The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 54-Dôle.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
Jean Sider included in his 1997 book about the French flap of 1954 1954 book an insert on "side effects", including cases of "Windshield cancer".
He indicated that ufologist Michel Jeantheau, who had searched the Press on this matter, had discovered that these "effects, natural in principle" occurred in large numbers in 1954, but much less before and after, what he found amazing.
At the National Library, Versailles Annex, Jeantheau was mistaken and consulted by mistake newspapers of 1953 instead of 1954, and so he found that the "anomalies" of this kind were mostly of 1954. He then checked for 1955 and 19556 and made the same discovery.
Among the cases of "Windshield cancer" found by Jeantheau, Sider quotes that "a windshield broke out in a garage in Dôle", Jura, "leaving a hole traced with perfect regularity!"
Jean Sider said he lets the reader "think what he wants" about such occurrences.
[Ref. jsr1:] JEAN SIDER:
Jean Sider includes in his 1997 book about the French flap of 1954 1954 book an insert on "side effects", including cases of "Windshield cancer".
He indicates that ufologist Michel Jeantheau, who had searched the Press on this matter, had discovered that these "effects, natural in principle" occurred in large numbers in 1954, but much less before and after, what he found amazing.
At the National Library, Versailles Annex, Jeantheau was mistaken and consulted by mistake newspapers of 1953 instead of 1954, and so he found that the "anomalies" of this kind were mostly of 1954. He then checked for 1955 and 19556 and made the same discovery.
Among the cases of "Windshield cancer" found by Jeantheau, Sider quotes that "a windshield broke out in a garage in Dôle", Jura, "leaving a hole traced with perfect regularity!"
Jean Sider says he lets the reader "think what he wants" about these occurrences.
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Totally insufficient information.
The windshields "explosions" in 1954, called "window cancer" or "parebrisite" in French, has become an often cited example of "collective illusion" or "mass hysteria". Sociologists and psychologists refer to these incidents in France and in the United States to ensure that "crowds" can easily fall into unfounded collective myths.
And of course, some "skeptical" ufologists explain that the "window cancer" that preceded the wave of "flying saucers" of 1954 proves that the saucers too were only illusions.
None put forward the following point: "collective hysteria" here would in any case concern only the interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves. And the interpretations were not really "hysterical", they were attempts at rationalization quite understandable and sensible in the context of the time.
All sorts of explanations were advanced at the time for the "window cancer", such as an effect of atomic experiments, Martian activity, or "vandals". In the United States, the police found that the epidemic affected mainly old cars, and it was thought that the windows would explode as a result of their wear.
In the windshield explosions reported in France in 1954, I find "constants": the mention of a light or a flash, blue when the color is mentioned, the lack of sense of the explanations by vandals, Martians, atomic tests, the insistence of the witness(es) that no pebble struck the windshield, the hearing of an explosion sound, the opacity of the window after the explosion.
Some of these characteristics have really no strangeness: an explosion noise is perfectly normal when a windshield breaks. The window becomes opaque because the anti-burst protection layer produced this. The lack of notice of a shock by a pebble or something else can also be explained: the windshield may have been hit and weakened by a hit long before, and then explodes only later when nothing hits it.
Jimmy Guieu linked this mystery to the extraterrestrials, but few ufologists followed him on this path. The Press did it sometimes, but without claiming this "explanation" was serious.
Michel Jeantheau thought such cases often occurred when "flying saucers" were reported in the same area. But here, the date not being indicated, this claim cannot be checked..
In this case, we do not seem to be in the usual "scenario" of the windshield cancer, in which a windshield explodes entirely. There would have been a perfectly cut hole in a windshield, and that would have happened in a garage, which suggests that it could have happened without a witness at the time it happened. Did some burglar use a diamond blade?
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Dôle, Jura, windshield cancer, glass cancer, hole, windshield, garage
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 2, 2019 | First published. |
