The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Est Républicain, France, on October 12 ,1954.
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Paris. -- Clear recrudescence of activity of the flying saucers during the last weekend and not only in the sky of France. Mysterious craft, indeed, were seen in Cameroun, Namur, in Lebanon, in Egypt and Germany.
The appearance in Cameroun deserves a particular attention. In Yauondé [the capital], a certain number of people were together at the head doctor of the hospital, Dr. Menu, and were on the point of going to the movies when they were puzzled by the attitude of the dog who suddenly started to grunt and whose hairs stood up.
Thinking that strangers were on the prowl near his residence, Dr. Menu went outside and saw, in the sky, a brilliant object. He immediately called his guests who all then stated to have seen, almost at the vertical of the plate where the hospital is located, an enormous violently illuminated disc, motionless at an altitude of approximately 600 meters.
This "appearance" lasted fifteen seconds. The machine had very exactly the shape of a mushroom, i.e. a very illuminated disc, whose people present could not evaluate the diameter exactly, under which a cylinder of a length equal to the diameter of the hat swung very gently, also very illuminated.
Suddenly, the craft took the direction of the East and its volume seemed to decrease at eyesight. Then it was immobilized during a few seconds before taking altitude quickly and disappearing.
The witnesses of this phenomenon are worthy of faith, since, in addition to Dr. Menu, they were colonel Cauvin, head of the services of hygiene and the disease prevention of Cameroun; Misters Dumont, director of the Services of Safety of Cameroun; Poilleux, adviser of the territorial Assembly of Cameroun; Moreau, administrator, assistant mayor of Yaoundé and their wives.
Close to Namur, the rural mailman made its usual round, when he saw a flying cigar which rose towards the sky at his approach at a vertiginous pace. However, he had the time to clearly distinguish on board two "roughly human" silhouettes.
In Lebanon, it is a German firm's representative in Beirut, Mr. Max Favell, who stated to the newspaper "L'Orient" to have seen Saturday evening, at the seaside, a motionless machine in the sky which emitted a whitish light. The machine landed a few moments, then rose suddenly vertically without leaving traces.
Several hundreds of Alexandria residents followed the maneuvers of a luminous object which changed from the red to the orange and the green to the blue gray. The observatory of Helouan, close to Cairo, was alerted, but before the special telescope could be set up to photograph it, the craft had disappeared.
The sub-manager of the observatory, Mr. Azouz Ismail, stated that it was undoubtedly an aurora borealis, for a magnetic storm was observed since forty-eight hours. An extremely probable scientific explanation.
A movie projectionist of Munster, Mr. Willi Hoge, declared that, going back home in the suburbs of Munster, Saturday after midday, he saw in a field at about fifty meters of the road, a rather sharp blue gleam. Believing initially that it was a broken plane, he approached a few meters and then saw a machine having the shape of a cigar and immobilized in the air at approximately 1 m 50 from the ground.
Under the craft, surrounded by a bluish gleam, the movie projectionist distinguished four "men" whose size was approximately 1 m. 20. These beings had, according to him, a rather broad chest, a head proportionally too large for their bodies and thin legs. Mr. Hoge specified that they wore a kind of combination whose fabric resembled rubber.
Not daring to approach more, the witness restricted himself to observe the whereabouts of the occupants of the craft. After ten minutes, the crew went up on board using a kind of ladder, and the craft rose quickly almost vertically, taking, after a few seconds of rise, the shape of a brilliant disc.
Mr. Willi Hoge finally claimed to have tried that very evening to cause an investigation, but he added that no police officer had agreed to go to the site to check his statements!
Lastly, close to Frankfurt, thirteen pilot pupils of a sailplane school followed the maneuvers of their teacher when they had their attention drawn by an "extremely reinflated silver disc" which moved without the least noise.
In France, in the long list of the celestial appearances, it is necessary to note in particular the unexpected meeting which Mr Roger Barrault, workman in Lavoux (Vienna) made. Mr. Barrault drove a bicycle, Saturday evening, around 7 p.m., when he was stopped short on the road by a double beam of light emanating from a kind of "diver" hardly 1 m. 50 tall, with boots without heels, very brilliant eyes and a big moustache!
He must however have been a good man, for he walked one minute on the road without making the least evil to the awestruck Mr. Barrault who saw him disappearing in the nearby forest, walking.
New fact also in Mâcon where circulating on the bridge of Saint-Laurent-les-Mâcon who spans the rivers Saône, several people saw a disc, which for once was not brilliant, but dark.
In Tourriers, close to Angouleme, and in la Ferté-Macé (the Orne) it was two cigars who held the attention of the Sunday strollers, while a convex ball of fire shaved the summit of the trees in Beauvain, in the Orne too, under the amazed eyes of Mr. Christian Couette.
