UFOs in the daily Press:

QUITE A HOAX IN PICARDY

Four electricians talked (at the café) about "the flying saucer"
...and that's how the whole town found out!
including the gendarmes

Amiens, September 17 (special correspondent). -- On the evening of September 8, four employees of Electricité de France were quietly returning, as they did every evening since starting work in the area, to the Café des Touristes in Estrées-Deniécourt, located on the road from Amiens to Saint-Quentin. Commenting on a report in the regional newspaper about a discovery made by bricklayers in Acheux-en-Amiénois, two of them, Serge Grember, 31, and Christian Couivra, 24, from Amiens, came up with the idea of playing a good joke, in agreement with their companions René Clairé, 20, also from Amiens, and Roland Gourguechon, 24, from Doullens.

Once at the Café des Touristes, our four electricians began loudly discussing an imaginary flying saucer so that other patrons could hear them. One of the listeners, André Jockaere, thrilled at the chance to play amateur journalist, rushed to call the regional newspaper with the scoop, while another, Raymond Lerouge, discreetly left the café to head to the supposed site, about 2.5 km away in the territory of Soyecourt.

But Lerouge, finding no flying saucer, understandably so, decided to have some fun of his own. On his way back, he met a friend, Bernard François, and told him the "news": "It's incredible," he said, "I just saw a flying saucer in Soyecourt. There are more than fifty people around it."

In turn, his friend François rushed to the phone and reported the astonishing news to the regional daily, claiming there were over two hundred people surrounding the craft.

The newspaper alerted the gendarmes in Chaulnes, though with some reservations. Meanwhile, Lerouge arrived home, quite late. To excuse himself, he told his wife the amazing story, adding that he had even touched the craft with his finger. Soon, the whole neighborhood was in the know, and when the gendarmes arrived in Estrées-Deniecourt, the existence of the flying saucer seemed beyond doubt.

The story might have ended there if Gendarmes Dubus and Maréchal, unconvinced, hadn't reopened the investigation. Eventually, René Clairé, 20, one of the four electricians, confessed that it had all been a hoax and that there had never been a flying saucer.

The other pranksters will be prosecuted for false testimony and contempt of court.