The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: Oct-54-Montalzat.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In the beginning of October 1954, journalists Michel Agnellet and Pierre Laforêt of the Samedi-Soir weekly newspaper made a tour in the south of France, to play "Martians" in order to prove that witnesses were just fools. They dressed up as "Martians" with diving suites, and launched various fireworks to mimick a saucer departure. It worked in a number of cases.
Their exact route, the dates, and the results, were never properly documented.
Writer Michel Carrouges, in his 1963 book about flying saucers, cited Montalzat, National Road 20, as one of the place where they played their antics. But nothing else seems to be known on this particular case.
[Ref. mcs1:] "MICHEL CARROUGES":
Michel Carrouges told the mystifications of two journalists of Samedi-Soir, according to their articles in this newspaper from 21 to 27 October 1954: these journalists have driven from Paris, and went to the South, in the regions of Cahors, Montauban and Toulouse, equipped with accessories such as diving suits, fireworks and various pyrotechnics devices, to play "Martians."
Carrouges regrets that what might have been an interesting psychology of perception experiment turned into a joke, and that the road they followed was given only very partially, the journalists having specified no date. He also states that they produced no evidence of their actual passage in the localities in question and that, at the limit, one would even be entitled to ask whether their report was not entirely made up.
He notes, however, that in the articles, there are photos of witnesses whose good faith has been abused by the journalists and that it seems difficult to argue that they invented everything; that it can be admitted that these journalists indeed made a round of mystifications, but that its scope, precise locations and exact hours are so incomplete that we cannot know for sure.
Among the places where the farce would have been played, he indicates "Montalzet" [sic], "on the national road 20".
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Montalzat (not Montalzet) is just 3 km from Montpezat-de-Quercy, another place of the famous "mystification". But Carrouges quotes the two places as two different places of these hoaxes. However, I did not find anything else about what would have happened in Montpezat.
For lack of anything better, it would be appropriate to consider that there would have been there probably one of the "mystifications" of the journalists Michel Agnellet and Pierre Laforêt of Samedi-Soir, but that it did not result in a report in the press or in the UFO literature.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Montalzat, Tarn-et-Garonne, Montalzet, Tarn-et-Garonne, Samedi-Soir, hoax, journalists, Michel Agnellet, Pierre Laforêt
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 2, 2019 | First published, [mcs1]. |
