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This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Parisien Libéré, France, pages 1 and 5, July 21, 1967.
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The tradesman of Wissous (right) is a balanced man: 40 years old, 1 m 80, a sports enthusiasts (wrestling), vegetarian, anti-alcoholic, not a science-fiction buff. Here, reconstituted by our draftsmen, the phenomena he describes.
(See page 5).
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"I know that if I tell my story, I will be called a crackpot. And yet, I do not invent anything. I saw a dazzling gleam... Then two vague forms that fled after having neutralized me. I did not believe in flying saucers nor in science fiction adventures. I do not draw any conclusion... I refrain from explaining the display I witnessed and only try to understand what I experienced..."
The man who says this is Mr. L.M..., tradesman. He is a 40 year old sportsman, perfectly balanced: 1 m 80, enthusiast of wrestling and weightlifting.
- I do not drink. I am vegetarian, for in my business, it is necessary to keep a cool head. My life is without stories and I let myself impress neither by the novels nor by the movies. But this time, I do not understand any more... Listen...
The extravagant story of Mr. L M..., started the day before yesterday.
- I am owner of two gardens, closed by tall walls, close to the Wissous cemetery. Usually, nobody goes there, except a former Leclerc division [WWII] chap who comes to monitor the fruit trees. Even I, at harvest times, I make a point of checking my redberries and apricot trees. So, yesterday...
The man hesitates one moment, like to gather a maximum of precision from his memories. He lives again in thought his insane day of Wednesday.
It is half past noon. At the very close airport of Orly, the Boeings and the Caravelles take off and thunder in the sky. Mr. L. M... goes up towards the old Wissous, with its paved streets, its old houses dating from the time when it was only a village. There is nobody at this hour in the cemetery area and the deserted school. Nobody to see the tall grasses in the abandoned gardens. Nobody to listen to the steps of Mr. L.M... who - as he used to - was "having a glance" at his trees.
- I opened the garden's door and I was surprised to see in one of the shacks that I had built there a very sharp gleam, greenish, similar to that which of the blowtorches of the welding stations produce. I thought that the Leclerc soldier to which I entrusted the keys must be working at something inside one of the workshops. I approached the door and suddenly, a greenish flash, more powerful than a storm lightning, blinded me. The energy that seemed to accompany it threw me at ground and made me as passive as someone paralyzed. Then...
Then Mr. L M..., in a semi-lethargy, saw two silver, vague forms, come out!
- Did they shoot the green light against me? I am not unaware that just wondering about that will raise doubts on my sanity. I was on the ground, helpless, and yet conscious. I saw them passing the wall to reach the second garden of which I am also the owner... after their departure, I found enough strength to get in the direction where they had fled. There was no trace of climbing on the stone wall, and in the second garden, where the nettles are high, no trace of passage... only two furrows, approximately five meters of the wall they crossed. Two furrows, similar to those left by skis in the snow. Two furrows in the shape of a V.
- After this adventure, I went to see a doctor. He diagnosed a very strong commotion. In the evening, one of my friends, physicist in Saclay [Nuclear Research Center], to whom I narrated my amazing encounter, was curious enough to test me with a Geiger counter: I had received a frightening dose of radiations which the measuring apparatus detected, but he told me, they were very different from the signals emitted by atomic disintegration.
Yesterday morning, this very particular radioactivity that had hit Mr. L. M. had decreased by 30 %.
- I do not explain it more than the presence and the escape of the two silvery beings nor the ski traces in the high grass. I have my testimony. Nothing more.
The Wissous tradesman who, in the full force of the age, tries to reason as a lucid individual, does not put forth any speculation. He, of course, initially thought of fruit robbers. But the total absence of traces on a wall defended by fragile iron wire goes against such an explanation; then, because of the proximity of the strategic strip of Orly - he thought of a visit of clandestine observers. It does not reject, finally, the intrusion of extraterrestrials.
- In other times, I would have been in denial. But I saw. I was struck by the green light. I seek the explanation, even beyond what is usually allowed.
A similar enigma was posed to the technicians of Troyes where an explosion with causes that remain unexplained is distrubing the people. Around 02:30 a.m., indeed, an unknown man came, the other night, to give alarm to the gendarmerie.
"A flying saucer", he was saying, "flies above the city."
The visitor was invited to cool out and to go get some rest. However, ten minutes later, a violent deflagration destroyed a building at the angle of the General-of-Gaulle street and Republic street, dislocating the inside walls of the apartments on three floor levels, breaking the windows panes, while an enormous cloud of dust rose.
One believed initially in an explosion due to some gas leakage. However the firemen, called, did not discover anything. One thought of an explosive charge deposited in one of the residences, but bomb disposal specialists and experts did not find any trace.
It was neither a matter of storm lightning, since the storm burst only twenty minutes later.
Of course, the investigators take great care not to make a connection with the testimony of the flying saucer [sic]. The residents of Troyes however estimate that this deflagration is all the more mysterious.
The very important damages amount to several million old francs.
