The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Aurore, Paris, France, page 6, on January 8, 1954.
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DIEPPE (From our special correspondent). -- A tremendous explosion suddenly woke most of the people of Dieppe early yesterday morning. It was about 4:30 a.m. A few seconds earlier, a blinding glow had been seen in the sky by the 70 dockworkers who were working in the city’s port.
One of them, Mr. Lucas, working at the northern end of the unloading hall of a trawler, stated that he saw a large, dull-white sphere of great diameter moving very rapidly toward the sea.
A railway employee who, at the same time, was starting his shift at Orchies station, near Lille, stated that he had observed the same phenomenon.
- The fireball was moving horizontally at a dizzying speed and was followed by a dazzling luminous trail...
Another testimony coming from Arras this time: that of a baker, Mr. Brevart:
- Around 4:30 a.m., leaving my bakery for a few minutes, I saw, beyond the Place de la Vauquerie, located behind the Town Hall, a motionless disc at a few hundred meters altitude. This sighting lasted only a few seconds. The object, setting off toward the horizon, emitted an intense light, illuminating the square [?]. Then it disappeared in the direction of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, projecting immense orange flames.
For all those who witnessed this phenomenon, it was a flying saucer. But such is not the opinion of the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, which considers that it was simply a "fireball."
Fireballs, as is known, are meteoric bodies—of poorly known composition—which, moving through the sky at extremely high speed, heat up when they encounter the Earth's atmosphere due to the resistance it offers. It is then that they become incandescent. Sometimes they pass without any sign other than a luminous trail. Sometimes they burst silently, sometimes with a crash: this would be the case for the one seen yesterday in the Dieppe region.
