The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Est Républicain, France, on October 2, 1954.
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Besancon (from our newsroom). -- "Until now, I was skeptical but now I am not skeptical anymore" told us yesterday evening, while speaking about the flying saucers, a person completely worthy of faith since he is a teacher, Mr. Gazon, of the Saint-Etienne school, street Ponchaux, in Besançon.
Wednesday, at approximately 8 p.m., Mr. Gazon was going back home in the Haute-Saône, in Filain. He used the road while passing by Marchaux and Rigney. He came to exceed the train station of this city and he climbed, at the wheel of his 4CV [popular compact car], the small hill near the big farm of la Roche, when he saw emerging on his left an object which had the oblong form that one allots to the flying saucers or the cigars, according to the image one employs to talk about them when one sees them.
"It was certainly not an aerolite, told us Mr. Gazon, for those fall generally in rain. This object moved on the contrary horizontally at a very high speed from the left to the right.
It was impossible for me to evaluate neither its approximate size, nor the distance to which it was from me. In the eye, it made me the effect of an object which would have been about fifty centimetres long; i.e. rather large. It was accompanied by a phosphorescent gleam of bluish colour."
Mr. Gazon was so much impressed that he stopped his car and went down for better noting the phenomenon. But when he was on the ground, he did not see anything any more and especially he did not hear any noise.
He announced to us, in addition, that a few kilometers before he had noticed in the sky several rather vague luminous phenomena comparable to flashes.
He finished his report by giving us this appreciation which implies that he is not a person likely to invent stories nor to believe in confusing things: "If you want my opinion on all these stories of saucers and cigars, I would say to you that I do not believe that all this comes from another planet. From now on, I believe in the existence of the flying saucers, but I do not believe in the Martians."
In addition, our correspondent of Rougemont, agglomeration located in the direction of Rigney, passed the following information to us: A resident of Montagney, coming back from Rougemont, Wednesday evening, was very surprised to discover in the sky an immense gleam coming from a sphere of approximately the size of the moon when it is full.
Going faster, he returned to the village and alerted his neighbors. This luminous object, though smaller than previously, was still quite visible. Six people managed to look at it. The saucer, if it were really one, moved from East to West.
Let us notice that this direction coincides with that indicated by Mr. Gazon.
