The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Palladium-Item, Richmond, Virginia, USA, on page 2, on October 11, 1954.
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By International News Service
A sudden wave of flying saucer reports came simultaneously today from persons in at least five different parts of the world, including one from a German who claimed to have seen creatures less than four feet tall disembark from a cigar-shaped craft.
Persons in Germany, Belgium, Egypt, Argentina, Lebanon and the French Cameroon claimed they saw mysterious disks in the sky.
In Muenster, Germany, 42-year-old movie projectionist Franz Hoge told the news agency DPA that he saw a "flying saucer" land in a field and peculiarly shaped creatures get out.
Hoge said he noticed a bright blue light and thought at first it came from a crashed airplane. On closer examination, he declared, he discovered a "cigar-shaped" craft hovering about six feet above the ground and giving off a brilliant blue radiance which nearly blinded him.
Then, the movie projectionist added, he suddenly sighted four creatures about three and a one-half feet in height. He said they had "thick-set bodies, oversized heads and delicate legs" and wore rubber-like clothing.
Hoge said he observed the craft and its occupants for about 10 minutes from a distance of about 200 feet, but did not have the courage to approach any closer.
Also in Germany, pilots and pupils of a glider school near Frankfurt claimed to have seen a "slightly swollen silvery disc" moving noiselessly over their field.
Agence France Presse said the 13 witnesses, some of them former Luftwaffe (German Air Force) men, denied that they were the victims of an optical illusion.
A mail carrier in the Belgian village of Huy, near Namur, reported that he spotted a flying "cigar" which rose into the sky as he approached. He claimed to have seen silhouettes "roughly human in shape" aboard the craft.
Several hundreds witnesses in Alexandria told of seeing a luminous object which changed in color from red to orange as it streaked through the sky. Later the mysterious object turned green and then a sort of gray-blue.
The Heluan observatory near Cairo was notified but the object vanished before special instruments could be trained on it. However, observatory officials said it could have been a natural phenomenon caused by a recent electric storm.
Three motorists in Buenos Aires claimed they saw a luminous craft which hung motionless above their cars for one or two minutes and then rose vertically into the air at tremendous speed. The motorists said the "saucer" made no noise, although it trailed a stream of flames.
The Beirut newspaper "L'Orient" quoted Max Favell, a representative of a German firm. as saying he saw a disc hang motionless over the seashore while giving off a faint light. Favell told the newspaper the craft landed for a few seconds and then took off vertically.
Abdelkarim Natour, an Agence France Presse employee in Beirut, said he saw a light red ball-shaped object moving about 600 feet above the sea.
The report from Cameroons mentioned a "brilliant" object shaped like a mushroom which hovered at a height of about 1,800 feet for a few seconds and then moved off rapidly in an easterly direction.
The witnesses included the director of the Yaounde hospital and several government officials.
