The 1954 French flap:

"Flying Things"

HEADING to the COTE d'AZUR

Mysterious landing in a meadow of the Var:

- ARE YOU MARTIAN?

- NO I AM FRENCH

And the saucer flew away (!)

The "flying saucers", the "crypto-saucers", their substitutes, assimilated, etc., become day by day more familiar to the inhabitants of the Alpes-Maritimes. Each commune wants its own. We are still far from the 165! ... But we will probably get there soon. There is no reason for jealousy.

If Prévert repeated his famous prayer "Our Father who are in heaven, stay there, etc." we would not fail to add now "give us our daily flying saucer..."

Enough with the jokes! Let's talk about serious things. Here is the menu of the last days (because there are saucers to content).

First the small bits.

BLAUSASC - Several inhabitants of Blausasc saw yesterday, around 10 a.m., above the village, three luminous discs, very visible...

But, says the reader with a scientific mind, what are these three disks doing in the saucers? Bah! You will see many more... In doubt, we note everything. One does not risk thus to let miss a "truly true" saucer.

Let's change the disc. We lost the ball in Monaco.

Or rather we found it. Monaco now has its flying ball, very bright, with the appearance of "molten metal". It was plumbers who spoke: Mssrs. Henri Palinelli and Dominique Selotti, residing in Monaco, who saw the thing in question on Thursday at 6:07 p.m. exactly, above the place called "Visiaero" (Now that's a viewing spot!)

Here are some details: the colors were bright, like a fireworks' flare... The sphere was heading horizontally towards Italy. We only saw it for a few seconds.

Finally, one of the witnesses said: "Before I saw this luminous ball, I have always been a great skeptic" (so great, really?).

REVEST. It is a hunter who saw a luminous machine of about one meter at Revest." Having seen it fall at 60 meters from where he was, he ran to the probable point of fall but could not find any trace.

So, the flying saucers, we repeat to the serious (?) reader: "It's old-fashioned now, we do not say saucer anymore, we come back to the summary and pictorial description, have patience!"

Finally, outside the Alpes-Maritimes, things are done better.

Between Toulon and Hyères, two Toulon motorcyclists met on Thursday at 6:45 p.m. a flying saucer (At last! our reader says).

The craft was posed in a

(Read more on page 7)

meadow near the place known as "Chemin Long". Stunned, the two motorcyclists, Mr. Repellini, restaurant owner, and Mr. Ottaviani, a merchant navy engineer, approached the machine, which had the shape of a disk swelled on top with two crutches put on the ground. It was equipped with two ear-shaped fins on the sides.

One man (the two motorcyclists had the impression that there was another man inside the craft), measuring 1.60 meters, dressed in a gray-white suit made of strange cloth, probably made of asbestos or glass-wool, looked at the two residents of Toulon.

Mr. Repellini questioned him:

- Are you Martian?

The man replied, pointing to the apparatus:

- No I am French.

The unknown questioned in his turn:

- Where am I?

Repellini replied,

- In Provence. Do you want to go to the base of the Palivette?

And the restaurant owner pointed his finger in the direction of Hyeres. But the individual did not seem satisfied. Repellini continued:

"You are here between Toulon and Hyeres."

At these words the mysterious individual nodded his head and walked into the apparatus through the triangular-shaped porthole.

At once the machine, which had not ceased to vibrate, began to vibrate louder. The two Toulonians clearly perceived a sound of steam as before the stop of a locomotive and the apparatus rose from the ground slowly, heavily, vertically, as if it was sucked up. This resembled the flight of a woodcock.

Having reached 50 meters in altitude, the disc stopped for a moment, then resumed its flight at full speed towards Hyères while letting orange gleams escape and making a noise like that of the jet of a percolator.

Mr. Ottaviani had time, during the discussion between the mysterious individual and Mr. Repellini, to make a sketch in profile and elevation of the apparatus. These sketches were shown yesterday to the journalists in front of whom he maintained his statements, as well as he did in front of the naval security and police services.

***

Since the statement of the young José C... who says he saw a flying saucer in Biot, the people who saw the mysterious machine are more and more numerous.

In Antibes, Thursday evening, around 6:30 p.m., the luminous apparatus has been seen from several parts of the city, for example on the side of the Remparts and the National Road. In the surroundings, some people saw "something"; in Juan-les-Pins, on the other hand, we received only two testimonies.

If everyone is unanimous about the hour of the apparition, it must be pointed out that opinions differ about the shape of the thing: flying saucer, cigar, luminous trail, comet. On the other hand, the opinion is the same on the very high speed of the phenomenon.

Of course, everywhere, one talks about the famous flying saucer. Conversations are going on at both the Café de la Poste and the Chasseurs restaurant, on the Place des Arcades, opposite the church and everywhere. There, too, several people saw, Thursday evening, something luminous that crossed the sky very quickly. But one is very skeptical about the landing of the craft on the ground of Biot, especially at the place indicated by the young C..., location on a not-so-wide road between two walls and moreover, just after the hairpin bend.

Two people went by there at 6:30 p.m. that famous evening, and saw nothing, the flying saucer must like the difficulty, since even a helicopter "pou du ciel" would have had great difficulty to land, the ground being overhung by numerous power and telephone wires.