In his 1976 book "La Nouvelle Vague des Soucoupes Volantes", the French TV journalist Jean-Claude Bourret, who had become very interested in the UFO issue, published under the title "UFO on Tananarive" (Antananarivo) the testimony of Edmond Campagnac.
He presented Edmond Campagnac as a polytechnician, a non-unique witness to the observation "since in fact an entire city, Antananarivo", had also witnessed the passage of two unidentified flying objects.
Jean-Claude Bourret explains that, impressed by what he had seen, Edmond Campagnac had become the president of G.E.P.A. (Groupement d'Etudes des Phénomènes Aériens - Aerial Phenomena Studies Group).
He then quotes Edmond Campagnac's testimony to Euloge Boissonnade [1] [2]:
It was a Monday in August 1954. It was 5:45 p.m. We were leaving the offices. We were gathered in front of the Air France agency, awaiting the distribution of the evening mail, avenue de la Liberation, in the heart of Antananarivo. At one point, a friend pointed out to us in the sky a sort of big luminous green ball; electric sparkle color, which fell almost vertically, exactly like a fireball. This glow disappeared behind the mountains. Everyone thought it was really a meteor that had just fallen. A few minutes later, people showed us a glow, also green. This time, instead of falling, it came horizontally and flew over the hills, near the Queen's palace. The apparent diameter had decreased and the speed was obviously less great than during the vertical descent.
To the question "Were you able to detail it at that time?", he answered:
We first saw a kind of green ball and it was quite surprising. It reached the roofs and took the avenue de la Liberation, across the street from our position. When this green glow reached our level, we realized that it was an optical effect. There was actually a kind of green lens, still "electric green luminescent gas" moving and behind it, about thirty meters away, followed an elongated, metallic cigar. The sun was reflected on its surface and we were able see that it was indeed something metallic. Behind, a kind of red-orange sparks escaped from it. This cigar must have been between 40 and 50 m long; its speed of movement could be of the order of 300 to 400 km / h, that is to say like that of a "Constellation" type aircraft which was flying over Antananarivo at the time.
Oddly enough, silence had settled in the city. Everyone who was outside, and there were quite a few, were amazed at this phenomenon. Everything moved in total silence. A curious phenomenon, which the spectators had also observed: when the craft flew over an apartment or a store, the electric lights went out; when the craft had passed, they would reignite.
Asked to continue, he says:
The craft flew over the city, went towards the airfield; it set off again towards the west, in particular over a zebu park, where there were about a hundred animals. The latter, however accustomed without being afraid to see planes flying over their ground at low altitude by arriving in Antananarivo, were that day distraught by the two UFOs to the point that they broke the barriers and that we had to call in the army and the police to try to get them back in.
He is then asked how, as a polytechnician, he can explain this phenomenon. He says:
It has been observed that these appearances were often linked to electromagnetic phenomena capable of acting both on electric currents and on internal combustion engines. Often, we have seen cars stop or observed behavioral disturbances in humans and animals. So I had the opportunity to read reports from the national gendarmerie: there have been cases where craft landed on the ground have paralyzed people from a certain distance, when they were trying to approach these craft [3]. I have studied for several years this kind of phenomena, for which I have always been fascinated: I do not think - unless there is on our globe a civilization held in a wonderfully secret place - that it is of terrestrial origin.
He is then asked if it would be "beings from elsewhere?"; he answers:
Yes. I think in this regard that if, in the universe, there were only the Earth to be inhabited, I would have other problems.
[1] Euloge Boissonnade, (1917 - 2004) was a French journalist and historian. He was a journalist in particular for Agence France-Presse, Paris-Presse-l'Intransigeant, Paris-Match, ORTF, Radio-Luxembourg and France Inter, he was a collaborator of the journal Historia, and professor at the university of Zaire. He was also a member of the French Academy of Sciences of Overseas and a member of the Society of Letters, the Society of Dramatic Authors and the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem).
[2] In view of the above, I think that Edmond Campagnac's statements were made to Euloge Boissonnade during a radio program, probably on France -Inter, probably in 1974 since a other source mentions such a program.
[3] Edmond Campagnac will later evoke such a spectacular case, from 1954, which he says he found in the military archives. (Case file to be published in my two catalogs ALSACAT and France 1954).
The book was also published in English in 1977:
