The 1954 French flap:

In ChéLreng, FIFTY AMAZED PEOPLE
OBSERVED ON SUNDAY
THE MONEUVERS OF A
"FLYING SAUCER"

Fifty residents of Chéreng who participated Sunday evening, at the feast of the hamlet l'Autour, attended an extraordinary display that the program had not foreseen: the maneuvers of a mysterious craft.

All are adamantly saying: "We saw a flying saucer".

We certainly would not have reported this fact if we had not carried out an investigation in the locality and heard serious witnesses in the statements cannot be doubted.

The event occurred shortly before 8:00 p.m. Mr. Fiolet, director of the boys' school, told us about this: "I was chatting with a few people in Mr. Coyat's cafe when we heard a slight buzzing sound.

Nobody paid attention to this unusual noise; a few minutes passed... suddenly two of my pupils, Jean-Marc Delerue and Gérard Mullier rushed towards me, shouting: "Come see, Mister! A flying saucer."

Everyone was about to laugh when the word "saucer" pronounced by the crowd who, outside, was attending the party, came to our ears.

That's when we went out.

A curious display presented itself to our eyes: around fifty people, eyes wide, staring at the horizon. About five hundred meters away, a reddish object seemed to rest on the ground.

"We ran towards the place chosen for this "landing" but the "saucer" rose, stabilized and moved horizontally.

"Skeptical, I first thought of a quarter moon, but, looking at the calendar, I noticed that the next quarter moon should only occur on Tuesday.

"Some people will tell you they saw two flying cigars!

"This is incorrect: this is an optical effect that I will explain to you quickly.

"All the people who witnessed the moves of the craft from the start noticed that the central part of the "saucer" went out for a moment, leaving only the two elongated parts located opposite and on the other side of the central bulge."

"All of these operations took place with a slight humming sound."

Mrs Mouveaux, born Delattre, employed at the Duquennoy and Lepers establishments, made the same statement.

Other people whose enumeration would be too long gave substantially similar comments.

On Monday, Mr. Fiolet questioned his students. Those who were present during the apparition gave information that still matches.

The young Jean-Claude Delmotte made an unexpected revelation: "I saw "one" on Thursday, but I didn't tell about it, one would have laughed at me; the one I saw left traces."

"The testimony of this schoolboy, Mr. Fiolet told us, can be taken into consideration, because he is a very serious and intelligent child".

This "saucer" - identical to that of Sunday, according to little Jean-Marc Delmotte - would have landed in a field between the path of la Chapelle and the wood of Chéreng.

Traces having the shape of the fins used by underwater swimmers are still visible on the ground.

The gendarmes who closely follow these events will no doubt check certain statements today, as well as the suspicious traces.

Mysterious craft
crisscross the sky
of our region

Flying saucers, flying cigars, other mysterious craft continue to appear everywhere. During the last weekend, the presence of strange craft was reported in the skies of Côte d'Ivoire, in the Finistère, in the Deux Sèvres and in the Indre.

Many people, including the officers of the High Mountain School, said they saw for more than an hour a brilliant machine moving between Mont Lachat and Mont Blanc.

The pilot Guiron indicated that, flying at an altitude of about 2,000 meters, he saw a craft which, he said, said, had no resemblance to a normal plane. Moreover, 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 were numerous reports of bizarre craft.

Weird object in the Somme...

Bernard Devoisin and René Condette, 18 years old, two young men from Vron, in the district of Abbeville, saw a mass right in the middle of the roadway.

Rolling at full pedals, to cover the few 150 meters that separated them from the apparatus, they saw it fly away while they were still 70 meters away.

Bernard Devoisin, who was pedaling at the head, saw a man dressed like a sort of diver, who bypassed this craft, which left immediately.

As for the orange "saucer", it was shaped like a beehive, with a pointed roof. It was about the width of the road, about three meters.

... and above Jeumont

In the evening from Saturday to Sunday, two resedents of Jeumont stated that they had seen, while driving around Solre-le-Château, a saucer-shaped object which, after having moved a few seconds above the City, rose vertically and disappeared.

Many witnesses near Cambrai

Miss Anne-Marie Perut, 20 years old, whose father is a gendarme at the Marcoing brigade, a few kilometers from Cambrai, told the following 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 slightly swinging from right to left, like a balloon basket.

"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-Pouich, then came back to disappear for good."

The gendarmes who confirmed this fact to us declare that this luminous ball could be at an approximate altitude of 6 to 700 meters.

Appearance near Armentières

Sunday, between 9 p.m. and 9:20 p.m., a craft, in the shape of a golden half-moon, barred in the center by a greenish line, hovered above rue Fleury, in La Chapelle d'Armentières. All the residents observed the craft for a long time. One of them used binoculars to better define its contours, then suddenly the saucer disappeared in the direction of Fleurbaix.

Landing of a cigar
near Lille

Sunday was the ducasse in Chéreng, a small town not far from Lille. At 07:20 p.m., a few locals saw a cigar landing 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 witnesses' story - but the confirmation was made on Monday.

A saucer on the plate
of Lorette

Sunday around 9:30 p.m., several people were aware of the presence of unknown type of craft on the Lorette plateau.

Mr. Lecoq J-Bte. of Liévin, distinguished in the sky around the lighthouse of Lorette, a luminous craft having the shape of a crescent which oscillated slightly. He stopped several people to make them note this apparition. From this oblong-shaped craft, the lower part was 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 pot
in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire

A saucer was seen in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, on Sunday evening, by Mr. Louis Lherbier, general insurance agent, 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 turning on itself. Then after a few minutes, this strange object rose quickly in the air and disappeared.

In CHERENG, under the sign of the saucer

The appearance of a saucer on Sunday evening which we echoed in our issue yesterday, upset the calm of the commune. The number of witnesses and their respectability brings new light to what many people take for a joke.

"I saw: I believe in saucers"

It is in these terms that Mr. Fiolet, school principal, answers our questions. Of all the witnesses, there could be no question of choosing a better one than this excellent teacher.

According to Mr. Fiolet, the craft does not land on the gangway, an optical illusion suggesting that this place is the place of landing.

Rushing with his son and one of his students, Mr. Fiolet, saw the craft move beyond Anstaing, in his opinion in the direction towards Sainghin-en-Mélantois.

The object had the shape of a crescent of red color, then while rising it took the shape of a drop, point down and it maneuvered from down to up several times, in this form.

The children who saw the object before the school principal were asked on Monday to draw the shape of what they had seen. The conformity of the drawings leaves no doubt, it is not an optical phenomenon. In addition, testimonies from neighboring villages correspond as to the time and the color of the object discerned.

"I saw one on the ground
Thursday!!"

It is with this explosive sentence that Jean-Claude Delmotte, 11, admitted his discovery. Questioned, the child replied that being alone he had seen behind the castle a brilliant sphere placed on the ground which flew away, taking the form of an orange drop, then the form of a brown saucer with a central prominence on the above and below. At first motionless with fright, he finally approached the field from which the craft had flown, and noticed traces of webbed feet there - traces seen by his comrades at the end of his story.

Sunday, in the morning, the same child saw a craft moving high in the sky and warned his grandmother, who arrived too late.

The official investigation

Sent by Captain Gandoin, of the gendarmerie of Roubaix, on Monday morning, the gendarmes of Forest-sur-Marque collected the statements of the witnesses and went to the places designated by the child.

Unfortunately, the ground trampled by agricultural carts was no longer marked by "webbed feet."

For his part, the school principal, who invokes the testimony of his wife, is formal about the lucidity of his students.

And until further notice this new episode of the saucer problem ends here.

In Chéreng as in Annoeuillin, the residents
saw a mysterious craft hovering in the sky

Sunday evening, when a hundred residents of the Annoeuillin region saw a strange craft in the sky, about fifty Chéreng residents gathered on the occasion of the festivals of the hamlet of l'Autour made identical observations.

[Photo caption:] in the company of the school principal, the children in the front row of whom we see J.-C. Delmotte, M. Lison and Jeanine Besanger, try to find traces seen in a field, Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, traces of horse hooves have replaced the palm prints that one thought to have seen there.

(Photo "La Voix du Nord")

Among them was Mr. Fiolet, director of the communal school for boys, whose seriousness cannot be doubted. He told us the story of the display contemplated, Sunday, around 8 p.m., by the Chéreng residents, which lasted about twenty minutes.

The principal's story

"It was around 8 p.m., and the celebrations in the l'Autour district had brought many walkers to this hamlet of Chéreng.

I was chatting with some friends at the Coyot cafe when I was caught by the murmurings of the crowd outside: "These are saucers, these are saucers ", people said.

I was challenged by two of my students: Jean-Marc Delerue and Gérard Mullier.

Skeptical, I advanced, followed by some friends, to note the presence in the sky, at a distance of about 70 km, in a south-south-west direction, of an oblong-shaped craft, from which emanated a powerful reddish glow. It looked like a downward rounded crescent moon. The slightly bulging central part of the craft seemed more illuminated. Suddenly the bulging part went out. It was then that I had the impression, and the people present also, of seeing two cigars. The slow-moving craft pivoted and then disappeared."

"When the "Martians"
look like
frogmen

On Monday, Mr. Fiolet questioned his students.

Jean-Claude Delmotte, 9 and a half years old, informed his master that he had already seen two bizarre craft, one Sunday morning, the other the previous Thursday. But for fear of being laughed at, he didn't say anything about it.

"Thursday, around 4:30 p.m., while I was at the entrance to the Chemin de la Chapelle, near the Town Hall, I saw, said the child, a sphere of dark color and about 3 m in diameter, which was posed in a field located at the edge of the wood of Chéreng, about 300 meters from the place where I was. The sphere, slightly flattened at its upper part, suddenly disappeared."

In the company of comrades: Marcel Lison and Jean-Luc Besanger, he noticed, on the ground, the presence of three or four traces having, he said, the shape of the flippers used by underwater swimmers.

Tuesday morning, Mr. Fiolet, young Delmotte and several people present, on Sunday evening, in the hamlet of "L'Autour" were heard by Chief Warrant Officer Millerot, of the gendarmerie brigade of Rorest-sur-Brand, who opened an investigation.

They all repeated what they told us. However, we went on Tuesday, with the children, to the place where they would have seen traces. The rain had soaked the ground and all we could find were the tracks left by horse hooves.

If the testimonies of the children may seem questionable, as their imagination is so fertile, on the other hand Mr. Fiolet and a good number of Chéreng residents are certain of having seen in the sky, Sunday evening, a phenomenon which did not cease to intrigue them.

Mysterious craft
crisscross the sky of our region

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.

ODD MACHINE IN THE SOMME...

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.

... AND ABOVE
JEUMONT

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.

MANY WITNESSES
NEAR CAMBRAI

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.

APPEARANCE
NEAR ARMENTIERES

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.

LANDING OF A CIGAR
NEAR LILLE

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.

A SAUCER
ON THE PLATEAU
DE LORETTE

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 POT
IN ABLAIN-SAINT-NAZAIRE

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.

CHERENG

ABOUT THE SAUCERS

Learning the jokes of the Beuvry pensioner, we went to probe witnesses to the Sunday sighting and ask their opinion.

Some, still under the blow of the emotion, do not express any opinion, but we know that the distinguished school principal, Mr. Fiolet, whose precious testimony convinced his compatriots, Mr. Fiolet we said, rejects the hypothesis of the hot air balloon in the apparition which flew over the town on Sunday evening. For him, only remains the hypothesis of a machine whose manipulation seems hesitant at times and which remains unknown to this day and causes a host of assumptions.

It is rather curious to note that since Sunday, beneficial day for the visitors of the sky, the presence of these became more rare with the arrival of bad weather. Which would suggest that crossing the clouds is not very popular with "saucerists."

It should be noted that intrusions are zero on rainy days and nights.

This behavior being parallel with ours vis-à-vis the rain, it would be good that our military strategists plan a hydraulic weapon to repel these craft if necessary.

The sense of geography!

In the number of the particularities which emerge from the testimonies, it is necessary to note this clue: to date, on the number of flying objects, luminous or colored, controlled in the area included between Armentières and Valenciennes, not once the craft seen on French territory were seen across the border; which made one of my Belgian friends say: "When a saucer is seen in Belgium, it can only be by a Frenchman." Joke of circumstance, this joke reflects well the opinion of our neighbors who do not admit this ostracism on the part of saucers.

By dint of hearing about it our Belgian friends, enticed by the echoes of the press would like to attend the show on the territory and we understand this curiosity.

As for us, we deduce that the intersidereal visitors who have mapped the border route hesitate to be in breach with the customs for lack of triptych or by timidity.

On these deductions we can only turn the page while waiting for the new chapter that the saucers, cigars and flying pots, will offer the following days.

A. L.

 

CHERENG

Always the saucers!

The flying saucers... or the mysterious machines that some see in the sky seem to show a predilection for the commune of Chéreng.

A month ago, about fifty Chéreng residents gathered on a Sunday evening for a party in the hamlet of L'"Autour", had seen a craft resembling a cigar, move in the clouds.

This news barely known, a schoolboy declared that he had seen a few days before a mysterious sphere, posed in a field near the Bois.

As if that weren't enough, barely a week had passed when three young girls, walking on the main road, around 10 p.m., also saw mysterious lights. Presumably the moon hidden by a light cloud, which their imagination transformed... into a saucer.

But Chéreng was undoubtedly to serve as a rallying spot for these "objects from some other planet", because on Tuesday morning, an inhabitant working on its layers of chicory, for a few seconds saw a strong glow coming from the heavens. The beam of light hit the ground and disappeared in less time than it takes to tell.

During the day on Wednesday, one discussed here and there in the town, about visions that would have had, Tuesday, two inhabitants of the locality. Passing by the Anstaing footbridge, they reportedly saw two individuals of strange appearance responding to the description given of "Martians" or "Venusians". Regardless, while people of good faith have witnessed a strange phenomenon, there are others who sometimes take their dreams for reality.

October 3 [, 1954]

[... other cases...]

07:20 p.m.: Chéreng (10 km E.of lille--Nord):lum.obj.elong moving.near ground

[... other cases...]

October 3, 1954: Chéreng (10 km INS in the ESE of Lille--Nord):wanderers (elongated craft descends to ground then goes up again)

October 3, 1954, 07:20 p.m., Chereng (France):

The crowd gathered at the fair saw a luminous object arrive very fast in the sky; which suddenly stopped in flight, emitted sparks, and descended towards the ground. As witnesses rushed at it, it took off again.

184) October 3, 1954, 07:20 p.m., Chereng (France):

The crowd at a fair saw a luminous object arrive very fast in the sky, stop in flight, emit sparks, and come down to ground level. As witnesses rushed to the spot, it took off again. (M 113).

184 3-10-54 Chéreng

THE GNEOVNI INVESTIGATIONS:

With each publication this section will be devoted to the study of a little or poorly known regional ufological observation case.

This time we have chosen the case of CHERENG, a municipality located east of the city of Lille on national road 41, Michelin map nr 51, fold nr 6, which is known to have been the place of a "type 1" sighting according to J. Vallée's classification, on Sunday October 3, 1954. In his book "A Propos des S.V.", Planète 1966 publishers, A. Michel tells us about this case on page 141, but the passage in question contains only a few details.

Here is first of all what our excellent archival hunter, Mr. D. CAUDRON, noted in the regional press of the time:

Newspaper "NORD MATIN" Tuesday, October 5, 1954, page 10.

"Mysterious craft are criss-crossing the skies of our region.
... Landing of a cigar near Lille

Sunday was the ducasse in CHERENG, a small town not far from Lille. At 7:20 p.m. some residents saw a cigar that landed at the Marque's footbridge. The landing preceded by a shower of sparks was noiseless, but the craft disappeared before the arrival of the witnesses. The joyful atmosphere of the party suggesting a joke many people did not believe the story of the witnesses but the confirmation came during the day on Monday."

Newspaper "NORD ECLAIR" Tuesday, October 5, 1954

"In CHERENG five amazed people attended on Sunday the moves of a "flying saucer".

About fifty Chéreng residents who participated Sunday evening in the festival of the hamlet of the Autour attended an extraordinary spectacle that the program had not planned: the moves of a mysterious craft. All are formal to say "We saw a UFO" [!]. We would certainly not have reported this fact if we had not conducted an investigation in the locality and heard serious witnesses whose statements cannot be doubted.

The event happened shortly before 8 p.m. Mr. FIOLET, director of the boys' school, told us about this: "I was chatting with a few people in Mr. COYAT's cafe when we heard a slight buzzing. No one paid attention to the unusual noise; a few minutes passed. passed... Suddenly two of my students, J.M. DELERUE and G. MULLIER, rushed towards me shouting: "Come and see, Mister, a flying saucer!" Everyone was about to laugh when the word "saucer" pronounced by the crowd outside attending the party reached our ears. It was then that we got outside. A curious sight presented itself to our eyes: about fifty people with their eyes wide open stared at the horizon. At about five hundred meters a reddish craft seemed to be resting on the ground. We ran towards the place chosen for this landing but the saucer rose, stabilized and moved horizontally. Skeptical, I thought at first of a slice of the moon but consulting the calendar I thought the next quarter moon wasn't due until Tuesday. Some people will tell you that they have seen two flying cigars! It's inaccurate, it's an optical effect that I'm going to explain to you quickly. All the people who attended from the beginning to the evolutions of the craft were able to notice that the central part of the saucer was extinguished for a moment, leaving visible only the two elongated parts located on either side of the central bulge. All these operations took place in a slight hum.

Other people whose list would be too long made remarks that are substantially similar.

Monday evening Mr. FIOLET questioned his students. Those who were present at the time of the apparition gave information which always agreed. The young Jean-Claude DELMOTTE made unexpected revelations: "I didn't see it [sic] on a Thursday but I didn't say it, you would have laughed at me; the one I saw left traces." The testimony of this schoolboy, Mr. FIOLET told us, can be taken into consideration because he is a very serious and intelligent child. This "saucer", identical to that of Sunday according to the young J.C. DELMOTTE, would have landed in a field located between the path of the chapel and the wood of Chéreng. Traces affecting the shape of the flippers used by scuba divers are still visible on the ground. The gendarmes who closely follow these events will undoubtedly check today some statements as well as suspicious traces.

Newspaper "NORD MATIN" Lille issue Wednesday, October 6, 1954 page 3

In Chéreng under the sign of saucers...

The appearance of a saucer on Sunday evening, of which we gave an echo in our issue yesterday, upset the calm of the commune. The number of witnesses and their respectability brings new light to what is taken for a joke.

"I saw: I believe in saucers."

It is in these terms that Mr FIOLET, school director, answers our questions. Of all the witnesses there could be no way of choosing a better one than this excellent pedagogue. According to Mr. FIOLET the craft did not land on the bridge but there was an optical illusion suggesting this place as the landing place. Rushing with his son and one of his students, Mr. FIOLET saw the craft move beyond Anstaïng in the direction, it seems, of Sainghin-en-Mélantois.

The object had the shape of a crescent of red color then while rising it took the shape of a drop, point downwards, and it maneuvered from bottom to top several times in this shape. The kids having sighted the craft before the school principal were

asked on Monday to each draw the shape of what they had seen. The conformity of the sketches leaving no doubt, it is not an optical phenomenon. In addition, testimonies from neighboring villages correspond to the time and color of the object discerned. "I saw one on the ground on Thursday!!" It was with this explosive sentence that Jean-Claude DELMOTTE, 11, confessed his discovery. Questioned, the child replied that being alone he had seen behind the castle a shiny sphere placed on the ground which flew away taking the shape of an orange drop, then the shape of a brown saucer with a central prominence on the top and the bottom. At first motionless with fear, it ended up approaching the field from which the craft had taken off and noted traces of webbed feet, traces seen by his comrades at the end of his story. Sunday morning the same child saw a craft moving high in the sky and warned his grandmother who arrived too late.

The official investigation.

Sent by Captain GANDOIN of the Roubaix gendarmerie, on Monday morning, the gendarmes of Forêst-sur-Flarque noted the statements of the witnesses and went to the places designated by the child. Unfortunately, the ground trampled by agricultural carts no longer bore traces of "webbed feet". For his part, the school principal who invokes the testimony of his wife is formal about the lucidity of his students. And until further notice, we end this new episode of the saucer problem here.

Newspaper "LA VOIX DU NORD" Lille issue Wednesday, October 6, 1954

In Chéreng as in Annoeulin, the residents saw a mysterious craft moving in the sky on Sunday evening while a hundred residents of the region of Annoeulin [sic] saw in the sky a bizarre craft, about fifty of Cherengeois gathered on the occasion of the festivals of the hamlet of the Autour made identical observations. (Here, photograph of Mr. FIOLET and his students looking for traces) In the company of the school director, the children in the front row of whom we see J. C. DELMOTTE, M. LISON and BESANGER, try to find the traces seen in a field, Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, traces of horse hooves have replaced the palm prints that one thought to have seen there.

Among those present was Mr FIOLET, director of the communal school for boys, whose seriousness cannot be doubted. He told us the story of the display watched on Sunday around 8 p.m. by the Chéreng residents and which lasted about twenty minutes.

Story from the school principal:

"It was 8 p.m. and the celebrations in the Autour district had brought many walkers to this hamlet of Chéreng. I was chatting with some friends at the "Coyot" café when I had my attention drawn by the murmurs of the crowd outside: "These are saucers, they are saucers!" people were saying. I was challenged by two of my students; skeptical, I advanced followed by some friends to to note the presence in the sky, at a distance of about 20 kilometers in the direction of the South-South West, of an oblong-shaped craft from which emanated a powerful reddish glow. It looked like a crescent moon rounded towards the bottom. The slightly swollen central part of the craft seemed more thinned. Suddenly the swollen part went out. It was then that I and the people present also had the impression of seeing two cigars, the craft which moved slowly, rotated and then disappeared."

When Martians are like frogmen.

During Monday Mr FIOLET questioned his pupils. Jean-Claude DELMOTTE informed his master that he had already seen two strange craft, one on Sunday morning, the other the previous Thursday. But for fear of ridicule he had said nothing about it.

"Thursday around 4:30 p.m., while I was at the entrance to the chapel road, near the town hall, I saw, said the child, a sphere of dark color and about 3 m in diameter [sic], which was placed in a field located at the edge of the wood of Chéreng about 300 m from the place where I was. Ba the path I advanced in the direction but the sphere slightly flattened at its upper part suddenly disappeared."

In the company of comrades: M. LISON, and J. L. BESANGER, he noticed on the ground the presence of 3 or 4 traces of the shape of the flippers used by underwater swimmers. Tuesday morning Mr. FIOLET young DELMOTTE and several people present on Sunday evening in the hamlet of l'Autour were heard by the chief warrant officer

MILLEROT of the Forest-sur-Marque gendarmerie brigade, which has opened an investigation. All repeated what they had told us. However, we went on Tuesday with the children to the place where they would have seen traccs. The rain had soaked the ground and all we could find were traces left by the hoofs of a horse.

If the testimonies of the children may seem questionable as their imagination is fertile, on the other hand Mr. FIOLET and a good number of Chérengeois are certain to have seen in the sky, Sunday evening, a phenomenon which has not finished to intrigue.

As we can see from reading these newspaper excerpts, there are significant differences from one account to another. But one fact remains: the observation on the ground made by little DELMOTTE on Thursday 9-30/54. It is this observation that was the subject of an investigation carried out by Mr SOREZ on 10/5/54;

Here is what our honorary president had collected at the time: Mr Jean Claude DELMOTTE born on 11/16/44 residing at 56 route Nationale in Chéreng declared having seen a flying saucer on Thursday 9/30/54 around 3:30 p.m. Walking alone along the path to the chapel he spotted in a field about 400m away. from him a ball-shaped object about 3 meters in diameter, orange-yellow in color and very shiny. The color of this object was first brown for about two minutes and then completely changed color from brown to orange-yellow. The yellow light gradually varying in intensity, began to shine brightly. Immediately the ball went vertically with a slight noise, while projecting sparks downwards, at great speed, sparks which resembled those made by "horseshoes on cobblestones." Then the object moved away at very high speed and disappeared from the eyes of the witnesses [sic].

Further investigation:

Once the craft disappeared, the witness then approached the place from which this ball had just risen, saw on the ground a large number of prints in the form of "webbed feet" arranged around a circle perfectly bounded only by these footprint marks which were all facing outwards

These footprints, contrary to what the newspapers of the time said, were also seen by Mr. FIOLET and some of his students during their examination of the land on Monday 10/4/54 in the morning.

These last details were collected much later in 1966 from one of the proponents of this affair, Mr Jean-lue BESANGER who at the time was part of Mr. FIOLET's students and having visited on the scene of the landing in the company of his comrades, had seen firsthand the presence of these famous traces of "webbed feet" of which he himself made the scale sketch reproduced on the previous page.

The weekend of October 2-3 appears on all graphs as the maximum-maximorum of the 1954 wave. Although the work of counting the press of the time is not yet finished, the 118 various issues of newspapers and magazines I have been able to analyze for this period gives us an almost complete overview, in any case very broadly representative of the regional observations which were reported in the press for Sunday, October 3. I included the observations of the Somme which seemed to me inseparable from those of Nord - Pas-de-Calais and which also appear in the chapter entitled "Zigzag on the mining country" of the book by A. Michel: "Mystérieux Objets Célestes."

I count, as one case, each observation made by an independent group of witnesses. The astonishing quantity of observations reported below, shows once again the interest of thoroughly searching the newspaper archives.

OCTOBER 3, 1954:

[... other cases...]

10) 07:20 p.m. (N.M.) or shortly before 8 p.m. (N.E.) or 8 p.m. (V.D.N.) CHERENG _59_: About fifty people, including Mr Fiolet, school principal, saw an object similar to a Moon crescent move slowly on the side of the passerelle of la Marque, towards Sainghin-en-Mélantois. (See full investigation in the Bulletin #3 in the section "GNEOVNI Investigations")

The object was reddish and seemed to be at ground level, then the center part went dark and the witnesses thought they saw two objects. The witnesses reportedly run towards the object which then seemed to rise and move horizontally before pivoting and disappearing. (10/5: Nord Matin, p.10 - Nord Eclair, p.2 - 10/6: Nord Matin-Lille, p.3 - Voix du Nord, p.6 - Libre Artois, p.3; Libre Artois only reproduces the article in Nord Matin for 10/5.)

[... other cases...]

One of the biggest European UFO flaps of all time took place nearly half a century ago in France. Sunday, October 3, 1954, was the high water mark of this outbreak of UFO sightings.

There were more than 30 good sightings that day. Almost all of them occurred between 7:20 and 9:30 p.m., and they were grouped largely in two relatively small areas on the map.

The first sighting was reported at Chereng, a country village between Lille and Tournai," on France's border with Belgium, "some six miles (10 kilometers) east of Lille. The weather was clear, the sky cloudless.

Suddenly, at 7:20 p.m., strollers a little to the west of the village saw in the sky a kind of luminous shape, traveling at a low altitude and at full speed. When it reached the height of the footbridge spanning the little Marque River, the object stopped, emitted what seemed to be sparks, and descended.

The witnesses broke into a run and headed for the bridge. But, at their approach, the object immediately gained altitude and disappeared just as it had arrived. The whole scene had lasted scarcely more than ten seconds, in total silence.

At 8 o'clock, Mlle. Anne-Marie Perrut, daughter of a policeman at Marcoing, 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Chereng, was looking out of her window when her attention was drawn to a strange spectacle. Several hundred yards (meters) from the police station, above the Gouillet woods, a luminous object hung motionless in the air. It was circular and orange-red in color. A little below this immobile object, and as though suspended from it, she saw a small spot of light with a kind of see-saw movement.

Mlle. Perrut watched for a moment, distrusting her own eyes; then she called her father, who at first refused to be disturbed. After several minutes, as the object was still there, Anne-Marie begged so insistently that her father finally consented to come. Then it was the policeman's turn to ask himself if he were seeing things, for there was the object, just as his daughter had been telling him. M. Perrut routed out his colleages, policemen Faucambergue, Delande and Bleuzot and their families; soon there were twenty witnesses.

After a moment, while the strange visitor continued to remain motionless above the Gouillet woods, the policemen sought other witnesses. They stopped bicyclists who passed the police station. All could see the same spectacle. The luminous ball did not take off; but it was seen from time to time to rise or descend somewhat, apparently in a vertical line.

Shortly after 8:30 p.m., the object underwent a sudden transformation; the spot of light suspended below it disappeared, while the ball itself assumed a shape like that of a cigar, or a disk viewed edgewise. According to the police, it was then possible to estimate its altitude at 1,800 to 2,000 feet (540 to 600 meters). Almost immediately after its metamorphosis, the object moved away horizontally in the shape of a crescent, as if the disk had bent over; it then returned to the same spot, remained there for a few moments, and finally took off at great speed in the direction of Villiers-Plouich, about three and a half miles (6 kilometers) to the south of Marcoing; there, as it disappeared, it threw out a beam of light so intense as to illuminate the sky several seconds after the object itself had disappeared. The time was 8:45 p.m.

[etc]

3 October. Chereng, France (7:20 p.m.)

Witnesses broke into a run.

Michel wrote.

"The first sighting was reported at Chereng, a country village between Lille and Tournai, some six miles east of Lille. The weather was clear, the sky cloudless. Chereng was celebrating its 'ducasse,' the day of its patron saint."

"Suddenly, at 7:20, strollers a little to the west of the village saw in the sky a kind of luminous oblong shape, traveling at a low altitude and at full speed when it reached the height of the footbridge spanning the little Marque River, the object stopped, emitted what seemed to be sparks, and descended."

"The witness broke into a run and headed for the bridge. But at their approach the object immediately gained altitude and disappeared just as it had arrived. The whole scene had lasted scarcely more than ten seconds, in total silence. Investigation also revealed that numerous other persons in the vicinity had witnessed either the arrival or the departure." (xx.)

(xx.) Michel, Aime Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery pp. 113-114.

3935: 1954/10/03 19:20 10 3:12:20 E 50:36:00 N 3333 WEU FRN NRD 7:7

CHERENG,CROWS IN FAIR:SLNT MUSHROOM MNVRS:MIDDLE/MOON?:/LDLNN°102p2+/r217p94

RefN° 2 VALLEE:UFOS IN SPACE:Anatomy/phenon. Page No. 217 : VILLE &VILLE

! 1954/10/03 CHERENG + MARCOING + QUEND + LIEVIN ++, FRANCE: Close Encounters with the Moon!

On this Day

October 3

[...]

1954 - At 7:20 p.m. the crowd at a fair in Chereng, France saw a luminous object arrive very fast in the sky, stop in flight, emit sparks, and come down to ground level. As witnesses rushed to the spot it took off again. (Sources: Aime Michel, Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery, p. 113; Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia: A Century of Landings, p. 216).

[... Other cases ...]

At around 7:30 pm, a crowd at a fair in Chereng saw a fast luminous object in the sky suddenly stop, give off sparks, and descend to ground level. As people ran to the spot, the object took off again. (Dolan)

[... Other cases ...]

UFO: "These mysterious traces that I have observed Chéreng in 1954 marked my life"

Published on 10/19/2013 - Updated 10/19/2013 at 10:06 p.m.

Marie Vandekerkhove

Jean-Luc Bésengez was only a child when he witnessed a strange phenomenon: with his school principal and two other comrades, he noted webbed feet footprints in a field. His classmate claimed to have seen a flying saucer ... as fifty Chérengeois of the time! The only certainty is the size and layout of these footprints did not correspond to anything known. They remain unexplained, almost 60 years later. Only survivor, he returned to an ultra adventure publicized at the time, who influenced his life.

[Caption:] In a field opposite the castle Chéreng, Jean-Luc Bésengez shows where he spotted the traces of webbed feet there almost 60 years.

Affable, elegant, Jean-Luc Bésengez is not a visionary. This sprightly septuagenarian, now retired, led a successful career in the printing industry. trade repro, he also participated in animated films for television. This native of Chéreng has now left the town. But it is still in the field, in front of the castle, it places the source of his professional destiny. He is sure: "What I saw that day has increased tenfold my sense of observation."

We are on Monday, 4 October 1954. Jean-Luc Bésengez 11 years, he is enrolled in public school Chéreng. The day before, fifty people think I saw a flying saucer during the Ducasse of around (see below). "We talked about it in class because our teacher had also witnessed this phenomenon. This is where Jean-Claude Delmotte spoke of" his "appearance" recalls the septuagenarian. Jean-Claude, 10, enjoys biking in the field adjacent to the castle, the small stone path that makes squealing wheels. This is a class header, not one to tell nonsense. And especially not to the schoolmaster. Jean-Claude recounts seeing a sphere of 3 m in diameter, brown, and orange and bright, floor-standing, Thursday 30 September. He said he then spotted footprints forming a circle.

"At lunch hour, Marcel Lison, Jean-Claude Delmotte and I went to see the traces, still visible. And went to seek the principal," recalls Jean-Luc Bésengez. "Mr. Fiolet" realizes, with his students, the incongruity of these traces. They are arranged in circles. Each is 16 cm. "We first thought to animals, but the direction has made us doubt," Jean-Luc Bésengez tip. "I regret that the teacher did not think to make casts or preserve traces", plague the former student, who draws in detail the footprint on the blackboard on the way in the classroom.

All the excitement of their discovery, Chérengeois also forget to count the traces. In the evening, the press rushed into the field: the "flying saucers" (the term UFO has not been invented yet) agitate the columns of all the newspapers that year. But when the journalists arrived, the rain and plowing have erased the footprints. More webbed feet. In their place, horse hooves dug their groove.

The next day the gendarmes of the Forest-sur-Marque brigade arrive to investigate. They ask the children, the school principal. Other investigators are there: the precursors of GNEOVNI, a group of enthusiasts of unexplained phenomena an engineer, Eugene Sorez "I was a little sucks," recalls the scholar. The press relays the location of a possible landing of "beings". "I think even remember what I did the One of France Soir", thinks Jean-Luc Bésengez which still keeps the impression that gave little credit to his childhood speech.

The observation, restlessness around this mystery, have shaped his life. His sister married a journalist who came to interview him. Jean-Luc Bésengez never ordered his sketches and made the Fine Arts. Later, his first color animated film, spent on regional television, around 1975, evoked a journalist abducted by aliens. Its title: Extrapoll. The "witness" runs the UFO literature for 60 years. He saw Hollywood draw webbed feet to little green men, "perhaps through my drawing." But never found reason to what he saw in this field in 1954. "The logic does not explain it but it was real." Fiolet, Lison and Delmotte died. He remains alone with his questions.

When the village sees saucers

Residents who attended the celebration of the Hamlet of Around, Sunday, October 3, hear a buzzing, around 19 h 20. They see on the horizon a reddish machine semblance rest on the ground that one stroke s' student and moves horizontally. Other testimonies suggest rather "two flying cigars".

Mr. Fiolet, director of the boys' school, is present. It describes very precisely the "appearance" in one of our colleagues, "I found them in the sky, towards South-West, an oblong-shaped device which emanated a powerful reddish glow We could. said a crescent moon rounded down. the central part of the machine, slightly swollen, seemed more enlightened. All of a sudden, the bulging part died. then I had the impression of see two cigars. The craft which evolved slowly turned and disappeared."

The next day, Mr. Fiolet talking in class. And raises the testimony of Jean-Claude Delmotte, resumed Leave the a by the press (see below against an extract of Nord Eclair of 5 October 1954, with Jean-Luc Bésengez photo on the lower, first to the second row on the left, cut brush). Due respect to fans of unexplained: this vision would actually be astronomical origin. The villagers were frightened by the reddish moon, according to the "experts" regional ufology (discipline that is interested in UFOs). But traces of webbed feet remain, they officially unexplained. Mr. VDK.

[Caption:] Reconstitution of the sketch by Jean-Luc Bésangez.

[Caption:] Three newspapers of the time (La Voix du Nord, Nord Matin et Nord Eclair) echoed surprizing visits in a field opposite the castle.

*Oct. 3, 1954 - At 7:20 p.m. the crowd at a fair in Chereng, France saw a luminous object arrive very fast in the sky, stop in flight, emit sparks, and come down to ground level. As witnesses rushed to the spot it took off again. (Sources: Aime Michel, Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery, p. 113; Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia: A Century of Landings, p. 216, case # 184).

Location: Chereng, Nord, France

Date: September 30 1954

Time: afternoon

10-year old Jean Claude Delmotte is walking along a path at the edge of the Chereng forest when he suddenly sees a dark spherical object about 300 meters away, which soon becomes yellow-orange in color. The yellow light becomes more intense and bright. The sphere then takes off on a vertical flight path emitting a weak noise and emitting sparks. Later the witness and two friends find strange prints on the ground at the site of the observation, described as resembling those of “webbed feet” about 16cm in length. The ground was soon trampled by horse carts.

Source: Figuet/Ruchon Dossier Ovni 1979

October 3 1954. 1920hrs.

CHERENG (NORD : FRANCE)

People walking in the west of the village saw a luminous oblong object travelling at low altitude and high speed. When it reached the height of the footbridge over the Marque River, it emitted sparks and descended. The witnesses ran towards the object, but as they did so, the object took off again. The whole performance only lasted 10 seconds. There was no sound

• Michel 1958b p115

Evaluation - A very different account of this event is provided by Figuet and Ruchon 1979 p73, this was one of large number of observations that night, which were almost certainly of the crescent moon seen through cloud

The Fabulous day of October 3, 1954

[...]

Chronology of the observations of October 3.

We give here only a summary of what was published in the press of the time, for the nord region, regardless of what the ufologists could later say. We have numbered all these observations, the first of which have nothing to do with the setting of the moon, in order to be able to study them globally in a table. Some are already the subject of a special file.

[... other cases...]

10) 07:20 p.m. (N.M.) or shortly before 8 p.m. (N.E.) or 8 p.m. (L.V.D.N.) CHÉRENG (59)

- About fifty people, including Mr. Fiolet, school director, saw an object similar to a crescent moon slowly move on the side of the bridge of la Marque, Sainghin-en-melantois. The object was reddish and appeared at ground level, then the central part darkened and the witnesses had the impression to see two objects. The witnesses reportedly run towards the object; which then seemed to rise and move horizontally before turning and disappearing.

Mr. Fiolet specified that the landing at the bridge was just an illusion.)

(Nord Matin 10/5 page 10, Nord Eclair 10/5 page 2, Nord Matin-Lille suburb issue 10/06 page 3, La Voix du Nord-Lille+ issue 10/6 page 6, Libre Artois 10/6 page 3 (republishing the article of Nord Matin for 10/5))

[... other cases...]

All this is only a compilation of the information given by all newspapers of the time, including local editions, and of which ufologists only used a part.

We will see that the analysis of this information makes it possible to eliminate the hypothesis of a flying saucer, in favor of those of multiple observations of the moon, whose image was reddened and deformed by clouds, which also gave it a illusory apparent movement.

Analysis of the observations of October 3, 1954

[... other cases...]

10) 07:20 p.m. (N.M.) or shortly before 8 p.m. (N.E.) or 8 p.m. (L.V.D.N.) CHÉRENG (59)

First identified as the Moon, same aspact as the Moon that night, same direction than the Moon, same apparent behaviour than the Moon.

[... other cases...]

Other cases that may have partial similarities [with helicopters]

Transmitted by Raoul Robé (CNEGU)

Rereading a classic on the return train from the CNEGU, "En quête des humanoïdes" by Ch. Bowen (J'ai Lu 1974), I noted several cases to be compared to that of Langres for your additional documentation investigation.

[...other case...]

Page 41: Case No. 47

October 3, 1954: The crowd, at the Chéreng fair (59), sees a luminous object arriving very quickly, stopping in its flight, emitting sparks and descending towards the ground. It flies away again when the witnesses rush towards the scene.

[...other cases...]