UFOs in the daily Press:

SAUCERS or MOONBEAMS?

Our kind neighborly colleague, "Le Journal de Rue," reports the curious encounter experienced by two of its citizens on Sunday evening in Pont-à-Cailloux:

"It concerns Mr. and Mrs. Galland, the well-known butchers of Caudron Avenue.

"On Sunday, October 3, in the evening, they were returning by car from Berck with their son Patrick. Around 9:15 p.m., as they were on the old Pont à Cailloux, they saw in the sky a flying object, orange in color, cigar-shaped.

"This object descended to about 200 meters above the ground and followed the road from Quend to Rue all the way to Herre. It flew silently and seemed to want to escort us, said Mr. Galland.

"But upon reaching Herre, it veered off and disappeared from our view. We had the impression it had landed on the ground.

"Mr. Galland adds: I would have liked to search for it and get a closer look; but my wife and son were not very reassured. So we returned to Rue.

Let us look for an explanation.

A professor at the Faculty of Sciences in Lille, Mr. Antoine Bonte, I.D.N. engineer, offers us one in "La Croix du Nord":

"I also saw flying saucers on Sunday evening.

"The descriptions given match perfectly with my own observations. However, I disagree with their interpretation because, in this case, it was simply a moonset.

"On Sunday, at dusk, the moon was shining brightly in the clear sky as a beautiful crescent. Later, it disappeared into a hazy band above the horizon, only to reappear a few moments later, reddish and distorted—which is normal at that level—and streaked as it passed behind a stratus cloud. Finally, it faded for good as it returned into the clouds.

"So, in this particular case, it was a completely ordinary phenomenon to which our forefathers would not even have paid attention."

(Continued on page 4).

SAUCERS or MOONBEAMS?

(Continued from page 1).

"Moreover, in most other cases, these are similar phenomena, as I have been able to observe on several occasions. The flying saucer craze is a phenomenon of collective hallucination that responds to a natural need for wonder, sustained by a high-circulation press and fueled by an entire category of illustrated publications for children or... adults. The descriptions of so-called Martians are so close to Tintin-style diving suits that one can't help but smile."

And Mr. Bonte concludes, fully agreeing with us on this point:

"It is even your duty (as journalists) to combat this weakening of critical thinking that characterizes our era of universal but far too superficial culture.

"90%, if not 99%, of cases can be explained.

When will we see an indisputable photograph of one of these craft?