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This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Provençal, France, on October 1, 1975.
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Missioned with putting up a detailed report on the gigantic U.F.O seen Friday evening in Assevent, the gendarmes [Law enforcement] of Maubeuge questioned ten witnesses who approached the mysterious craft. Their good faith cannot be questioned, they think, and it cannot be a matter of a collective hallucination.
It was 09:40 p.m. when several residents of the village and the surroundings saw a luminous disc of enormous size - from 250 to 300 meters, they estimate, turn slowly while oscillating at the edge of the private airfield of Salemagne, where at this hour, were no aircraft.
Coming from various directions, ten witnesses converged towards the ground, on board their cars. The motorists were at approximately 500 meters, when the engine of their vehicles stalled, while their headlights died out and their car radios became suddenly silent.
Amazed, the stalled car witnesses approached by foot, in awe and a little anxious at the sight of this mysterious apparatus hovering at some 20 meters above the ground and whose innumerable port-holes diffused, they say, a little-dazzling light.
Among the number of the observers frozen in stupor, a reserve officer of the Air Force. He saw, like all the others, a kind of cone come out from the central cupola of the U.F.O. to take altitude, girate like a spinning top, then to join again the basic cockpit which disappeared in the night sky in five seconds, leaving behind a kind of fluorescent cloud; which was dissipated only at the end some ten minutes.
Samples intended for the analysis were carried out on the ground - corn fields and ploughings - above which the mysterious craft had evolved. No traces, no clue of combustion was found there, nor on the trees of the surroundings.
According to Mr. Bigorne, regional delegate for the study of the unidentified flying objects, the phenomenon observed in Assevent is one of most extraordinary that he noted on the planet.
In his opinion, it must be a matter of an immense interplanetary spaceship, which would have approached the ground at short distance, whereas, usually, the mothership of this type sail at very high altitude, from where they catapult towards the Earth saucers which then return to the mothership. At once after the take-off of this strange mastodon, the motorists managed again to drive their suddenly repaired car and they hastened at once to alert the authorities.
The ex-airman-officer, who was carrying a Japanese camera (of Nikon brand) took several photographs of the impressive - if not incredible - display, that he had under the eyes. Undoubtedly, because of his haste in the darkness he badly set up the focus: no image appeared on the prints.
Already, last 9th of September, a yellow disc of small diameter, launching a red beam, was located at the same hour at the same place. Undoubtedly it was an avant-garde saucer that came to recognize the location.
An international symposium, devoted to what is commnly called the "flying saucers", opened in Grenoble (the Isère) in the presence of many French and foreign specialists. Under the aegis of the Union of the Groupings of Studies of the Unexplained Phenomena (U.G.E.P.I.), this symposium will last three days. It will include a display on the U.F.O. detection and control device and a series of lectures.
Note: the case in Assevant should not necessarily be taken at face value from the newspaper's version. Various ufological sources gave a rather different information; I will try to publish it soon.
