The article below was published in the daily newspaper Nord-Matin, Nord - Pas-de-Calais, France, page 10, on October 5, 1954.
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Flying saucers, flying cigars, other mysterious craft continue to appear everywhere. During the last weekend, the presence of strange craft was reported in the skies of Côte d'Ivoire, in the Finistère, in the Deux Sèvres and in the Indre.
Many people, including the officers of the High Mountain School, said they saw for more than an hour a brilliant machine moving between Mont Lachat and Mont Blanc.
The pilot Guiron indicated that, flying at an altitude of about 2,000 meters, he saw a craft which, he said, said, had no resemblance to a normal plane. Moreover, the direction followed at high speed by this craft excluded the hypothesis of a sounding balloon.
Our region has not been spared either, and there were numerous reports of bizarre craft.
Bernard Devoisin and René Condette, 18 years old, two young men from Vron, in the district of Abbeville, saw a mass right in the middle of the roadway.
Rolling at full pedals, to cover the few 150 meters that separated them from the apparatus, they saw it fly away while they were still 70 meters away.
Bernard Devoisin, who was pedaling at the head, saw a man dressed like a sort of diver, who bypassed this craft, which left immediately.
As for the orange "saucer", it was shaped like a beehive, with a pointed roof. It was about the width of the road, about three meters.
In the evening from Saturday to Sunday, two resedents of Jeumont stated that they had seen, while driving around Solre-le-Château, a saucer-shaped object which, after having moved a few seconds above the City, rose vertically and disappeared.
Miss Anne-Marie Perut, 20 years old, whose father is a gendarme at the Marcoing brigade, a few kilometers from Cambrai, told the following story:
"Sunday around 8:30 p.m., going to the window, I saw two large luminous balls: a large one and below a smaller one. It seemed slightly swinging from right to left, like a balloon basket.
"I called my father who laughed at me. I insisted and, finally, he came to see and it was then that he alerted the other gendarmes present in the barracks. The families joined us and so around twenty people could see what we had seen.
"For a quarter of an hour we saw this luminous appearance comparable to the moon, but larger. Round, the object took the form of a cigar, then a crescent. It set off towards Villers-Pouich, then came back to disappear for good."
The gendarmes who confirmed this fact to us declare that this luminous ball could be at an approximate altitude of 6 to 700 meters.
Sunday, between 9 p.m. and 9:20 p.m., a craft, in the shape of a golden half-moon, barred in the center by a greenish line, hovered above rue Fleury, in La Chapelle d'Armentières. All the residents observed the craft for a long time. One of them used binoculars to better define its contours, then suddenly the saucer disappeared in the direction of Fleurbaix.
Sunday was the ducasse in Chéreng, a small town not far from Lille. At 07:20 p.m., a few locals saw a cigar landing on the Marque footbridge. The landing, preceded by a shower of sparks, was made without noise, but the craft disappeared before the arrival of the witnesses. With the joyous atmosphere of the party suggesting a joke, many people did not believe the witnesses' story - but the confirmation was made on Monday.
Sunday around 9:30 p.m., several people were aware of the presence of unknown type of craft on the Lorette plateau.
Mr. Lecoq J-Bte. of Liévin, distinguished in the sky around the lighthouse of Lorette, a luminous craft having the shape of a crescent which oscillated slightly. He stopped several people to make them note this apparition. From this oblong-shaped craft, the lower part was detached and descended towards the ground and came to resume shortly after its position against the upper part. The saucer then descended into the valley.
A saucer was seen in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, on Sunday evening, by Mr. Louis Lherbier, general insurance agent, rue Marcel Lancino. The latter being in his yard, was intrigued by the presence of a small reddish ball seeming to move in the air. He called his wife, as well as Mr. Robert Mairesse, an employee of the mines and his wife. The four people saw very well the thing which ultimately took the form of a pot turning on itself. Then after a few minutes, this strange object rose quickly in the air and disappeared.
