The article below was published in the daily newspaper La Bourgogne Républicaine, France, le 20 août 1953.
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A curious observation was made on Monday from several locations in Côte-d'Or and Saône-et-Loire.
Thousands of people saw a mysterious aerial object, which remained motionless in the sky for twelve hours before disappearing very late in the evening.
According to the information gathered, the first to notice it were the inhabitants of Lons-le-Saunier, who saw it in the morning around 10 o’clock. At the same time, the inhabitants of Salins also discovered it, gazing at the sky and wondering about its nature. Around the same hour, in Arbois, people were also alerted and observing the strange phenomenon.
"In these times of war, who would have thought that one of my dreams would come true? Not one of those dreams that make us feel courageous, but the real and exact vision of some… mysterious craft."
That is the paradox of the dream: that such an aeronautical phenomenon should first be discovered by people with their feet firmly on the ground! The inhabitants of Arbois are serious people. They are not prone to exaggeration. They saw what they saw.
At the same time that morning, several people claimed that the craft was visible "in the sky over Arbois." It was seen around 10 a.m., heading south, above the ridge line overlooking the Saône valley.
To be frank, the aerial object, seen from very far away and resembling a balloon, was an elongated craft with a faint white trail extending indefinitely from its lower right side. Some observers immediately declared, without any doubt: "It’s a weather balloon from E.D.F."
However, the main issue with this hypothesis—even according to its supporters—is the persistent immobility of the object throughout the entire day. It is physically impossible for a meteorological balloon to remain stationary for so long! It should drift with the wind currents or be pushed laterally by them. Yet, we know that the mysterious craft only disappeared in the evening…
So? A flying saucer?
A double disappearance of the object was observed from Beaune-sur-Ouche. From that location, one could distinctly see the reappearance of the craft before it vanished again.
In any case, this unexpected aerial manifestation is one of those events that have fueled continuous discussion.
During the winter, similar reports came from multiple locations. On February 28, for instance, in Beirut, a "true aerial carousel" took place over the city. It started at 6:40 p.m., when an intense, red-orange luminous point appeared over the sea, soon followed by three others. Several people were alerted and followed their movements. From 6:40 to 7 p.m., they remained stationary.
The objects moved at regular intervals, in a straight line, one behind the other. When one appeared in the distance, it soon disappeared, or rather, it obscured the entire horizon and zenith with a dark screen.
These were not the only sightings. Other objects passed along a parallel trajectory about 17 km (10.5 miles) to the east.
Recently, there have also been reports of mysterious fireballs rising from a high altitude at lightning speed. To the naked eye, they appeared as red-orange spheres, preceded by a disk of light and followed by a trail that seemed to be made of smoke.
One of the main witnesses, an electrical engineer specializing in aviation, stated that this was not an impression of a natural terrestrial phenomenon, nor old aircraft, nor weather balloons, nor meteors, but rather "something entirely new."
Most recently, on June 26, a Spanish man managed to take two photos in El Provencio, Cuenca, 84 km (52 miles) from Albacete, under the following circumstances:
"Upon spotting, along with the locals, a large luminous disk, he took photographs and observed that it was either a robot or a flying saucer."
The testimonies gathered about this object suggest that it was indeed an unknown type of aircraft.
— Ch. G. [1]
[1] Journalist Charles Garreau, soon to be one of the first French ufologists.
