The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 54-Paris-3.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The Paris weekly Radar, during the wave of 1954, launched a first contest offering a million old francs to anyone who would give them a Martian. The magazine then launched a similar contest to reward any authentic photography of flying saucers.
One of the images shown as contest result in this magazine, on October 24, 1954, among others, none being accepted as "authentic", was titled "clumsy hoax":
|
Radar indicated that it was taken in Paris by an anonymous photographer whote wrote to them:
"Do not claim that my document is manifestly false. Besides, I do not want your million. I run after science and not after big bucks."
The "formal" verdict by Mr. Natkin was "Film overlay is done!" - he liekly meant it was a double exposure.
[Ref. rdr1:] "RADAR" MAGAZINE:
|
PARIS. -- A brave anonymous yawns us beautiful! He must be a reader of "Dangerous Liaisons." Like the heroine of this book, he runs ahead of refutation. "Do not claim," he writes, "that my document is manifestly false. Besides, I do not want your million. I run after science and not after big bucks." On this elite subject and this chiefs' fakery, Mr. Natkin is formal: Film overlay is done!
[Ref. ort1:] O.R.T.F. FRENCH NATIONAL TV:
|
|
|
Probable photographic hoax.
Weekly magazine "Radar", at the time of the 1954 French saucer flap, started a first contest offering a million old francs to whoever would deliver a Martian to them. The magazine then launched a similar contest to reward any authentic photograph of a flying saucer:
|
On February 14, 1965, the ORTF showed a television documentary about the flying saucers, during which fragments of the Radar article appeared. I have neither the entire Radar article nor its day and month of publication.
The image shown in [rdr1] appeared in this magazine among others, none being accepted as "authentic".
I do not have any other information, and it is not entirely certain that the image was said to have been taken in France and in 1954.
Having now obtained the Radar magazine article, I am able to complete this file.
The Radar jury evaluations were obviously quite superficial. The image is admitedly probably fraudulent, but given the way the jury commented on things, it is not even certain that here, the only one of their members who gave an opinion, Marcel Natkin, then director of the Le Photographe magazine, really noticed the fact of the double exposure; it was perhaps only his guess.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Photograph, saucer, Paris, anonymous, double exposure, photographic hoax
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 10, 2010 | First published. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | November 13, 2019 | Addition of the Summary. |
| 1.2 | Patrick Gross | April 27, 2020 | Addition [rdr1]. In the Summary, deletion of "I found no other information so far, and it is not entirely certain that the image was said to have been taken in France and in 1954", Addition from "Radar indicated..." on. In the Explanations, addition of the "Update on April 27, 2020" part. |
