The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 22-Dec-54-Strasbourg.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The regional newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for December 23, 1954, reported an incident the day before, December 22, 1954, shortly before sunset.
Several residents of Strasbourg crossing the Saint Thomas bridge, saw two luminous white discs "the size of an orange," and between the two, a "cigar of which only the center was luminous."
These objects were moving very quickly across the sky from south to north and were suddenly lost sight on the horizon.
The newspaper notes that throughout the afternoon, there were fighter planes over the city, but that the witnesses had denied that they could have mistaken them with saucers and "cigar".
[Ref. dna1:] JOURNAL "DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE":
Strasbourg. -- Wednesday evening, shortly before sunset, many city residents observed, as they crossed the St. Thomas bridge, two luminous white discs the size of an orange, and between the two, a cigar of which only the center was luminous.
The objects moved rapidly across the sky from south to north to suddenly disappear on the horizon.
Note that throughout the afternoon, the presence of fighters over the city, the witnesses denied that they could have mistaken them with the saucers and the cigar.
[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:
Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.
In this book, he reports that Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for December 23, 1954, in their bilingual issue, published:
Strasbourg - Wednesday evening, shortly before sunset, many city residents observed, as they crossed the St. Thomas bridge, two luminous white discs the size of an orange, and between the two, a cigar of which only the center was luminous.
The objects moved rapidly across the sky from south to north to suddenly disappear on the horizon.
Note that throughout the afternoon, the presence of fighters over the city, the witnesses denied that they could have mistaken them with the saucers and the cigar.
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I am not used to advertizing at all, and I do not have a particular relationship with the author, but I wanted to say a word about Christian Valentin's book, "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés" ("Myths and Realities of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena"), (cover below), ref. [cvn2]; which, as its subtitle suggests, deals with Alsatian cases.
I think that Alsatian ufologists and generally people interested in the question of UFOs, or in the history of Alsace, my region, would like this book.
Christian Valentin's 144-page book is sober but well presented, unbiased, richly documented and illustrated, and this is the first work on paper dealing specifically with accounts of Alsatian sightings. (There was another one a few years earlier, but it simply copied, without citing them as sources, portions of my website, particularly the Alsatian cases that I had dealt with almost exhaustively in my catalog of UFOs in France in 1954, and from another website, the trivial explanations that I offered or indicated when there were any being almost systematically suppressed!)
The author does not attempt to prove or disprove the possibility of extraterrestrial visits or other so-called "extraordinary" explanations, he rather offers a chronologically ordered review of the UFO cases in Alsace, starting from the origins and stopping in 1980, based on known ufological sources, on articles from the regional press and on less known or even unpublished cases that he collected directly. Its own comments are in a different color, the references of its sources are always given. A great job in my opinion!
The author currently has a blog, where he indicates which bookstores in the region have the book, see: christian.valentin.overblog.com
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About the hour: the newspaper did not give it, but said it was just before sunset. My astronomy software tells me that the sunset was at 04:39 p.m.. I give the time as 04:30 p.m., but of course "just before sunset" is obviously not a very scientific indication.
This case is the last known case of the "1954 saucer flap" for Alsace. Without Christian Valentin, it would have remained unknown, as no other source mentioned it.
The Saint Thomas bridge in Strasbourg is inside the city and totally surrounded by buildings; this implies that the objects could not be low on the horizon. The objects were said to go the south to the north, this implies that they may have passed overhead of the witnesses, unless they were very far from them in the East or West of them.
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Above: view to the south from S. Thomas bridge in Strasbourg, by day in 2013.
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Above: view to the north from Saint Thomas bridge in Strasbourg, by day in 2013.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, multiple, anonymous, bridge, city, saucer, cigar, white, luminous, fast, two, three, planes
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | May 2, 2014 | Creation, [dna1], [cvn2]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | May 2, 2014 | First published. |
