The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 16-Oct-54-Toulouse.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In their 1979 book "La Gande Peur Martienne" ("The Great Martian Scare"), the "skeptical" ufologists Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker noted this case of October 16, 1954:
"Toulouse - 31 - around 9:15 pm: no investigation, obvious description of a fireball."
[Ref. aml1:] AIME MICHEL:
Aimé Michel wrote about the October 16, 1954, 09:30 p.m. meteor:
THE TEST OF THE METEOR. October 16, as if it was purposely, a splendid meteor crossed the north of France towards 09:30 p.m.. It was observed on a score of departments by thousands of people, from the Allier to Lorraine and from the Swiss border to Paris. Naturally many witnesses believed to have seen a Flying Saucer and said so. The newspapers printed "Flying Saucer in Orly", or "in Montididier", or "in Metz." But once again the description made by all these weak brains appeared of a remarkable honesty.
[...]
The innumerable gathered testimonys show indeed that even when the witnesses called "Flying saucer" the observed object, their description is identical on 200.000 square kilometres where the visible phenomenon was visible: an "orange ball followed by a trail", a "large luminous ball with a tail", a "flying egg followed by a trail", a "bottle's bottom with a trail of thirty times its diameter", etc. The same phenomenon is uniformly described.
[...]
[Ref. bbr1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:
The two authors note this case of October 16, 1954:
"Toulouse - 31 - At approximately 09:15 p.m.: no investigation. Obvious description of a fireball."
Further in their book, they claim that "the few serious investigators" who had admitted the fact that it was a meteor which had generated this type of observations were the technicians of the scientific office of the Air Force.
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Probable meteor.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées, fireball, luminous, night
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | February 3, 2006 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | December 26, 2009 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | November 26, 2019 | Addition of the Summary. Explanations changed, were 2Not looked for yet." |
