The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Oise-Matin, France, page 1, on November 17, 1954.
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The ACADEMY of Medicine heard a report yesterday afternoon from Mr. Houyer [sic, Heuyer] on "collective psychoses." According to the speaker, the notion of collective psychosis can be linked to the description of "folie à deux" (shared delusion) as described by Fabret.
This psychiatrist demonstrated the existence of a delusion, that is, an unshakable false belief resistant to reasoning. "Folie à deux" already appears as a form of collective delusion, according to Mr. Houyer. The example of the witnesses of Christ from Mont Favret serves as evidence of collective delusion.
The study of these delusional groups, the speaker recalled, was explored by a scholar named Dupré, whose conclusions aligned with those of Fabre and Gustave Léon. In his work on crowd psychology, Léon showed that crowds are driven far more by emotional and passionate states than by reasoning and intelligence.
"Currently," emphasized Mr. Houyer, "there is a psychosis surrounding flying saucers. It has appeared from nowhere, stemming from illusion and false interpretations amplified by the vast reach of modern information channels. It is intensifying worldwide. These testimonies are both absurd and overwhelming. Among the simple-minded, it fosters, as the speaker further noted, a conviction of espionage and possibly even an impending Martian invasion."
The psychological factors at play are driven by false ideas, fear, and the conditions of the group and its environment. Regarding the flying saucer phenomenon, the false idea is evident to Mr. Houyer. He recounted that an astronomer had presented arguments against the existence of the so-called saucers to the Committee of Radiobroadcasting Sciences. According to this astronomer, the only possible explanation is luminous atmospheric phenomena occurring in the sky.
For the speaker, fear can easily take hold when one considers the vast number of "feeble minds" in society.
In conclusion, Mr. Houyer stressed that his aim was simply to highlight the danger that psychoses related to flying saucers pose to the moral health of communities.
Several academicians spoke after this presentation, expressing their agreement with Mr. Fouillé.
One of them even reported that, in a school, students were given an assignment: "Describe a flying saucer!"
