This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Quotidien de la Haute-Loire, France, November 18, 1954.
The academy of medicine heard, yesterday afternoon, a note of Mr. Heuyer on the collective psychosis. The concept of collective psychosis can be related, according to the speaker, to the description of "madness of two" made by Fabert. This psychiatrist had shown the existence a delirium indeed, i.e. of a false certainty and resistant to the reasoning. The madness of two already appears as a collective madness, according to Mr. Heuyer.
The example of the witnesses of the Christ of Montfavet is a testimony of is collective delirium.
The study of these delirious groups, the speaker points out, was reported by a scientist of the name of Dupré, whose deductions join those of Fabert. Gustave Lebon, in "the psychology of the crowd" showed, on his side that a crowd is carried out much more by an emotional and impassionate state that by reasoning and intelligence. Currently there is a psychosis of the flying saucers, it came one does not know from where, of an illusion and the false interpretations developed by the immense means of modern information. It intensifies in the whole world. Its testimonys are ludicrous and overpowering. For the simple minded, it involves the conviction of an espionage and perhaps of the aggression of the Martians. The psychological elements are caused by the false ideas, the fear and the conditions of the group and the environment. In the question of the flying saucers the false idea appears obvious to Mr. Heuyer. He reports that an astronomer gave to the broadcasting committee for the sciences, arguments against the existence of the famous saucers.
They can only be, according to this astronomer, luminous phenomena occurring in the sky. For the rapporteur, fear can settle easily when one thinks of the very great number of weak brains. The speaker, while finishing, stresses that he simply wanted, by his talk, to reveal the danger for the moral health of the communities; psychosis born of the flying saucers. Various academicians spoke, following this communication, agreeing with Mr. Heuyer. One of them even reported that, in a school, one had given for topic to "describe a flying saucer."
