ufo - UFOS at close sight: the 1954 French flap, October 14, Palleau, Saône-et-Loire

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

Summary:

The ufologists Aimé Michel, then Jacques Vallée, indicated that on October 14, 1954, in a field near the village of Palleau, Mr. Bégin, a farmer in Chevigny-en-Valière, saw a green luminous ball passing by flying above him at high speed.

Reports:

An odd straight line.

At the time I undertook (after many other attempts) to study the arrangement of observations on a map region by region, when something curious caught my attention to the Center-East of France. From South of Poligny to a spot located near Gueugnon, in the Saôone-et-Loire, five observations made a rigorously rectilinear arrangement over a distance of 150 kilometers.

Along this line, from East to West, were the observations of the Wood of Poligny, of Saint-Germain du Bois, of Saint-Romain sous Gourdon, of the Departmental 60 near Ciry le Noble, and Departmental 25 near Chazey Wood. While checking their date I discovered with astonishment that all these cases were all of October 14, then that on the 5 observations, one (Saint-Germain) was a luminous object on the ground, the next one (Saint-Romain) an immobile luminous object, placed on the ground, blocking an engine and extinguishing a headlight, the third a luminous object flying over the country-side (Departmental 60), the fourth a similar object blocking an engine and extinguishing headlights. Only the observation of Poligny could at best be taken for a meteor. All the others had the most incredible characters attributed to the saucers.

This first straight line gave me another idea: since 5 cases of October 14 were aligned, why not examine whether the other cases of the same day did not also present some interesting positions? I discovered then, this same day, a new alignment of 4 observations: Poligny (already on the other line), Palleau (Saône-et-Loire), Meursanges (Côte d'Or), and finally, 460 kilometers away, Méral, in the Mayenne. And Méral was also a ground observation [but the 11th and not the 14th].

(to be continued)

French ufologist Aimé Michel notes that on October 14, in a field near the village of Palleau, Mr. Bégin, a farmer from Chevigny, sees a luminous green ball fly overhead at great speed.

Michel notes that Palleau is at 7 kilometers of Meursanges and 4 kilometers from Chevigny.

Jacques Vallée says that M. and Mme. Vitre, grocers on the Place Madeleine in Beaune, had just left the village of Meursanges in the Cote d'Or to go home by car. They had driven only a few hundred yards on Route D-111 when they noted through the window a luminous object flying at high speed. They quickly left their car and called to the people at a nearby farm, and together they watched the maneuvers of the object.

Vallée says their description is fascinating when we recall such a case as that of Frasne, two days earlier, or many others that are as good as identical.

They said that "The object stopped for an instant, came down slowly, balancing and changing color, throwing out yellow, orange and violet beams, and then resumed its course and disappeared behind the trees of a wood."

Next to this group of trees, and east-south-east of Meursanges, in the village of Chevigny-en-Valiere, another witness described the Meursanges object, seen at the same time.

Still farther to the east-southeast in the village of Palleau, four miles in a straight line from Meursanges and 2.5 miles from Chevigny, at the same moment M. Begin, farmer at Chevigny, saw passing overhead a round, green, luminous object crossing the sky at high speed.

Jacques Vallée says that these observations from Meursanges, Chevigny and Palleau deserve special attention: first, though the witnesses at Chevigny and at Palleau knew one another quite well as both lived in the tiny village of Chevigny, they gave different accounts: the witness at Palleau, farther east, only saw "a green ball in rapid movement," while the one at Chevigny reported a complicated spectacle: slowing down, stopping, a "dead-leaf" descent, and a profusion of varied colors.

Second, whereas the two well-acquainted witnesses described quite different phenomena, those who did not know each other, those at Meursanges and the one at Chevigny, described exactly the same sight, and these two reports that are in agreement were from people only a few miles apart.

Luc Chastan indicates in his database that in the Saone et Loire in Palleau on October 14, 1954, at an unknown hour, "In a field, a farmer sees a green luminous ball flying while passing above him at high speed."

The source is indicated to be my website at "http://ufologie.net" (its old home page URL).

Case Nr.	New case Nr.	Investigator	Date of observation	Zip	Place of observation	Country of observation	Hour of observation	Classification	Comments	Identification
19541012			12.10.1954		Palleau	France		NL
19541014			14.10.1954		Palleau	France	18.30	NL

Version:	Created/Changed by:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	April 16, 2004	First published.
1.0	Patrick Gross	April 8, 2009	Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. Additions [lcn1].
1.1	Patrick Gross	July 6, 2010	Addition [jve3].
1.2	Patrick Gross	February 21, 2017	Addition [ubk1].
1.4	Patrick Gross	July 11, 2019	Addition [aml5], Summary.

The 1954 French flap:

October 14, 1954, Palleau, Saône-et-Loire:

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