The article underneath was published in the newspaper Le Méridional, France, page 6, on February 21, 1956.
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"It was not a weather balloon"
declares the pilot that approaches it
PARIS. -- "It was certainly not a weather balloon", declared to the press Mr. Michel Desavoye, the Air France pilot who, alerted by the control tower of Orly, last Saturday, saw in the Parisian sky a red twinkling light whose origin remains mysterious.
36 years old, Mr. Desavoye has navigated on all the air lines of the world for five years as pilot of Air France. Here his account:
"I had taken off from Orly at 11:55 p.m. on board a DC-3 freight transport bound for London. I have been in charge of this daily service, outward and return, for one month. A few minutes after takeoff, the control tower of Orly reported to me an unidentified apparatus detected by radar moving towards Le Bourget, and who was to be on my flightpath. Mr. Baupetuy, my radio operator, and myself, then saw a little on our right and appreciably at the same height than us a red flashing light. We were at approximately 1.500 meters at the height of Orgival. Wanting to avoid the obstacle, I changed course.
"There, the light then disappeared suddenly. I resumed my flightpath. The radar reported to me that the "apparatus" was now above me. But this time I did not see anything."
"I am unable to give you an explanation of this phenomenon, adds Mr. Desavoye, but I never saw anything similar. All that I can affirm to you, is that it was in no case a plane, for we would have seen its position lights. The night was very black and I could not see from where this light came, which appeared in any event twice larger than position lights normally are."
Returned in Paris at 5 o'clock in the morning, Mr. Desavoye was questioned by the radar technicians of Orly and a colonel of the Air Force and he confirmed his statements in a written report.
