The 1954 French flap:

According to a astronomer from Kenia

"Visitors from another world
make a map of the earth"

One continues to report everywhere the appearance of mysterious craft that sometimes have the shape of saucers, luminous balls, incandescent discs. But all these testimonies add nothing new to the question. On the other hand, a scientist has just spoken to publicize the result of a personal observation.

Mr. G. Duncan Fletcher, vice-president of the Kenya Astronomical Association, himself recently observed an object flying over Nairobi. He was in his observatory (which is very well equipped), with four friends. It was 7:40 p.m., very low in the East, appeared a great gleam which had nothing to do with astronomy, nor with the planes which had just landed on the airport. The object was at a height of about 700 meters and was stationary. When Mr. Fletcher and his four friends saw it, he emitted a bright orange glow. This glow intensified until light yellow and the object rose, descended and rose again to finally disappear in the clouds.

Mr. Fletcher reports that saucers have been reported by highly experienced observers from all over the world and says "visitors from another world are observing the earth and probably mapping it."

Citing in support of his thesis the opinion of Dr. P. Foyle, professor of astrophysics at Cambridge and that of Sir James Jean, Dr. Fletcher declares that innumerable reasons militate in favor of existence many planets capable of harboring life, but life forms on other planets could be very different from anything we can imagine."

He adds that it may be just a coincidence, but he points out that these beings from other worlds have been interested in terrestrial activities since the first atomic explosion about seven years ago.

"There seems to be no doubt," Mr. Fletcher continues, "that these beings are extremely ahead of us. I think they approach us as we would if we were in their place."

A fireball in Sequedin

In the meantime, other mysterious craft have been reported over our region.

Sunday evening, at 9 p.m., Mr. Ferdinand Millecamps, 21, mason, living in Haubourdin, 22 rue Victor Loridan, on the bridge of Sequedin, saw, about 500 meters, between Sequedin and Hallennes, and on the railway, a ball of light, about the size of a tram. It was 4 or 5 meters above the ground and, after having remained motionless for a while, it set off vertically. Frightened by this fantastic appearance, Mr. Millecamps left the place precipitately, and later, still very moved, told his adventure while arriving at Haubourdin.

Two "Martians"
in St-Amand-les-Eaux

Saturday, Mr. Marcel Sénéchal, 20, living in St-Amand, at the place called "La Pannerie", had as usual spent the evening at Hauteville-Nivelle with his fiancée. He was returning by bicycle to St-Amand along the Scarpe canal, around 1 in the morning.

Arriving at the height of the Vandeville pasture in Nivelle, he suddenly heard a conversation held in an unknown language and seeming to come from his right. He turned his head to this side and to his great agitation then saw a luminous mass in the shape of a haystack as well as two human forms of 1.20 m. approximately in height, covered with a shiny garment. A ray of light came out of the craft.

The mysterious characters were probably unable to see the approach of the young cyclist who was riding in the dark, a breakdown having immobilized his lighting.

The frightened young man, went off with all pedals and returned to his home moved to the extreme and reported these facts to his family and neighbors.

Informed by public rumor, the Commissioner of St-Amand, Mr. Gravet and two inspectors in charge of the Air Police attached to Lesquin airfield went to the scene and carried out searches; but they couldn't find any traces.

A strange phenomenon
in the Somme

Residents of Boves in the Somme witnessed a strange phenomenon on Sunday evening.

It was 8:50 p.m., Mr. and Mrs. Dheilly who had visited friends, were going home. As Mr. Dheilly sought in the dark to open his door, Mrs. Dheilly suddenly noticed an orange half-disc, low in the sky, towards the end of the street. She alerted her husband and both could see the disc slowly moving towards a wooded ridge.

Two of their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Quin, in turn warned, could also see the mysterious half-disc which, still slowly, moved away and disappeared behind the trees of the nearby marsh.

Confirmation, in indirect manner, of this "appearance" was given by residents of Demuin, Mr. and Mrs. Deslarides, workers farmers, who claim to have seen around 9:15 p.m., a kind of phosphorescent "flying lampshade" that moved silently and seemed to want to land.

A luminous ball in a
garden in Saint-Souplet

A resident of St-Souplet, in the Cambrai area, received an odd visit during the night from Sunday to Monday.

Awakened by a dry clicking sound, the witness said: "I first thought of a fire in the opposite building, but it was in fact a luminous ball, which rose to the sky. A door window was blown and the glass reduced to hundreds of small pieces was scattered in the adjoining room. At the place where the craft had just left, the vegetables from the garden were all lying in the same direction, a few being uprooted, just where the ball had landed. Apart from the broken glass which can be explained by the movement of air from the craft, no other damage was done to the property."

THE INVASION OF SAUCERS AND CIGARS, IN OUR REGION
FIND AN EXPLANATION IN BEUVRY-LEZ-BETHUNE AND LILLE

1. Our special correspondent participated in the launch of a
"flying cigar"

one of the 5,800
hot air balloons
sent by Mr. Oliveira
above the rooftops
de Beuvry-l.-Béthune

The unfortunate combination of circumstances which had until now deprived journalists of hanging, them too, "their" saucer or "their" cigar in the register of various facts and personal memories have just been swept away by the wind. I saw a flying cigar which, at night, shows the famous red glow... I felt it from every angle and even participated in the launch of one of these craft that some claim to be coming from another planet. This is neither a crazy story, nor even a debauchery of the imagination after reading some anticipation novel. There is no need to pinch yourself to be convinced of the reality of the thing. The clarity of the evidence would have struck the most skeptical minds and those most reluctant to the hypothesis of an exploration of the earth by some space travelers.

It is a long, a very long story whose starting point is in Portugal at the beginning of this century. H.C. [sic, G.] Wells, the author of "The War of the Worlds" did not yet have the slightest awareness of his advance on the Future... In fact of flying machines, Clément Ader and the Wright brothers were only trying to give practical application to the theories of "heavier than air"...

In a small Portuguese village, when the light wind coming from the sea subsided, a young boy, Victor Oliveira, made "hot air balloons" which he then inflated with hot air... The well-known principle of the lighter than the air made fly these graceful envelopes, which drifted according to the whims of the wind.

Arrived in France shortly before the 1914 war, Mr. Oliveira bravely fought and took part in the battle of La Couture. After a short stay in Portugal, he settled in 1922, in Beuvry-les-Béthune. Until his retirement last December, he held the post of burner operator at the Beuvry Power Station.

However, the favorite pastime of his younger years did not suffer from the well-known phenomenon of disaffection that stamp collections suffer, for example, in adolescence. Married, surrounded

Read more on the last page, under the title: "CIGARS"

2. A professor from the Faculty of Sciences
de Lille shows that last Sunday
the flying saucer was only a lunar phenomenon

Mr. Antoine Bonte, I.D.N. engineer, professor of applied geology at the Faculty of Sciences of Lille, kindly provided us with a scientific explanation of the phenomenon observed by dozens of people on Sunday evening in our region. He writes to us: "I was impatiently awaiting this morning's newspaper and I took great pleasure in reading the accounts of your correspondents, because on Sunday evening I also saw the 'flying saucer'."

"The descriptions given of it agree in every way with my personal observations. I only disagree with their interpretation because, in this case, it was simply a moonset.

"Sunday, at nightfall, the moon shone on a clear day first in the form of a crescent. Later it disappeared into the hazy area above the horizon, only to reappear for a few moments, reddish is distorted - which is normal at this height - and crossed out with a line when passing behind a stratus. Finally, it faded definitively when entering again in the clouds.

"So, in this particular case, it is quite a trivial phenomenon that our fathers would not have even paid attention to.

"Moreover, in most of the other cases, it is about analogous phenomena as I could note it several times. The psychosis of the flying saucers is a phenomenon of collective hallucination which responds to a natural need for the marvelous maintained by a large-run press and fed by a whole category of illustrations for children or... adults. The descriptions of the so-called Martians are so close to Tintin-style spacesuits that we cannot stop smiling.

Continued on last page,
in the sixth column, under the title
"SAUCERS"

The flying saucers

"If the Martians - assuming they existed - were really to visit us, do you think they would have exactly our physical looks, that they would use devices and clothing similar to those designed by our engineers or who only saw the light of day in the overflowing imagination of the authors of anticipation novels: do you believe above all that the nature and the degree of their scientific evolution can be analogous to ours. improbabilities!

"Happy journalists who haven't seen your flying saucer! Take comfort in thinking that, for serious readers, this is a guarantee of honesty and objectivity. But do more, by welcoming only with undisguised skepticism the testimonies of correspondents whom-we-can-be-trusted, in good faith or who prefer to remain anonymous. It is even your duty to fight against this weakening of critical thinking which characterizes our era of culture, universal, but far too superficial."

90% OTHERWISE 99% OF CASES
CAN BE EXPLAINED

In a study that he was kind enough to share with us, Mr. Bonte also examines several cases of celestial phenomena reported in recent years and gives an explanation for each of which we will appreciate the strength. He demonstrates that the majority of alleged flying saucers are natural phenomena that occur at high altitude. He observed and photographed in particular, in the region of Lons-le-Saulnier, "a luminous trail that was red orange and stood out clearly against the dark background of the sky. This trail came from a dot which moved slowly from the south to the south - north in the western part of the sky of Lons-le-Saulnier.

"Witnesses of this display would have gladly seen in this meteor a manifestation of a flying saucer; they unhesitatingly rallied to my explanation.

A JET PLANE

"This was the wake of a jet plane moving at great altitude and at great distance, hence the apparent slowness of the luminous trail and the lack of the characteristic roar. The red in the wake was simply due to the altitude of the aircraft which was still lit by the sun, although it had been set down for a long time. Everyone saw stratus clouds colored in red above the horizon after the disappearance of the sun, which obviously corresponds to the same phenomenon."

"... There are also other phenomena which, unknown to the uninitiated or even to specialists, have credited the legend of the flying saucers... The Director of the Algiers meteorological station has revealed that the alleged saucers observed in this region were none other than sounding balloons equipped with a luminous device; the currents prevailing in the upper atmosphere made these devices move in an apparently disconcerting manner.

CLOUDS

"The illumination of clouds by powerful light sources can also give rise to bewildering maneuvers of shiny objects. The intersection of the light beam with the surface of a cloud can give images of all shapes from the circle up to more or less elongated ellipses, the images being able to be uniformly bright or, on the contrary, dark in the center, and brightly lit at the edges. This phenomenon could explain the extraordinary speed of certain "saucers" and their instantaneous changes of direction, characteristics reported by some observers.

A POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCE
OF NUCLERAR
EXPERIMENTS

"Recently, an American physicist, Mr. W, Scott, demonstrated that it was possible to artificially produce meteors similar to flying saucers in the laboratory, as spheres surrounded by shiny rings. This is not unlike the rings that occur when puffs of smoke are passed through a circular hole, and all smokers have had fun "making circles" with their mouths. Atomic experiments may not be unrelated to the formation of previously unknown meteors.

"Scott's experiment has been criticized by Professor G. Ray Watt, of the Carnégie [sic, Carnegy] Institute in Washington, who claims that the conditions necessary for the formation of these rings do not exist in upper atmosphere. Meteorology is, however, a very young science to authorize such assertions: the normal atmosphere is already not so well known, let alone the upper atmosphere.

THROUGH THE SAUCERS

"The most important argument to demonstrate the inanity of flying saucers is certainly this information which comes to us from America. A formation of flying saucers having been reported in the skies of Washington, Andrews Air Force bases and of Ballingfields are ordered to intercept them at all costs. Courageously, the jets rushed at 1,000 an hour, one can say "in the fog", and cross without suffering the slightest damage, their supposed adversary who was nothing else than kinds of clouds.

"What then to think of certain disturbing testimonies emanating from informed observers such as airplane pilots, professor of scientific institutions, etc.? Let us first recall that the phenomena which occur in the atmosphere are far away to be all known, even from specialists. On the other hand, critical thinking is sometimes lacking even in respectable scientists. Finally for those who know the atmosphere of certain military circles, the mystification is not excluded vis-à-vis of some more naive comrades.

"Meteors have been observed all along, but they weren't given the same attention as today when everyone wants to see their flying saucer. This is a trivial case of collective illusions from which scientific circles themselves are not exempt.

NEW AIRCRAFT

"It is possible, however, that new aircraft sometimes cross the sky. There is no doubt that the Americans and the Russians, each on their side, are seeking to develop new weapons and some of the flying saucers are perhaps a reality. But both sides have an interest in ensuring that their research is ignored by the adversary, hence the flood of contradictory news.

"It is announced, for example, in America, that the flying saucers are a myth; the next day a craft of the same name is discovered in Spitsbergen and its measuring devices bear inscriptions in Russian language. As if by chance, the drop-off point is in an uninhabited region.

"Depending on the circumstances, we feign ignorance or, on the contrary, we boast of an unbeatable superiority. We know too much, to have suffered from it, of the misdeeds of propaganda to be influenced by information that is lacking impartiality. If there really are new aircraft, there will always be enough time to worry about them when they are used, if they are ever used. There is absolutely no need to worry beforehand.

"In conclusion, it can be said that 90%, if not 99%, of the alleged flying saucers are due only to incomplete observations of natural phenomena and are a matter of pure imagination. Some are undoubtedly attributable to meteors of known or new origin. Finally, in a few special cases, they may be new aircraft being tested.

"As for the extraterrestrial origin of the flying saucers, it is not based on anything positive and we could sleep soundly if we had only this apprehension. We have, alas, more to fear from our neighbors than from Martians."

Cigars

of his children, Mr. Oliveira continued to glue paper and inflate his hot air balloons. Somewhat surprised at first, his neighbors were quick to put this little dangerous distraction into the realm of normal things. Mr. Oliveira? Ah! yes, the one who makes hot air balloons? "Some breed pigeons, assures Mr. Oliveira, others train roosters for fights. I do this..."

Of medium height, mischievous eye behind large-rimmed glasses, tanned complexion, wearing a gray jacket and patched knee-length pants, lively despite his sixties (he looks barely forty) Mr. Oliveira seems completely surprised by this sudden entry into the news. Sometimes he wants to send journalists and photographers to hell and barricade himself in the shed cluttered with paper from packing cases, which serves as his manufacturing workshop.

He lives in fact with his children, Mr. and Mrs. Lenfant, who run a food house, route de Béthune, in Beuvry.

Spread over a few crates, the carcass of one of the machines awaits inflation. Something to inspire the imagination of some people in need of flying saucers and contact - at a distance - with the Martians or other neighbors of our planet, since it now seems accepted that the "evening visitors" can come from another system as that where the Earth continues its eternal gravitation.

Applications
of hot air

The appearance of the hot-air balloon immediately reveals the primary character of a technique that dates back several centuries. The one that will serve as experience and testimony is about three to four meters. It takes the shape of a diamond very swollen in the center and made of simple wrapping paper, thin and resistant. A circular opening, reinforced with a thin wire, serves as a base. Apart from the frame itself, Mr. Oliveira has a tripod of wire which holds a large piece of tow soaked in petroleum, gasoline or oil. The fuel issue is hardly a problem.

Now let's tackle the "launch" part of the balloon. It is kept in the vertical position. Under the opening, Mr. Oliveira has some newspapers in a baste [sic] terracotta pot... We are far from the ramps of V1, V2 and others... Under the action of the hot air, the carcass inflates rapidly and tends to undertake its upward movement. Mr. Oliveira then inflames the gasoline rag, hangs the tripod on the wire which keeps the opening rigid and... the machine begins its course which can be prolonged very far if it encounters favorable winds; which gives it very few jerks. During an experiment made in the morning, the hot air balloon lay down and caught fire about ten meters above the ground.

Beware of illusions

Spirits believing in the probability of flying saucers will smile. Those who claim to have seen one of these craft in their exploration of the earth's crust will shrug their shoulders in a gesture of generous commiseration. The fact remains that, in the dark, the red glow given off by the flaming rag, combined with the reflections which it makes dance on the paper, can abuse the most reasonable. It would also be necessary to possess a critical mind and a very extraordinary amount of modesty not to proclaim oneself the witness of the phenomenon that one automatically assimilates to the "incomprehensible."

Since 1922, Mr. Oliveira has launched nearly 5,800 hot air balloons. No one in the area is moved by it anymore. But outside of this small circle, some people are likely to be troubled and their certainty of not being the victim of a hallucination further strengthens their intransigence. To such an extent that a person from Sailly brought back to the Beuvry police station a hot-air balloon spotted on the inside with drops of oil and blackish marks. Everyone laughs and the carcass, with burnt shreds, does not even constitute evidence.

What begins almost like a fairy tale can end like a fable dear to La Fontaine. How to disentangle the illusion from reality? The difficulties encountered by this concern for accuracy and truth only make the problem more complex. But it also serves as a reassuring argument for those who fear an interplanetary invasion.

We do not believe that we are authorized, because of this personal experience, to settle the debate. Let us only wish that this report inspires more measure and restraint to some people. Flying saucers and cigars get really bulky. There are jokes that should not be prolonged too much beforehand.

[Photo caption:] Mr. OLIVEIRA had a lot of fun reading, in a sensational weekly, a report on flying saucers.

Jean MAERTEN

AN AMANDINOIS
CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN
TWO DWARFS
UNDER CELLOPHANE

The region of Saint-Amand-Nivelle would also have had its flying saucer, at least according to the words of young Marcel Sénéchal, 20, living in Saint-Amand at a place called La Pannerie.

It was in the night from Saturday to Sunday, around 1 a.m.

That evening, Marcel Sénéchal had, as usual, spent the evening with his fiancée in Hauterive-Nivelle. He then returned by bicycle to Saint-Amand along the course of the Scarpe.

Arrived at the level of the "Vandeville pasture" he suddenly heard a conversation in an unknown language, which came from his right.

Turning his head quite naturally in this direction he then saw to his great agitation, a luminous mass in the shape of a haystack and two 1.20 meter-tall human in shining garment. A ray of light came out of the mysterious craft.

The frightened young man pedalled away at full speed to return to his home where quite upset he reported these facts to his family and neighbors.

Informed by public rumor, the commissioner of Saint-Amand, Mr. Gravet and two inspectors in charge of the Air Police, attached to the Lesquin aerodrome, went to the scene yesterday and proceeded to research. They could not find any trace.

- Partly explained by -
a professor from Lille and a retiree
- from Beuvry-les-Béthune -

The mystery of the "flying saucers"

There is novelty on the flying saucer horizon. The mystery remains, but some of the cases were explained. And, for those, the story ends there.

We now know that the craft that were seen in the Beuvry-les-Béthune region were "Paper hot air balloons", sent by a retiree, Mr. Oliveira, passionate about "lighter than air" gear. We announced it in our previous issue.

On the other hand, Mr. Antoine Bonte, I.D.N. engineer, professor of applied geology at the Faculty of Sciences of Lille, gave a scientific explanation of the phenomenon observed by dozens of people, Sunday evening, in the Lille region. Mr. Bonte himself saw the "flying saucer" which was only a lunar phenomenon.

Finally, rockets had been seen Sunday evening, off Calais. "It was like the luminous wake of flying saucers", some said. In fact, it was the signals of distress launched by the spherical balloon of Mrs. Paulette Weber.

So that's a series of solved cases. The others remain. They are disturbing. We will see it below. And we will not fail to compare them with the statements made by Mr. G. Duncan Fletcher, vice-president of the Astronomical Association of Kenya.

This eminent astronomer believes that "visitors from another world are observing the earth and probably mapping it."

But that's just a guess. We are not satisfied yet!

IN THE FINISTERE

A "Martian" follows
a baker boy
into the bakery

Quimper, 6. -- Around 4 a.m., yesterday morning, Mr. Pierre Lucas, worker-baker in Loctudy (Finistère), who was busy drawing water in the courtyard of the bakery, suddenly saw in the night a craft in the shape of a saucer of 2.50 m. to 3 meters in diameter. He saw come out of it an individual measuring about 1.20 m. who approached him and tapped him on the shoulder, mouthing unintelligible words. The baker managed to keep his cool and returned to the bakery where the stranger followed him.

In the light, Mr. Lucas was able to stare at the visitor: he had an oval face, all covered with hair and eyes the size of a crow's egg. The young man called his boss but, before the latter had time to come down, the stranger had disappeared along with his saucer, of which no trace was found.

A beer merchant of Concarneau, for his part, declared having seen in the sky two luminous disks in the form of round tables extended of a kind of tail. One of the discs was stationary while the other moved nearby. The two discs disappeared after ten minutes after launching a rocket.

Lezignan, 6. -- Two residents of Lezignan, MM. André Gardia and André Darzens, who were driving in a truck on the D-3 departmental road, claimed to have seen a disc-shaped craft land in a field between the village of Lagrasse and the hamlet of Villemagne (Aude).

The craft, they said, was about ten meters in diameter. Before they could approach it, it enveloped them in a bright glow and disappeared.

Bergerac, 6. -- Mr. Jean Defix, firefighter in Bergerac, and Mr. Jean Labonne claimed to have seen land in the garden of the latter a luminous disc about three meters in diameter, supported by three crutches.

Dinan, 6. -- In Mégrit (Côtes-du-Nord), a young farmer, Mr. Henri Lehérisse claimed to have seen in the yard of his farm a craft of a diameter of about 1 meter inside which appeared two human shapes, motionless and the size of a child.

La Rochelle, 6. -- Mr. and Mrs. Guillemoteau were in front of their farm when they saw, about one meter above the ground, a spherical saucer that could measure 2 to 3 meters in height and with a diameter of 5 meters. The craft, which produced no noise, stopped for a few minutes, then rose vertically. Mr. Guillemoteau, the next day, went to the place where he had seen the craft and was able to find oily traces on the grass.

* * *

Valenciennes, 6. -- Mr. Marcel Sénéchal, 20-year-old, from Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, was along the Scarpe canal, in the night from Saturday to Sunday. He was coming up to a pasture when he suddenly heard a conversation held in an unknown language and seeming to come from his right. He turned his head in this direction and to his great astonishment then saw a luminous mass in the shape of a haystack as well as two human forms of 1.20 m. in height approximately, covered with shining garments. A ray of light was coming out of the craft.

Mr. Sénéchal pedaled away at full speed.

A car
followed
by a saucer!

Amiens, 6. A grocer from Amiens, Mrs. Nelly Mansart returned to Amiens on Sunday evening, around 9 p.m., coming from Hérissart in the company of her neighbors. She saw, in the sky, a glowing ball from which hung some kind of cables hung and letting out flames. The "saucer" flew low, about 150 meters above the ground, and followed the car for 10 kilometers.

"When we passed through a village, said Ms. Mansart, the craft bypassed it and reappeared at the exit.

It was making no noise and was definitely watching us. On leaving Pierregot I stopped at the last houses. The "Saucer", which had bypassed the village, was waiting for us and hovered then it moved away as I started again. It began to spiral for three or four hundred meters and changed shape to take that of an elongated, inverted crescent with a molten ball at the upper horn. At Rainneville the "Saucer" increased its gyration then moved away in the direction of the west of Amiens, to lose itself in infinity, in the space of a few seconds, at an incomparable speed."

Italian saucer

Mantua. -- Traffic was interrupted for more than an hour in the center of Mantua by groups of people gathered to observe a strange "white object" which, at a great height, stood out clearly against the background of the blue sky.

After performing extremely rapid moves, the spherical craft - which, according to some witnesses, was part of "a formation of flying saucers" - remained motionless in the sky for some time, before disappearing at the horizon.

Also, the "Martians" seem to want to visit Italy as well. A fisherman from Roverbella, in the province of Mantua, said he was approached last night by a "mysterious individual", dressed in red, who would have said "unintelligible words" to him and who would have quickly moved away, before the fisherman had time to call his wife.

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:

1) 01 h. NIVELLES - 59. Mr. Marcel Sénéchal, 20 years old, was walking along the Scarpe canal when he reached the "Vandeville pasture" and heard a conversation in an unknown language. Turning his head to the right, he saw a luminous haystack from which came out a ray of light and two human shapes of 1.20 m. coated with a shiny garment. The witness fled with all pedals. Mr. Gravet, commissioner of St. Amand and two air police inspectors came to the scene but could not find any traces. (Nord-Matin, p.10, Croix du Nord, p.8)

[... other cases...]

Case nr 1) 01 o'clock NIVELLES -59-

Two Parisian ufologists have already carried out a re-investigation with the authorities of St Amand. Their conclusion is that this is a hoax.

On this matter it should be noted:

- that nothing we know can support the view that the witness is incapable of making a joke: the witness is a single man aged 20.

- that the description of the phenomenon corresponds exactly to what the public knew at the time about the flying saucer landings in the Nord region and which is made of only to two cases widely publicized in the press: the quasi-landing of [illegible] of September 7, and the landing of QUAROUBLE on September 10. In the first case, the characteristic detail is the shape of the machine: like a haystack. In the second case, the shape was badly perceived, but one saw two small beings on which the beam of a lamp was reflected as on glass and a light ray which left the craft. And what does the witness of NIVELLES describe to us? A haystack-shaped object, two small beings of 1.20 m dressed in shiny clothes and a light ray which started from the object. In other words, if the witness had made a hoax, he would not have said anything else. But of course, one can always say that the flying saucer was there, but that it was invisible, and that by induction in the witness's brain, it suggested that he made a hoax!

HumCat # 1889

October 3. 1954 0015 Nr Saint Amand-les-Eaux (Nord), France Type C

About 15 minutes after midnight, a metallurgy worker, Marcel Senechal, was riding his bicycle on a canal towpath when he heard voices; in a nearby meadow he saw a spherical object some 3 meters in diameter near which were two beings, one meter tall, who were talking to one another. Their heads were very large and their outfits luminous. The witness fled. Next morning he reported it to the gendarmes who were unable to find any traces when they returned to the site.

Investigator:

Source: Mesnard and Bigorne, "Les Humanoides en France" (unpublished ms.), p, 135, citing Face aux Extraterrestres, by Chas. Garreau and Raymond Lavier.

3929: 1954/10/03 00:20 3 3:27:40 E 50:28:00 N 3333 WEU FRN NRD 8:6

NIVELLES,FR:LUM DISK/ROADSIDE:2 1M OIDS TALK!:NO TRACEs:/r30p111+/r138#9

Ref#217 Jean SIDER: Le DOSSIER 1954 (2 vol.) Page No. 181 : ROAD+RAILS

3 October. Near Saint Amand-les-Eaux, France. (12:15 a.m.)

Large heads, luminous outfits.

Our source states:

"About 15 minutes after midnight, a metallurgy worker, Marcel Senechal, was riding his bicycle on a canal towpath when he heard voices; in a nearby meadow he saw a spherical object some three meters in diameter near which were two beings, one meter tall, who were talking to one another. Their heads were very large and their outfits luminous. The witness fled. Next morning he reported it to the gendarmes who were unable to find any traces when they returned to the site." (xx.)

(xx.) HumCat. #1889. Also: Mesnard and Bigorne, "Les Humanoides en France." (unpublished rns.), p.135, citing Face aux Extraterrestres, by Chas. Garreau and Raymond Lavier.

99.
Location. Near Saint Amand-les-Eaux Nord France
Date: October 3 1954
Time: 0015A

About 15 minutes after midnight, a metallurgy worker, Marcel Senechal, was riding his bicycle on a canal towpath when he heard voices; in a nearby meadow he saw a spherical object some 3 meters in diameter near which were two beings, one meter tall, who were talking to one another. Their heads were very large and their outfits luminous. The witness fled. Next morning he reported it to the gendarmes who were unable to find any traces when they returned to the site.

Humcat 1954-20
Source: Joel Mesnard and Jean Marie Bigorne
Type: C

Location: Near Saint Amand-les-Eaux Nord France

Date: October 3 1954

Time: 0015A

About 15 minutes after midnight, a metallurgy worker, Marcel Senechal, was riding his bicycle on a canal towpath when he heard voices; in a nearby meadow he saw a spherical object some 3 meters in diameter near which were two beings, one meter tall, who were talking to one another. Their heads were very large and their outfits luminous. The witness fled. Next morning he reported it to the gendarmes who were unable to find any traces when they returned to the site.

Source: Joel Mesnard & Jean Marie Bigorne

October 3 1954. 0015hrs.

NIVELLE (NORD : FRANCE)

Marcel Senechal, a metal worker, was cycling home to Saint Amand-les-Eaux along the tow path by the river Scarpe when he heard strange voices. He then saw, in a field called Vandeville, he saw something that looked like a luminous millstone 3m diameter. From it came a beam of light and by it were two human like beings, 1.2m tall and with large heads, dressed in luminous suits. Marcel fled to the police station in Saint Amand but when the police investigated there was no trace of the thing.

• Figuet and Ruchon 1979 p110 citing Garreau and Lavier 1975 p128,132 + Dominique Caudron in GNEOVNI no 5 citing unspecified issues of Nord Matin + La Croix du Nord

Evaluation - I give the form used the Wikipedia and other sources for the place name rather than Nivelles

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...]

01) About 01, NIVELLE (59)

Mr. Marcel Sénéchal, 20-year-old, was riding a bicycle on the towpath along the Scarpe Canal, when he arrived at the "Vandeville Pasture" and heard a conversation in an unknown language. Turning his head to the right, he saw a kind of luminous haystack from which came a luminous ray and two human forms of 1.20 m, covered with a shining garment. The witness flees on all pedals. Mr. Gravet, police commissioner of St. Amand and two inspectors of the air police came to the scene but could not find any trace.

(Nord-Matin, 10/6 page 10, La Croix du Nord, 10/6 page 8)

(this observation has nothing to do with those of the evening, but is about a quite terrestrial vehicle)

[... 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.