collect these facts, classify them, and never cease questioning them. Physicists in West Germany have just founded, in Düsseldorf, a society for the study of flying saucers. This private, very closed group enjoys the official support of the authorities of the Rhineland, even of the federal government in Bonn. It is composed of several scientists, space specialists, and also technicians who worked during the last war on the construction of the V2, which bombarded London. "For security reasons," declared the committee of this group, "no details can be given at this moment on the precise functions we perform." It is only known that this society does not deliberately and a priori reject the hypothesis that these mysterious flying craft come from another planet!... Let us wait!...

But other information is now being published, shedding interesting light on these troubling appearances. Thus, first of all, the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories in New York have developed a wind tunnel in which speeds of 16,000 km/h can be reached. This extraordinary test tunnel is a cylindrical vacuum chamber. The speed of 16,000 km/h is reached in a thousandth of a second, and the friction of gases against the flying craft placed in this tube produces a temperature of 4000 degrees. It is officially announced that an even larger tunnel is under construction. For what purpose?...

Other information, published in recent days, complements the first and is likely to explain the increasingly frequent appearances of mysterious craft flying over Europe. For the first time, an American battalion, equipped with guided missiles, landed in Europe at the beginning of August. It has 10 launch ramps. Its projectile, the "Wacs Corporal" rocket, which rose to 400,000 meters and photographed the earth, is 15 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter. It travels at a speed far exceeding that of sound. According to another report published recently in Washington, General Nathan Twining, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, declared that "the long and delicate transition phase between the airplane and the guided missile has already begun." He added that as these guided missiles become more reliable, they are taking over tasks previously assigned to airplanes. Let us repeat, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, that we only report here officially published information.

In the end, does it not seem that the problem is beginning to clear up?

No doubt, says Reverend Curtmel, pastor at Albridge, England. But flying saucers should not be a laughing matter. The authorities are hiding from us certain information that is in their possession. If a flying saucer landed in my garden, I would hasten to go welcome its occupants!...

This attitude is no doubt the best.

Charles REBER.

CLASSIFICATION [Blackened out]

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROACASTS

			CO NO.:	..
COUNTRY:	Non-Orbit		DATE OF INFORMATION:	1954
SUBJET:	Military - Unidentified flying objects
HOW PUBLISHED:	Daily newspapers		DATE DIST.:	25 oct 1954
WHERE PUBLISHED:	As indicated		NO. OF PAGES:	3
DATE PUBLISHED:	5 Jul - 2 Sep 1954
LANGUAGES:	Various		SUPPLEMENT TO REPORT NO.:
[Blackened out]	[Blackened out]		THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
SOURCE:	As indicated

SIGHTINGS OF UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

[... (Previous reports)]

UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT OVER LYON -- Dakar, Paris-Dakar, 2 Sep 54

At 2015 hours on 31 August 1954, Henri Tardy is reported to have seen a flying object in the shape of a short, fat cigar flying from east to west over Lyon. The object was bluish-green in color and emitted sparks from its tail. It disappeared in a few seconds towards the radio beacon of Mount Verdon.

[... (Next reports)]

The number of saucer sightings continued to acce1erate. Each day several were reported. By the end of August [1954], at the moment when Wilbert Smith, who had predicted the phenomenon, closed his observatory at Shirley's Bay near Ottawa because nothing special was happening in Canada, the skies over Lyon, Angers, and over the entire Paris region were swarming with saucers.

Swarms of UFOs.

By the last days of August Europe was swarming with UFOs if we can believe reports from Villacoublay, Brittany, Anger, Amiens, Lyon, and the Paris region of France; Munich and Berlin in Germany; Innsbruck in Austria; Trieste in Italy; and Stone and Stafford in England; to name a few. The visitation at Villacoublay on the 29th was seen and reported by military and technical personnel stationed at the French air base located in the vicinity. 214.

• 214. Michel, Aime. "Flying Saucers In Europe - Saucers or Delusions" Fate January 1, 1958. p.32.