The article below was published in the daily newspaper La Haute-Marne Libérée, France, on October 18, 1954.
Testimonies accumulate coming each day to bring some new detail either on the saucers, or on the flying cigars.
Whereas Saturday evening, several witnesses in good faith, including M. Béranger, Mayor of Saint-Laurent-du-Var, regional councilman, had seen above Nice, a disc of orange color, this time above Cannes, several people observed a luminous machine of yellow color with a green tail. But the most interesting witness was to be brought by an employee of the municipal receipt of Antibes, Mr. Casella, resident of Biot, who, returning home in the evening, was face to face with an enormous mechanical machine measuring 7 to 8 meters in diameter posed in the middle of the road. The witness who was on a bicycle approached the craft until almost touching it but then the latter rose vertically and, with a soft whistling sound, disappeared in the sky.
In the sky of Provence, in Venergues, several vintagers saw a craft of lengthened form like a cigar, one of them stated, and of white and blue color, a second specified. A third vintager indicated that the rocket appeared to emit luminous beams.
At Le Puy, a brilliant object was observed between 17:30 and 18:35 by the weather station of Puy-Chaudrac. The machine looked like a straight ["vertical" probably] olive with at the top, a kind of black antenna. The chief of the station specified that he believed being in the presence of the planet Jupiter, but the sudden disappearance of the object proved that he had made a mistake. The same phenomenon was seen by the center of meteorology of Ruyères (Cantal). One can bring closer these testimonies to that of thousands of residents of Tulle who, towards 15:30, saw in the sky, in the south south-eastern direction, a large shining and motionless dot. It seemed transparent and had the shape of a cylinder whose two ends were conical.
Mr. Maurice Ruant, farmer in Sinceny, close to Chauny (Aisne), failed to be victim of the panic which causes to some people the appearance of the flying saucers or other machines. He was busy repairing hiss car, in a meadow near his home, when two gunshots were fired in his direction. Bullets crushed on the hull of the vehicle, not far from his head. Mr. Maurice Ruant pressed charges and the investigation at once open allowed to quickly find the author of the two shots who was neighbor to Mr. Ruant, Mr. Faizan.
The latter told the police force:
"I believed, when seeing a silhouette moving in the light of two headlights, I was in the presence of a Martian repairing his flying saucer. I went to get my rifle and I shot."
Despite his good faith, Mr. Faizan will be prosecuted.
