The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 21-Oct-54-Montreuil-sur-Mer.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The regional newspaper Le Courrier Picard for October 23, 1954, reported en page 6 about "mysterious phenomena" in the Pas-de-Calais department.
One of them was that in Montreuil-sur-Mer, some young people playing "Thursday" - therefore October 21, 1954 - a nocturnal basketball game on the avenue du Général -Leclerc, had clearly seen, twice, a luminous body crossing the sky at a very high speed, first from east to west, then in the opposite direction.
Their testimony, according to this journal, described the "craft" as resembling a fluorescent light tube, which appeared to them "to have a length double that of the diameter of the moon, as it appears to us."
[Ref. cpd1:] NEWSPAPER "LE COURRIER PICARD":
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Several people declare having observed in Le Touquet, Thursday 21, at 7:15 p.m., an unidentified object of round shape and very bright (much more than the stars). Its color was yellow-red. Its size, given the altitude, appeared like a plate. This "object" was followed by a trail, also very bright, whose length was about 2 1/2 times its diameter.
Coming from the sea, it was moving at a dizzying speed, towards the east and disappeared very quickly in the eyes of the observers.
Note that in early October, a young resident of Le Touquet found, on the Canche, a sounding balloon covered with a cap with antennas, fitted with all sorts of gear and lamps and hung on a parachute. This balloon had an approximate diameter of 1 meter. The young man wrote to the War Office in London, who answered him immediately, thanking him and telling him that they had followed the route and the landing of this sounding balloon; which was no longer of interest now for them.
Note that if this balloon was taken, certainly, at random if its wanderings, for a flying saucer, here and there, and perhaps even photographed as such, the phenomenon of Thursday evening has nothing in common, however with a similar object.
In addition, in Montreuil-sur-Mer, a few young people who were playing Thursday at night, a nocturnal basketball game, on the grounds of avenue Général-Leclerc, clearly saw, twice, a luminous body crossing the sky at a very high speed, first east to west, then in the opposite direction.
Their testimony describes the craft as resembling a fluorescent light tube; which appeared to them to be twice the length of the diameter of the moon, as it appears to us.
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If there had only been one passage, we would logically think of a meteor, especially as we have a description of a meteor at 19:15 at Le Touquet at 07:15 p.m. near here. But here there would have been a second pass in the opposuite direction; which is problematic.
Was it a meteor and something else? Or rather, something else then a meteor? There is something unidentified here; but the strangeness seems weak and the report is very poor.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Montreuil-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, young, multiple, game, night, avenue Général-Leclerc, two, object, body, bright, fast, direction, craft, tube, fluorescent, luminous, big
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | May 5, 2020 | First published. |
