The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 16-Oct-54-Haute-Loire.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The regional newspaper Le Quotidien de la Haute-Loire for October 17, 1954, had reported numerous observations in the South-East of France of a "luminous craft" which would quickly prove to have been an Italian high-altitude balloon launched by the University of Padua.
One of the observations took place on October 16, 1954, at 03:30 p.m.: "a lady of which we will conceal the name but of which we warrant that she is serious, informed her husband that she noted the same phenomenon in the sky above the virgin. The observant was at this moment near la place du Greffe."
[Ref. lqh1:] NEWSPAPER "LE QUOTIDIEN DE LA HAUTE-LOIRE":
The weather station Albert Baldit in Chadrac (Haute-Loire) could observe yesterday evening from 05:50 p.m. to 06:35 p.m., with glasses, a luminous machine that appeared to have the shape of an olive supporting a black antenna at its top. Moreover, observers noted that the object that threw very shining reflections of aluminium had a black trace at its third and two thirds. The station believed to have identified at the beginning of its observations the planet Jupiter, the largest of our solar system. But this machine which compared to north was 100° west changed color, with the setting sun, to become red and disappear in two minutes. Several people made the same observations from the place of Breuil while looking towards the Durande. It does indeed seem that is was the same mysterious apparatus which was observed at the same hour by the observatory of Rueyres (Cantal), by an employee of EDF in Brives-la-Gaillarde and by the inhabitants of Brioude (Haute-Loire).
At 03:30 P.M., a lady of which we will conceal the name but of which we warrant that she is serious, informed her husband that she noted the same phenomenon in the sky above the virgin. The observant was at this moment near la place du Greffe.
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I could not locate a "Place du Greffe" in Chadrac nor Brioude nor Rueyres nor Brive-la-Gaillarde.
Probable high-altitude balloon of the Padua University. See also the note about it by Raymond Veillith in 1968.
The photograph of the balloon by the Observatory of Haute-Provence:
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(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Haute-Loire, place du Greffe
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| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | July 5, 2007 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | December 28, 2009 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | November 27, 2019 | Addition of the Summary. |
