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The 1954 French flap:

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October 14, 1954, Cavillargues, Gard:

Reference for this case: 14-Oct-54-Cavillargues.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

In their 1979 book claiming to be a demonstration that there was nothing unexplainable in France in 1954, the "skeptical" ufologists Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker indicated without giving any source that on October 14, 1954, in Cavillargues, at approximately 06:30 p.m., there was an observation.

They say they investigated and contacted two witnesses, who spoke of a sphere of fire and a trail of sparks, whereas the press had talked of a halt to the phenomenon.

Reports:

[Ref. bbr1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:

The two "skeptical" authors note this case of October 14, 1954:

"Cavillargues - 30 - At about 06:30 p.m.: investigation. (Two witnesses contacted). Sphere of fire, plus trail of sparks. The press talked about a stop of the phenomenon."

[Ref. ubk1:] "UFO-DATENBANK":

This database recorded this case twice:

Case Nr.	New case Nr.	Investigator	Date of observation	Zip	Place of observation	Country of observation	Hour of observation	Classification	Comments	Identification
19541014			14.10.1954		Cavillargues	France	18.30
19541015			15.10.1954		Cavillargues	France	08.00

Explanations:

The meteor of 06:10 p.m.

Of course this was the meteor; but it is interesting to note that the newsly "skeptical" pair Barthel and Brucker did all the mistakes that so-called "believers" are so often accused of:

Not giving the source. "The Press" is harldy an acceptable source reference...
Not giving the witnesses names.
Not providing the actual report by the press.
Not providing the actual report by the two witnesses.
Not providing any information about the"investigation": by phone? On location? And when?
Claiming there is a contradiction between witnesses and the press, when we are not really told whether the witnesses denied the "halt" or not.
Not clearly giving the obvious explanation, the 06:10 p.m. widely seen meteor in that area.
Talking only of "explained" cases.
Etc.

Keywords:

(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)

Cavillargues, Gard, ball, sphere, fire, trail, sparks, stop

Sources:

[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.

[bbr1] "La Grande Peur Martienne", book by Gerard Barthel and Jacques Brucker, Les Nouvelles Editions Rationalistes publishers, France, page 198, 1979.
[ubk1] Online database UFO-Datenbank, Germany, found in 2016, at ufodatenbank.de

Document history:

Version:	Created/Changed by:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	January 30, 2006	First published.
1.0	Patrick Gross	April 8, 2009	Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version.

This page was last updated on February 25, 2017.