The article below was published in the daily newspaper Nord-Eclair, Roubaix, Nord, France, page 2, on November 25, 1954.
See the case file.
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A driver from the Comptoir Linier in Hazebrouck, Mr. Michel Leynaert, 29, living on rue de Merville, left on the night of Tuesday, with a coach to take care of workers in Aire-sur-la-Lys.
Around 4 a.m., near the village of Boeseghem, he saw, coming to meet him, a violent and imposing gleam, in the shape of a "saucer" which moved quickly.
As the "thing" got closer and closer to him, the man was overcome with panic, he sheltered his coach behind a house and stopped the engine.
When the phenomenon had disappeared, Mr. Leynaert resumed the trip and met, a little further, a truck from the Debaets house, of Aire, whose driver admitted having witnessed the same phenomenon.
In turn, the girls taken in by the coach told an identical story.
Mr. Leynart immediately alerted the chief police commissioner of Hazebrouck, Mr. Gouriou who opened an investigation: the result was the identification of the prankster who set up this farce.
On the occasion of the Wittes fair, a few happy chaps imagined launching into the sky parachute-rockets, the vestiges of which were also found on the ground by the driver of the Debaets truck.
These remains were handed over to the Saint-Omer police commissioner.
