The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Est Républicain, Nancy, France, on January 11, 1954.
It was obvious that there was growing concern throughout the eastern region. Anxious and a little annoyed too, it must be confessed. We have always had at our heart to place ourselves at the forefront of progress and, for nothing in the world, we would not want to be laggards. Tranquillise yourselves, we are now up to date, like most regions of France, Navarre and elsewhere.
We, too, have our flying saucers.
True!
Good things come to those who wait for.
Young girls who went to their college are formal. The yellow disk spun into a low sky, gorged with snow, dragging behind it a luminous beam. It had the exact appearance of the moon, but had a circumference reduced to about a quarter of that of the pale star, in which we shall spend our holidays one of the next few days.
An official from Nancy, too, saw the mysterious craft at the same moment, and gave a description in all respects conformable to that furnished by the girls.
In Lunéville, a few moments earlier, the students of the college clearly saw the machine and its reddish trail, and several people of the city, absolutely trustworthy, also witnessed, amazed at this unusual spectacle. At the same hour the phenomenon was observed above the station of Metz, by a surveyor of Courcelles-Sur-Nied.
The flying saucer scoured the weekend's conversations. But Lorraine was not the only region to enjoy the privilege. Franche-Comte also had its saucer.
It was also on Saturday, at 7:50 a.m., that a gentleman, whose words can not be doubted, residing in Montrond-le-Château, in the Doubs, which left the parish church, with two ladies and a child, and saw the saucer. It came from the northwest and was heading south-east.
"It was," said the witness, "a luminous craft that has the elongated form of a rocket and run very fast, shining brightly and having a comet-like star-tail on which were all the colors of the rainbow. This is by no means a hallucination. We were four and we saw the machine for several seconds..."
At the same hour, the saucer-rocket was seen in Besançon. It was, in fact, 7:50 a.m. when Mr. Nicod, a city supervisor, who was conversing with Mr. Marcel and Mr. Brocard, an employee at the Bouchu house, suddenly said to them: "Look quickly... It looks like a flying saucer!" The two men watched the sky and, in the morning clouds, saw "like a red cigar lying backwards, 2m50 in length (visual) and spinning horizontally at a dizzying speed, from the northeast to the southeast..."
This meteor (?) whose surface appeared "speckled of black", disappeared behind the clouds. The vision had lasted a few seconds and was apparently allowed by a thinning in the sky. The testimony of the three seers did not fail to elicit very diverse comments among the municipal employees of Besançon. Children from the Rue des Vieilles-Perrières reportedly also saw the celestial bolide at the same time.
It should be noted that Mr. Nicod was at the municipal workshops at Canot, a place close to the Rue des Vieilles-Perrières. The "saucer" in the shape of a cigar, was also seen in the direction of Beaume-Les-Dames.
An identical phenomenon was observed on Saturday morning at 7 a.m. in Vesoul, where a certain number of inhabitants of the town suddenly saw appearing above the hill of La Motte, going from west to east, a luminous object, of oval shape, in the yellow, orange colors, which, before disappearing, left behind a multicolored and flamboyant trail. The Observatory of Besançon, warned, was unable to give any information likely to explain these genuine visions...
The mystery remains whole: saucer, saucer-rocket, saucer-cigarette will continue to fuel conversations. The witnesses, formal, will give all the details possible to their interlocutors, most of whom will remain unfortunately skeptical. For those who have not seen feel an indefinable feeling in the depths of themselves, a sentiment not very noble, to say the least, of regret and vexation. Of envy perhaps.
"If you do not believe us, do not believe us," said the witnesses. And yet, we know well that we have seen.
