The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 16-Oct-54-Lacour.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In their 1979 book "La Grande Peur Martienne" ("The Great Martian Scare"), "skeptical" ufologists Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker gave this text as coming from the newspaper Sud-Ouest for October 21, 1954:
"Mr. Chabanneau, owner of the Mill of Mestre, said - I was watching the cattle when we clearly saw more than forty machines which evolved at an altitude of 1 500 to 2 000 meters. Northern to southern displacement at high speed. Different shapes: rounds, ovals, triangulars. Some had below a kind of cabin below, others appeared twinned. We clearly distinguished a kind of chain which connected them. The last seen with the sun setting down, on Lacour, had a scarlet red color certainly caused by the setting sun."
"Before sunset, the color of these machines was of a matt colour like the Moon. Some advanced at a vertiginous speed comparable to that of shooting stars. Others moved less quickly, some at a relatively moderate pace. They seemed to make teams of three or four. During more than one hour, we were intrigued."
They explained that were it not for this this article, they would not have thought it was a meteor... And elsewhere in their book, they noted:
"Lacour - 82 - 05:30 p.m.: investigation, fugitive luminous phenomenon."
[Ref. bbr1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:
The two authors note this case of October 16, 1954:
"Lacour - 82 - 05:30 p.m.: investigation. Fugitive luminous phenomenon."
Further in their book, they note that they would not have thought of a meteor if there had not been this article of the "Sud-Ouest" for October 21, 1954, of which they give the content as follows:
"Mr. Chabanneau, owner of the Mill of Mestre, said - I was watching the cattle when we clearly saw more than forty machines which evolved at an altitude of 1 500 to 2 000 meters. Northern to southern displacement at high speed. Different shapes: rounds, ovals, triangulars. Some had below a kind of cabin below, others appeared twinned. We clearly distinguished a kind of chain which connected them. The last seen with the sun setting down, on Lacour, had a scarlet red color certainly caused by the setting sun."
"Before sunset, the color of these machines was of a matt colour like the Moon. Some advanced at a vertiginous speed comparable to that of shooting stars. Others moved less quickly, some at a relatively moderate pace. They seemed to make teams of three or four. During more than one hour, we were intrigued."
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I have no idea what these lights might have been, but Barthel and Brucker's explanation is obviously ridiculous.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Lacour, Tarn-et-Garonne, luminous, Chabanneau, Moulin de Mestre, fast, slow, shooting stars, round, oval, triangle, bind, matt, red, orange, duration
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | January 30, 2006 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | December 28, 2009 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | December 16, 2019 | Addition of the Summary. Explanations changed, were "Not looked for yet." |
