The 1954 French flap:

Did a flying saucer
land in the Yonne?

The witnesses - two women - are formal
and "traces" were noted

Auxerre (from our P.C.). - Friday morning, Mrs. widow Geoffroy, living in the hamlet of Les Jolivets, commune of Dizes [sic] (Yonne), was going to join the wash house where she usually works, at a place called "En Bécard", when her attention was attracted by a strange craft resting to the left in a clearing.

It was a "flying saucer" type craft, as the press has described it for a few weeks.

Elongated, measuring six or seven meters, the cigar (seen in profile) was brown in color with a bulge at its upper central part. Beside, a man of average height was looking at Mrs. Geoffroy, who got scared and did not return until two hours later.

Fortunately, another person, Miss Gisèle Fin, who kept her goats on the other side of the wood, was warned of this unusual presence by the barking of her dogs. She saw, about thirty meters away, a crouching man, appearing of normal height, who was busy around a machine.

Continued on page 6, under the title
SAUCER

SAUCER

This craft is described in the same way as Mrs. Goeffroy did.

Miss Fin carefully brought her goats back along a path towards the road in order to have a better look, while being safe. She took her eyes off the apparatus for three or four minutes. When she wanted to look again from the road, she saw nothing. Silently, craft had disappeared.

On the dew, where it had been seen, there were traces of dry grass, 50 centimeters apart, attesting that the saucer, mounted on skates. "I saw them clearly [sic]," said Miss Fin, had indeed landed there.

Other people passing by a few moments later could verify it.

The declarations of the Icauneses correspond to those given by a peasant from Bugeat, who saw an identical craft and a person on the plateau of Millevaches, in Limousin.

A month ago, a resident of Dize, hamlet of Varennes, Mrs. Lucas, saw a craft which was hovering and which, all of a sudden, soared vertically. It was a superb moonlight. Mrs. Lucas dared not say anything, for fear that she would be laughed at.

Does the region of Dize, due to the presence of heaps of ocher extracted from the wells of Sully, attract, by its light spots, the attention of observers of interplanetary ships?

A FLYING SAUCER LANDED IN THE YONNE

In Diges, two people have glanced for a moment, ona mysterious craft and its pilot
in a clearing
Only evidence: two traces in the morning dew

Our colleague, Jean-Claude CHARLET, has reconstituted for you the image seen by Mrs widow GEOFFROY and Miss FIN. (Photograph L'Yonne Républicaine).

(From our special investigators)

Our icaunian sky already had the privilege of being streaked by various diurnal or nocturnal appearances. None of these craft had landed on the ground of our department.

It does seem that this took place now, since two people of Diges saw a craft of dark and dull color, hidden in the angle of a clearing on Friday morning, at 9 hours approximately. Without noise, the apparatus disappeared with speed and discretion.

HALLUCINATION OR TRUTH?

Although we had received this information with much circumspection, we were obliged to face the obvious fact. An unknown machine, different from modern flying technique of our planet was landed, Friday morning, in Diges.

Let us take again the collected statements. You will more easily follow the logic of our investigation.

Mrs widow Geoffroy
AUX JOLIVETS

"I was going in the direction of the Cognats, to the laundry place located below the road which goes from Diges to the Michauts."

"Before turning on the right and taking the path to the laundry point, my attention was drawn to the left by an odd machine. Near this mass having the shape of a reversed saucer, a man of average size looked at me."

" - How was he dressed?"

"- He was dressed of dark color and wore a kind of kaki cap on the head - probably. He exceeded by one head the height of the saucer."

"- Which colour?"

"- Dark dull gray, almost brown."

"- Shiny?"

"- No, dull."

"- Which length?"

"- You know, 5 to 6 meters. I was at a hundred meters. I did not look for long. I was seized by fear and I went away again without "beating around the bushes." When I went back there two hours afterwards, I did not see anything. No traces."

"Go see for yourself. You will notice the meadow. At the bottom on the right one dead (birch) lays down. It is easy to found the place."

A pastoral stage set

To land, the pilot chose his place, without any doubt. The meadow, (80 meters out of 40), slightly in slope, is framed on three sides by a heavy vegetation, where various types of trees of species common in our area gathered. There are also chestnut trees whose leaves are already turning yellow.

The fourth side of the meadow is bordered by a road, but from above it, this access way must be hidden by the trees. On this fourth face on the other side of the road, close to the laundry place, a splendid curtain of birches with their white trunks add a pleasant aesthetic note to this pastoral decoration.

So this is the modest landing strip, quite clear and hidden in the middle of the wood. It is perfectly appropriate for the one who can and wants to land without being seen.

Having noted some wheel tracks in the field, we thought (the extreme limit of our cautious imagination), that some English or American camper had managed to picnic in the quietness with his car and that the car was covered with a dark gray cover... But our assumptions were going to be nullified in face of the answers of the second person who has seen the saucer.

Miss Gisèle FIN

IN MONTCHENOT

Employed at Mrs. Guillot's, Miss Fin, orphan in state care, walked her goats which grazed on a forest road very close to the clearing located "in Bécard".

"- My dogs, one white and the other black, started to bark a little in the meadow. I approached at about thirty meters and, from this place, I saw a machine, lower than a car, of sunken gray color, maroon. A mixture difficult to describe.

"- Was the colour dull or shiny?"

"- Dull and one tone."

"- Which height?"

"One meter approximately. The machine of five meters at least was more pointed at one end and was more rounded at the other end."

"- Could it have been round?"

Yes, but I maintain that it was more pointed on one end side. It rested on bars. I saw them."

"What was there on it. Was there no door?"

"- Yes there was a door, like that of a trap door, it was opened, right in the air". (what Mrs. Geoffroy mistook from a bulge from a more important distance)."

"- Nothing was shining on this door?"

"The pilot dressed almost in black wore a helmet (1). He had shoes and, close to his apparatus, he was working, almost squatted. The collar of his outfit was raised. I did not see the color of his skin."

With her goats, Miss Gisele Fin follows a path and approaches the road where she would feel in better safety. She thus quits looking at the machine and goes into the depths of the wood. When, by the road, she turned back to look at in the clearing, the machine disappeared without any noise.

HALLUCINATION, MYSTERY or TRUTH?

The mystery remains whole, obviously.

PROOF

One evidence only, according to a women of Mrs. Guillot's farm who went on the premises a little while later. She claimed to us, like Miss Fin, to have seen in the two tracks 50 centimeters apart and broad as the finger (the grass was dry in this place).

There, must the tracks have landed whose heat like a tepid domestic iron, dried the dew.

It is all that remained there from the visit of this unknown machine. There are no traces left any more now.

AN INTERESTING REGION?

Our investigation is practically finished. You know as many details than we do.

We will still add to clarify the doubtful points that one resident of the hamlet of Varennes, commune of Diges also, Mrs. Lucas, saw one evening, one month ago, a strange machine which moved as if hovering above her house.

The moonlight allowed a perfect vision. Then, in only one blow, at a right angle, the machine left vertically, prodigiously quickly... Mrs. Lucas did not say anything for fear that she would be ridiculed.

What can be attractive to the saucers in the area of Diges?

Only one assumption. The ochre heaps, of Sauilly, must be surprising, so that they draw the attention of the air observers.

Let us hope that, without any damage, we will soon know the bottomline.

Mrs. widow Geoffroy and Miss Fin are then the first Icaunians who looked from relatively close at... At whom, by the way?

The inhabitants of another planet or advanced people of our good old Earth: the first to master cosmic energy?

Jacques DELINDRY.

(1) Cap or helmet? It may have been that two passengers, one with a cap, one with a helmet, came out of the apparatus one alternatively.

The round of the saucers continues...

Two residents of the Yonne saw
a "flying cigar" and its pilot

A few years ago, only some "privileged" could boast of having seen "flying saucers", and moreover, the craft kept their distance...

Today, visual testimonies are multiplying and, moreover, some are claiming that the craft land on the ground. At least, this is what results from the statements of two residents of Diges, in the Yonne.

The first, Mrs. Geoffroy, 59, who seems to enjoy the integrity of her faculties, told the following story:

"I was heading, Friday morning, at around 9 a.m., to the washhouse located below the road from Diges to Les Michauts, when my attention was drawn to a bizarre craft posed in the clearing bordered by wood."

And Mrs. Geoffroy describes the craft:

Made of a cigar, pointed at both ends, curved at the top, towards the middle, approximate dimensions: 4 to 5 meters.

Mrs. Geoffroy continues: "Close to the craft, a man was busy, seeming to make a repair. He watched me pass without saying anything. He was of average size and wore a kind of khaki cap on his head. I became scared and I ran away. Two hours later, when I passed by there, the craft had disappeared."

On very thin skates

This disturbing statement was to be corroborated by a second witness: Miss Gisèle Fin, 16, who kept cows on a small trail near the washhouse.

The teenage girl gives roughly the same description of the craft which, she specifies, rested on very thin skates. She too saw the pilot and, here, the description varies somewhat: it was a helmet, similar to that of motorcyclists, that he wore on his head. He was dressed in a dark color outfit.

Miss Fin's boss, informed, returned to the place a little later; she noticed in the grass two parallel tracks 50 cm apart, seeming to correspond to prints made by skates.

The gendarmes did not arrive until the next day and they found no trace. To them, "the mystery remains whole."

Other residents of Deux-Sèvres, Finistère, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales in particular, saw various luminous discs, of different colors, crossing the sky above or in front of them.

Read more on the last page under the title:
SAUCERS

In the Yonne, two women saw a flying saucer in a field and the pilot who inspected the craft

Auxerre, September 27. -- Mrs widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, living in Diges (Yonne), claim to have seen Friday morning at 9 o'clock a "flying saucer". They add that it landed in a field.

The "pilot" inspected the "craft" whose top door was open.

The saucer went again, they say, a few minutes later, leaving two marks visible on the sodden earth of the field.

AS OTHERS
APPEAR
IN THE CORREZE

Giant Martians
collect herbs
in Portugal

There are many types of Martians. This is what can be concluded from the statements of a Portuguese peasant. Those we "saw" in France were the size of pygmies. The Portuguese Martians are 2.50 m guys!

In a letter to the daily "Diario de Lisboa", Mr. César Cardoso reveals that on September 24, at 10 a.m., he saw there, as well as three of his comrades, a flying saucer landing in the middle of a meadow in the Gardunha mountains (Spanish-Portuguese border).

- A sphere appeared in the sky, says the witness. It flew at breakneck speed and launched multicolored flashes. It landed noiselessly 200 meters from us and two figures, about 2.50 meters tall, descended from it. They looked like aluminum men. These visitors first gathered herbs and picked up stones which they placed in a blindingly bright box. Then, perceiving us, they came to us and uttered a few sounds.

The Portuguese not understanding Martian, the travelers invited them by gestures to get into their apparatus.

- We politely refused, César Cardoso adds. They did not insist and got back into their craft. It took off vertically and disappeared at lightning speed, releasing a shower of sparks.

The witness - who, for a mountain dweller, uses very learned terms - clarified that only the "poles" of the sphere were rotating and that the "equatorial" part was transparent and allowed moving shadows to be seen inside!

Sparkling lights

Is this the same saucer that a Panamerican Airways plane encountered? Captain Freeman, who piloted an aircraft of this company on the New York-South Africa line, declares that in the broad Atlantic, at 37 degrees west longitude and 38 north latitude, off the Azores, he was struck by the presence of several sparkling lights on the ocean.

Fluorescent tube
in Denmark

Portugal does not have a monopoly on mysterious craft. Several inhabitants of Svendborg, in Denmark, saw, last night, a luminous object having the aspect of an immense fluorescent tube and which moved at high speed in the sky. It disappeared after five seconds.

In Ontario, a "saucer" (which was probably a cup) dropped an "azure blue rain"...

In France, yesterday, the Martians were discreet. Several Parisians claim, however, to have seen a luminous disc which, after having moved above the Buttes-Chaumont, stopped above the Sacré-Coeur...

Also, two women assure that last Friday they saw a saucer landing in a field in Diges (Yonne). The "pilot" was inspecting the craft whose door he had left open.

A "saucer"
lands in the Yonne?

Mrs. widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, living in Diges (Yonne), claim to have seen, Friday morning, at 9 a.m., a "flying saucer". They add that it had landed on a field.

Its "pilot inspected the craft", the top of which was open.

The saucer left, they still claim, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the soggy earth of the field.

FRANCE

-- Mrs. Jouffroy and Miss Fin, living in Diges (Yonne) claim to have seen, Friday morning at 9 a.m., a "flying saucer". They add that it landed on a field. Its "pilot" inspected the "craft", whose upper door was open.

BELGIUM

Several people who attended an open-air concert in Liège saw three shiny objects standing motionless in the sky last Sunday. One of them remained visible for five minutes, gradually reddening at both ends, before disappearing behind a cloud.

PORTUGUESE PEASANTS
INVITED BY A GIANT
TO TAKE PLACE IN
A FLYING SAUCER

Lisbon, 28. -- Visitors from another world landed on September 24 at ten in the morning, at a point in the Gardunha mountains, on the Spanish-Portuguese border: that's what a Portuguese peasant who, along with three of his other comrades, worked in this region, reported to the newspaper "Diario de Lisboa".

"A sphere appeared in the sky to the east, declares the witness. It flew at a dizzying speed and launched multicolored lightnings. It landed silently 200 meters from us and two silhouettes about 2 m. 50 tall came down. They looked like aluminum men. These visitors first picked herbs and gathered stones which they put in a box of a blinding glare. Then, perceiving us, they came to us and emitted a few sounds.

"In front of our incomprehension, they invited us by gestures to go up in their craft, on our refusal, they went up in the machine which took off vertically and disappeared towards the South as fast as it had arrived".

The witness clarified that only the "poles" of the sphere were rotating and that the equatorial part was transparent and allowed moving shadows to be seen inside.

In the Yonne, two women
declare having seen another
craft posed on a field

Auxerre, 28. -- Mrs. widow Joffroy and Miss Fin, living in diges (Yonne) affirm to have seen Friday morning, at 9 a.m., a "flying saucer." They add that it landed on a field.

Its "pilot" was inspecting the "apparatus" with the top door open.

The saucer went, they still say, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the soggy earth of the field.

In the Yonne two women claim to have seen a "flying saucer"

AUXERRE, September 28. -- Mrs. widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, living in Diges (Yonne), claim to have seen a "flying saucer", on Friday morning at 9 a.m. They add that it landed on a field.

Its "pilot" was inspecting the "apparatus" whose top door was open.

The saucer wnr, they still say, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the soggy earth of the field.

Always
the saucers!...

Auxerre, September 28. -- Mrs. widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, living in Dijon (Yonne) claim to have seen Friday morning at 9 a.m. a "flying saucer". They add that it landed on a field.

Its "pilot" inspected the "craft" whose top door was open.

The saucer went away, they still say, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the soggy ground of the field.

MARTIANS WERE HOAXERS

The travelers of another world, whose newspaper of Lisbon had announced their visit in Portugal, were not born from an imagination exacerbated by the innumerable visions of flying saucers. They were only the creation of mystifiers, that the same newspaper denounces today.

FLYING SAUCERS IN THE YONNE

Widow Mrs. Jouffroy [Geoffroy] and Miss Fin, resident of Diges (Yonne) claim to have seen a flying saucer on Friday morning (24 09/1954) at 09:00 hours. They added that it was landed on a field. The saucer set out again, they also claim, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the softened ground of the field.

Did a flying saucer land in the Yonne?

The witnesses - two women - are formal and traces have been identified

Auxerre (of our C.P.). - Friday morning Mrs. widow Geoffroy, living in the hamlet of Les Jolivets, commune of Dizes [sic] (Yonne), went to join the washhouse where she usually works, at the place "En Bécard", when her attention was attracted by a bizarre machine resting on the left of a clearing.

It was a device like a "flying saucer", as the Press had described it for a few weeks.

The cigar (seen in profile) was elongated, six or six feet in diameter, and was brown in color with a bulge in its upper central part. Beside, a man of average height was looking at Mme Geoffroy, who became frightened and did not return until two hours later.

Fortunately, another person, Miss Gisèle Fin, who kept her goats on the other side of the wood, was warned of this unusual presence by the barking of her dogs. She saw, about thirty yards away, a crouching man, apparently of normal height, who was busy working around a machine.

Continued on page 6, under the title
SAUCER

This craft is described in the same way as Mrs. Geoffroy did.

Miss Fin led her dogs cautiously by the path in the direction of the road to better look while being safe. So she looked away from the craft for three or four minutes. When she wanted to look again, she saw nothing. Without noise, the craft had disappeared.

On the dew, in the place where it had been seen, there were traces of dried grass, at a distance of 80 centimeters, attesting that the saucer, mounted on skates - "I clearly saw them," said Miss Fin - did really land there.

Other people passing a few moments later were able to check it out.

The declarations of the Leaunais correspond to those given by a Bugeat peasant, who traded an identical craft and person on the plateau of Millevaches, in Limousin.

A month ago, a resident of Dizes, a hamlet of Varennes, Mrs. Lucas, had seen a hovering craft; which suddenly skyrocketed vertically. It was a superb moonlight. Madame Lucas dared not say anything, lest she whould be mocked.

Does the region of Dizes, because of the presence of ocher piles extracted from the wells of Sully, attract, by its clear spots, the attention of the observers in the interplanetary vessels?

In the Yonne, two women state to have seen a flying saucer

Auxerre, AFP. -. Mrs widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, residents of Diges (the Yonne) claim to have seen Friday morning at 9 o'clock a "flying saucer". They add that it was posed in a field.

Its "pilot" was inspecting the "apparatus" whose upper door was open.

The saucer went away again, they further claim, a few minutes later, leaving two marks visible on the soaking ground of the field.

The first flying cigar landed... on skates at 15 km of Auxerre

AND ITS PILOT WAS A NEGROE

Auxerre.
The landing of several flying saucers has already been announced many times: some go even as far as to say with a point of irony that it has become ordinary. But no flying cigar had so far been seen on the ground; since a few hours this regrettable gap has been filled: the object was seen in the Yonne, in Diges, about fifteen kilometers from Auxerre. The two witnesses are formal. Widowed Mrs. Geoffroy, 69 years, declared to the gendarmes of the locality: "Yes, sirs, I saw it with my eyes (sic). It was 9 hours of the morning, I went to the laundry point, when my attention was drawn by an apparatus having the shape of a cigar pointed at the two ends and larger in the center. Near the machine, a man of average size looked at me passing by. He wore a kaki cap. Its face was very brown, almost black. But suddenly, I was afraid and I left running. Two hours afterwards, when I returned, the cigar had disappeared."

Continued on page 11 under the headline "FLYING CIGARS"

SAUCERS AND FLYING CIGARS

Continued from the first page

Landing on skates

At 09:15, the cigar was also seen at the same place by Miss Gisele Fin, aged 16, orphan in state care, who walked her goats. The attention of the girl was drawn by the barkings of the two dogs which accompanied her. The declarations of Miss Fin coincide with those of Mrs. Geoffroy. The latter however specified that the mysterious machines seemed to rest on very thin skates. Frightened in her turn, the girl escaped. The owner of the young goatkeeper, alerted, was to find at the place where the cigar rested two traces which seemed to be left by skates. But the gendarmes who came in number... the next day morning, did not see anything.

FLYING SAUCER ON BONN

Bonn (A.F.P.).
Bonn, the capital of the federal Republic [of Germany], is said to have been in its turn overflown by flying saucers, according to the correspondent of the newspaper "General Anzeiger".

This newspaper published Thursday the photography of an employee of administration and a housewife who are said to have seen the "unidentified flying objects" in the sky of Bonn. Several neighbors of these witnesses are said to have confirmed their statements. The newspaper does not specify the dates of these appearances of which one would have been noted in full midday and the other in the night.

A wave of strange "objects" sweeps over France

Martians amateur
of darkness play
hide and seek

But all those who have
seen "saucers"
are not dreamers

By Gabriel Heres

An invasion of a flying saucer and other mysterious craft is sweeping over Europe, and the number of recorded testimonies shows that France seems to be particularly targeted. It has hardly been daylight for weeks that several of these demonstrations have not been reported from Vendée to Moselle and Quiévrain to Bidassoa.

The abundance of these strange appearances is such that fear eventually reigns.

In Limousin, in particular, where a farmer was embraced, on September 10, by a yet very peaceful stranger, terror installed, especially in the region of Roches (Creuse), where children no longer dare to go to school alone and where the shepherds no longer want to keep their flocks since a disturbing shadow has been reported hiding in the thickets. We fear that the amiable Martians have embarked leaving one of his companions on earth.

In Diges (Yonne), two women saw, each on herr side, a cigar placed in a meadow and its pilot leaning over, on what may have been its engine. The "being" was of normal height, dressed in khaki and wearing a cap, but they were so afraid that, by an identical reflex, they fled and locked themselves up.

The flying saucers
disturbed the Sunday rest
a certain number of French people

Chamonix. -- The chronicle of flying saucers and other "cigars" continues to be abundantly provided. During the last weekend, the witnesses who have, in fact, seen mysterious craft are no longer counted.

It seems that Chamonix should be given priority, given that, at the same time, High mountain school officers, gendarmes and the Guiron pilot who was flying over the region saw for more than an hour a brilliant craft moving between Mount Lachat and Mount Blanc.

Pilot Guiron indicated that flying about 2000 meters above Faverges, he saw a craft which, he said, had no resemblance to a normal aircraft. In addition, the direction followed at high speed by this craft excluded the hypothesis of a weather balloon.

In Corbigny (Nièvre), several inhabitants saw a luminous orange disc which moved in the sky and disappeared vertically after have changed altitude several times.

In Breuil-Chaussée, in the Deux-Sèvres, Mr. Girardeau, 55, was on his way to work when, on a detour from the road, he noticed a circular craft "near which there was a being who appeared to him like dressed in a sort of diving suit." The "being" went towards him and Mr. Girardeau fled, frightened. Shortly after, the circular craft set off again at high speed!

"It looked like a haystack"

It is also a weird craft around which hovered two strange individuals who is said to have been seen by two young people of Vron (Somme). "We approached, they told the gendarmes. It looked like a haystack. Suddenly the craft took off."

In the Indre, both in Levroux and in Vatan, about fifteen people followed the moves of a luminous yellowish ball which rose and fell in the sky and could have been three meters in diameter.

Eisenhower and Malenkov
shaking hands
around a "saucer" ...

A pseudo-literator, on the contrary very happy that these fantastic beings come to join his philosophical ramblings, likens the "anti-saucers" to troublemakers

[Image caption:] The United States is preparing to build a flying saucer, the design of which was drawn up by a British engineer, Mr. John C. M. FROST. The craft, represented above by an American designer, would be able to take off vertically and reach a speed of 3000 kilometers per hour. The pilot is installed in the center. To take off, it triggers 180 thrusters placed all around the saucer. Once it is at the desired height, to move forward he simply operates the thrusters placed at the rear of the craft. The flying saucer is inspired by the experiments made in 1930 by the French Henri LOANDA [sic, Coanda].

YONNE: - It was
a little man

AUXERRE. -- Gisèle Fin, 15 years old, handmaid in Diges, saw the saucers mounted on skids that had landed in the vicinity of the farm where she is employod. "It is not bigger than a convertible car, she says. The pilot totally resembled men from here!"

In the Yonne, two women saw a flying saucer in a field, and the pilot inspecting the craft

Auxerre, September 27th. - Mrs widow Jouffroy and Miss Fin, residing in Diges (the Yonne), stated that they had seen a "flying saucer" on Friday morning at 9 a.m. They add that it landed on a field.

The "pilot" inspected the "craft" whose upper door was open.

The saucer went away, they say, a few minutes later, leaving two visible marks on the soggy soil of the field.

France In Grip Of Flying Saucer Fever

From June GODDARD In Paris

FRANCE, the land of logic, is in the full grip of the fever of flying saucers and of little men in space helmets, who make friendly, if unintelligible, advances to startled peasants, or nail them to the spot with a hypnotic "green ray."

For the past 10 days there have been unnumerable flying saucer reports from peasants, doctors, milkmen, butchers, farmers, housewives, gendarmes, teachers, from the Channel coast to the Mediterranean, from the Pyrenees to the Ardennes, from Britany to Alsace.

According to all these witnesses, the sky over France is alight with sparkling yellow "saucers," bluish globes, "flying cigars," (Once as dramatically reported from Mulhouse in Alsace, surrounded by "12 little cheroots"), plain aluminum "saucers," luminous "cigars," 10 "saucers" which seemed to perform a sort of ballet in the sky, and sometimes just plain "mysterious machines."

Unlike earlier flying saucers, those reported hovering over France fly low, sometimes at about 600 ft, and do not flash across the sky, but remain in view for as long as 15 minutes, or remain apparently immobile.

They variously spit flames, form luminous curtains of light, change color, land and take off vertically without a sound.

MANY French scientists, hitherto skeptical on the flying saucer question, are reported to be somewhat shaken by the multiplicity of reports, and by the fact that some are group observations, or individual reports which tally with others received from adjacent regions.

On the subject of little men or Martians, they reiterate that astronomers have never made any observations which could indicate a high form of life on Mars.

They point out that Mars is a thousand million years older than the earth, and that, if life did once exist there, it probably disappeared in the pink icy deserts which appear now to abound on the planet.

The protagonists of the flying saucers and the little men from Mars have been greatly encouraged by an article in the serious journal, "Forces Aériennes Françaises" (French Air Forces) written by a young aeronautical engineer, Lieut. J. Plantier, and approved by an engineer-in-chief of the Air Ministry.

Lieut. Plantier does not take sides, but merely demonstrates theoretically and by mathematical study that all the phenomenal behavior attributed to flying saucers is perfectly explicable if such machines were using cosmic ray energy,

Lieut. Plantier shows that the reports that flying saucers remain motionless in the sky, accelerate from immobility to 10,000 m.p.h. in a few seconds without any noise, and that living beings can fly in them without being harmed by the acceleration, are completely logical if it is admitted that energy of cosmic rays has been harnessed and that machines can fly at the speed of light.

IRRESPECTIVE of the views of scientists, however, French men and women continue to report daily appearances of saucers and cigars and their encounters with the space men.

First reaction of the honest French citizen in the face of any unusual happening or danger - including, it seems, phenomena from outer space - is to inform the gendarmes.

Accordingly, in villages and towns, bold gendarmes have been "alerted" as the French Press has it, and have been kept busy checking reports and examining alleged flying saucer landing areas for "traces."

Two gendarmes at Chateauroux in Central France themselves saw three luminous green flying objects.

Their police training immediately asserted itself, and they stopped a motor car driver and a cyclist so that they too could look and bear witness. Then the gendarmes made out a full report.

The only tangible evidence to date of a landing is that produced by Mr. Marius Dewilde, a 28-year-old metal worker in the North near Valenciennes.

Mr. Dewilde, a young man with a hairline moustache, a long - and it must be admitted, humorous - face, said he first saw the "Martians" from his garden near the railway line.

"Two little beings, not more than three feet high," he reported, "each wearing a sort of diving suit with metal helmet, were standing near a 'flying cigar,' which had landed on the railway sleepers."

Mr. Dewilde had no chance to shake hands or welcome the visitors in the name of the Fourth Republic for, as soon as they saw him, they hypnotized him with a "green ray" while they leapt into their machine which, of course, took off vertically in a thick cloud of smoke without making a sound.

Next day the gendarmes "alerted" at once by Mr. Dewilde and two inspectors of the Air Force police, found a series of strange regular marks on the railway sleepers, which could have been caused by the "saucer" in landing.

MOST intimate contact with the space men was reported by Mr. Antoine Mazaud, a farmer, aged 58, with a bushy grey moustache, who lives near Limoges in the Massif central plateau of France.

Mr. Mazaud alleges that a "Martian" about three feet high emerged from a "flying cigar" and began to talk in an unintelligible tongue. When he realized that Mr. Mazaud could not understand him, he kissed the farmer on the cheek.

Mr. Mazaud's argumentative fellow-countrymen, questioning this strange story, immediately wanted to know why a creature from another world should adopt the habit - not even universal on earth, they pointed - of kissing.

"It is surprising that he did not pin a medal on your chest and kiss you on both cheeks," they scoffed.

In view of this unsympathetic response to Mr. Mazaud's story, it is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Yves David, a farmer of Chatellerault, concealed for some days the fact that he had been touched on the arm by a "space man" before being momentarily hypnotized by the "green ray" like Mr. Dewilde.

Mr. David was afraid of being laughed at, he said, but eventually asked a friend if anyone else had seen the space man. The friend spread the news and, of course, told the gendarmes.

Two women in the Yonne department gave independent reports of having seen a strange machine in a clearing with a pilot standing next to it. Neither stayed to investigate, however.

DAILY the stories continue. No Parisians have yet reported an encounter with a "Martian," altough, as the wits point out, you would expect them to land on the "Champs de Mars" ("Field of Mars"), the esplanade in the front of the military school.

Cartoonists are fully exploiting the "Martian" and flying saucer season. One, in true Gallic vein, has drawn the classic wronged husband who returns home unexpectedly. He has thrown open the cupboard door to reveal a strange little figure in a spaceman's suit and helmet, and is saying to his guilty wife, cowering in bed: "And that, I suppose, you'll tell me, is a Martian."

Most celebrated flying saucer "spotter" to date in Paris is film star Michele Morgan, who reported seeing one near the Eiffel tower at about 10 p.m.

When Mademoiselle Morgan later complained of the flood of telephone calls from fans and friends who wanted to hear further details, her mother made the dry and essentially French comment:

"You lost a good opportunity that night to hold your tongue."

[...]

And the cigar posed in a clearing, in Diges in Yonne, near which Mrs. widows Gaffroy [sic, Geoffroy] saw a man, from the back, in combination and capped of a khaki bonnet...

[...]

A spaceman wearing a khaki hat was seen by Mme Simone Geoffroy, of Diges, and this one was flying "a curious engine" that looked like a cigar "pointed at both ends. Standing beside it was a tall, dark-skinned man in a khaki hat. He looked at me but said nothing, I was terribly frightened and ran away. When I came back two hours later there was nothing there."

September 24 [1954]

09:00 a.m.: Diges (15 km W.S.W.of Auxerre--Yonne): landing lenticular craft (uncertain case: light helicopter + sports car?)

September 24 1954: Diges (15 km/WSW of Auxerre--Yonne): Mis.Gisèle Fin, handmaid (disc with cuppola) (uncertain case: helicopter + sports car??)

In Diges, the case has already been the subject of a considerable amount of discussion. Nobody disputes the fact that the witnesses observed the landing of an object. But this object could have been a Bell 47 Helicopter.

153) September 24, 1954 09:00 p.m., Becar, (France):

Two women (Widow Geoffroy and Miss Gisele Fin) made independent reports of a dark gray disk, 6 m in diameter, 1 m high, seen in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and a kind of cap. Miss Fin came within 30 m of the craft and stated the man was repairing it. Traces were found on the grass. (P 14, Carrouges 98).

September 24, 1954 09:00 p.m., Becar (France):

Near Diges and "Les Michauts" or "Les Jolivets", two women (Widow Geoffroy and Miss Gisele Fin) made independent reports of a dark gray disk, 6 m in diameter, 1 m high, seen in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and a kind of cap. Miss Fin came within 30 m of the craft and stated the man was repairing it. Traces were found on the grass. (L'Yonne Républicaine, le Parisien, Sept. 28, 1954; Paris-Presse, Sept. 29, 1954.

10/1/54. Two women from Diges (89) saw a mysterious craft and near it a strange being. It was below the road from Diges to Michauts, in a clearing bordered by woods. Cigar shape, pointed at the ends, rounded on the top, length 4 or 5 m. Near the machine, a man of medium height, a khaki cap on his head, watched the witness, Mrs. Geoffroy, 59, flees, panicking. Miss Gisèle Fins [sic], 16, kept the cows nearby. She gives the same description of the machine and indicates that it was resting on skates. On the other hand, she indicates that "the man" wore a helmet like that of the motorcyclists and was dressed in a dark suit. Miss Fins' boss, returning a little later, noticed in the grass two parallel tracks 50 cm apart which seemed to correspond to the skates (N.R.).

328 24 September 1954 0900 BECAR, near DIGES (FRANCE)

Two women (Widow Simone Geoffroy and Mlle. Gisele Fin) made independent reports of a dark grey disc, 6 m in diameter, 1m high, seen in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and a sort of cap. Mlle. Fin came within 31 m of the craft and stated that the man was repairing it. Traces were found on the grass.

(Ml53; L'Yonne Republicaine, Le Parisian, 28 September 1954; Paris-Presse, 29 September 1954; Carrouges, 98)

Sep 24, 1954

070 0900

FRANCE, Becar. Two women made independent reports of a dark gray disc, 21 ft. in diameter, 4 ft. high, seen in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing near it. He wore dark clothes. One witness within 100 ft. of the object stated that the man was repairing it. Traces were found in the grass. (Vallee III)

24/09/1954 Diges (Yonne)

Around 9 a.m., two women, Mrs Geoffroy 59 years old and Miss Fins [sic], were able to make the same observation separately. Placed in a clearing at the edge of a wood was a discoidal craft pointed at the ends and bulging in the center. Dark brown in color, it measured 1.6 m in diameter. Next to it stood a medium-sized man with a "dark" face.

He was dressed in a dark jumpsuit and wore a helmet on his head. (J.Giraud)

GROUND MISSIONS

Here again, we find ourselves in the obligation to eliminate the majority of observations that lack precision or correspond to something that the witness could not understand. Very often, the "Martians" seem to move aimlessly around their craft. We will therefore only focus on specific behaviors.

Repairs

24/09/1954 Diges (Yonne)

During this sighting which we have already reported and which cannot be doubted, Miss Fin approached 30m from the craft and declared that the figure who was next to it was repairing it.

No! We say no! It was impossible for Miss Fin to tell wether it was a reparation. Moreover, no witness could certify this point. The reasons are simple. To predict that there was a repair, it would be necessary before to be certain that there was a breakdown or deterioration. In addition, it would be necessary to have a perfect knowledge of the techniques used in order to understand their purpose and to know what element they relate to. In a word, the witness who would like to affirm that he attended a repair on a "Flying Saucer" must first prove that he has a perfect technical knowledge of these devices, both of their principle of propulsion and of the different organs that compose it as well as the precise functions of each one. Who could claim that?

54-26. Sept. 24, 1954 0900 Becard, France Type C

Mme. Simone Geoffroy saw a flying saucer in a clearing: it was 35 ft in diameter, elongated, with a dome on top. Behind it stood a dark-complexioned man wearing a uniform and a khaki skull-cap, looking at her. She hastened away. Mile. Gisele Fin, a shepherdess, was led to the clearing by the barking of her 2 dogs; she had to restrain them from attacking the pilot, who had his; back to her and was leaning on his craft. At the site afterwards was found a small green pill.

Investigator:

Source: L'Yonne Républicaine, 9/28/54.

The case of Diges

I would now like to use a specific example to show the margin of distortion to be expected, under such specific conditions, in a diurnal "humanoid landing" observation. This case, observed at 100 meters, is very interesting because we can measure exactly the deformation operated by the witness, since the real stimulus was identified with precision a few days later. This is the "landing" at Diges, in Yonne, September 24, 1954, which I was able to easily investigate, since I live nearby. (It seems that the real explanation escaped Messrs. Barthel and Brucker).

That day, around 9 a.m., Mrs. Geoffroy went to the municipal wash house, located in a grove, in the hollow of a valley, about 1.8 km from Diges. Suddenly, at the bottom of a meadow surrounded by woods, on the edge of the forest, about a hundred meters (2), she sees a machine that she describes as an "overturned boat hull", dull gray, khaki, and mounted on skates. Nearby stands a being of absolutely human appearance, "dressed in a dark color," and who "wore a sort of khaki cap on his head." (3) He also seems to be watching another man next to him - in underpants! We are in full wave and tongues are rife -. Frightened the brave lady immediately flees, and tells the village that she saw a flying saucer. One returned shortly after and found traces of skates and, in the flattened grass... pills. Big excitement in the region. (I was then 7 years old, and I remember it as if it were yesterday). An article appeared two days later in L'Yonne Républicaine. A few days later later, Charles Garreau, finding that it all looked too much like a helicopter and its crew, telephoned several air bases and discovered the solution.

It was an American helicopter - at the time the Americans still had bases in France - which, coming from the East, went to the Vierzon base and, therefore, flew over the region of Diges that day. The responsible authorities confirmed to Charles Garreau that the said helicopter landed in a clearing in the Yonne... one of the pilots wishing to satisfy a natural need. It is therefore easy to measure the strain. A hundred meters away, the occupants' clothing has been faithfully described, down to the khaki cap. The incongruous scene of the aviator pulling his pants off has indeed been "hooked" but without being related to a simple frame of reference.

In addition, in 1954, Mrs. Geoffroy, like most people in the countryside of the time, had never seen a helicopter. From then on the presence of such a machine, in a clearing, was for the peasant woman totally incongruous, so that the scene was integrated into the ambient saucer pattern, the cultural models quickly replacing the too brief initial information. Note also that the skates, and the khaki color of the helicopter, have been faithfully described.

Mme Geoffroy, frightened, only observed the scene for a few moments. She did not see the craft land or take off, the rotor of which was stopped at the time of the sighting; so that she did not have any additional elements to make the correction. This shows that we should refrain from publishing similar cases (objects briefly glimpsed in a field from a car, which witnesses did not see land or take off, etc.).

What goes especially in the direction of Michel Monnerie, it is the fact that the demystification written in the Yonne Républicaine one week later did not pass the filter, and that the case finally ended up in the Vallée catalog! The explanation, human and inevitable, is that the journalist, Mr. Delindry, had the delicacy of making a hushed counter-article, so as not to hurt Ms. Geoffroy.

But on the other hand it was obvious that this mistake of the 3rd kind - a real classic! - has a separate register. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in the FS file the testimonies of saucers mounted on skates, with a pilot in a khaki cap nearby, and another in his underwear, finally leaving tablets of drugs in the herb, are rather rare. In the distorted scene, there remains enough of the actual scene to make it atypical. Yet the scene was brief and furtive, and seen from quite a distance. Conclude for yourself. For my part I write, persist and sign, that in a case of daytime landing, observed by two people, less than a hundred meters, if only a few minutes, with the sequence (landing, take-off), in the field clear, the hypothesis of the absolute denaturization of perception is a verbal evasion. Suppose, at the limit, that each testimony of this kind corresponds to the pattern "helicopter-crew caught by a natural need" (the only human activity likely to resemble the behavior of humanoids). There is no doubt that this pattern, even excessively saucerized, would persist in the testimonies ("we would see the humanoids urinating").

Bertrand Méheust.

• 2. And not from 500 meters away, as Barthel and Brucker write, neglecting to tell us that Mme Geoffroy is a very old lady who ends her days in a house for the elderly. We know what happens to memory with age. I interviewed Mme Geoffroy in 1969; she still had her head then and her testimony matched point by point the article of the Yonne Républicaine.
  
  She notably mentioned the history of the helicopter, but without wanting to believe it. Also present, as Barthel and Brucker do in their book, p. 176. Mrs. Geoffroy's rambling remarks, like a "peak of saucer humor", without specifying the witness's great age, is not very honest.
  
  I add that if Barthel and Brucker had gone to the scene, as Mr. Schatzmann claims in his preface, they would have realized that the scene could not, in any case, have been observed at 500 meters, for the good reason that the field where the landing took place is boxed in, surrounded by woods, and measures 100 mx 40!
• 3. L'Yonne Républicaine for September 28.

[... other cases...]

Diges 89240C4, 24-9-1954, M.65/4, Vallée cat. #153

Yonne Républicaine for Tuesday September 28, 1954, n.224, p. 3.

A FLYING SAUCER LANDED IN THE YONNE

Mrs. widow Geoffroy, at the Jolivets.

"I was going to the side of les Cognats, to the wash house located below the road from Diges to les Michauts. Before turning to the right and taking the path to the wash house, my attention was drawn to the left by a strange machine. Near this mass, having the shape of an inverted saucer, a man of average height looked at me.

- How was he dressed?

- He was dressed in a dark color and probably wore a sort of kaki-short callot on his head. Short, likely, he exceeded the height of the saucer by a head.

- What color?

- Dark dirty gray, almost brown.

- Brilliant?

- No, dull.

- What length?

- You know, 5 to 6 m. I was a hundred meters away. I didn't watch for long. Fear took hold of me and I left without "beating" my laundry. Having returned there two hours later, I saw nothing. No traces.

"Go and see for yourselves. You will notice the meadow. In the background on the right a dead boula (birch) is spread out. It's easy to find your way around."

- A country theater setting

To land, the pilot chose his place, without a doubt. The meadow (80 m by 40 m), slightly rising, is framed on three sides by well-supplied vegetation, where various species of trees of species common to our region gather. There are also chestnut trees in the leaves are already turning yellow.

The fourth side of the meadow is bordered by a road, but from above this communication route must be hidden by trees. On this fourth face on the other side of the road, near the wash house, a magnificent curtain of birch trees with light trunks adds a pleasant aesthetic note to this rural setting.

Here is the modest landing field, neat and buried in the middle of the woods. It is perfect for anyone who can and wants to land without being seen.

Having noticed a few wheel marks in the field, we thought (extreme limit of our suspicious imagination) that an American or English camper had a picnic in peace with his car and that it was covered with a dark gray cover.

But our guesses were going to fade in the face of the answers of the second person who saw the saucer.

Miss Gisèle Fin, in Montchenot.

Employed at Mme Guyot's, Miss Fin, ward of Public Assistance, walked her goats which grazed east on a forest path near the clearing located "in Bécard".

- My dogs, one white and one black, started barking in the meadow. I approached about thirty meters and, from this place, I saw a machine, lower than a car, of dark gray-brown color. A mixture difficult to describe.

- Was the color neutral or bright?

- Dull and even.

- What height?

- About a meter. The five-meter or greater craft was thinnerr at one end and more rounded at the other.

- Could it have been round?

- Yes, but I maintain that it was more tapering on one side. It was resting on skids. I saw them.

- What was on it. No door?

- Yes, a door, like that of a "hatch", was open "straight up" (which Mrs. Geoffroy from further on took for a bulge).

- Nothing was shining on this door?

- No. It was indeed a door, believe me. The pilot in dark almost black attire was wearing a helmet (1). He had shoes and was working almost squatting near his machine. The collar of his combination was raised. I did not see the color of his skin."

With her goats, Mlle Gisèle Fin follows a path and approaches the road where she will be safer. She therefore takes her eyes off the machine and enters the woods. When by the road, she looks back to the clearing, the machine had disappeared without any noise.

HALLUCINATION, MYSTERY OR TRUTH?

The mystery remains, of course.

EVIDENCE

Only one, according to a resident of Mme Guyot's farm who went to the scene a few moments later. She affirms to us, like Miss Fin, to have seen in the dew, two traces 50 centimeters apart and as wide as a finger. (the grass was dry there).

There, the skids must have landed, the heat of which, like a lukewarm iron, dried the dew.

That's all that was left of the passage of this unknown craft. There are no more traces now.

Jacques DELINDRY

(1) Cap or helmet? It is possible that two passengers, one in a cap, the other in a helmet, alternately got out of their vehicle.

- sketch of the object and the driver
- photo of the observation site
- photo of Miss Gisèle Fin
- photo of Mme Geoffroy and a child (the daughter of a neighbor, according to the daughter of Mme Geoffroy - short precision collected on 25-5-79).
- two other observations are cited at the end of the article. Varennes and Neuvy Sautour (9 p.m., T. Alcide Vallet, painter).

It was a Bell 47 helicopter and its pilot.

8. Diges. (Yonne), September 24, 1954. B&B version: The scene was observed from 500 meters away. (p. 176). LDLN version: This case was observed at 100 meters... and not at 500 meters as write Barthel and Brucker, who neglect to point out that Mrs. Geoffroy is a very old lady who ends her days in a home for the elderly. We know what happens to memory with age. We interviewed Mrs. Geoffroy in 1969: she still had all her wits... if B&B had gone there, they would have realized that the scene could not, in any case, have been observed from 500 meters away, for the good reason that the field where the landing occurred is boxed in, surrounded by woods and measures 100m x 40. (B. Méheust, lnforespace #51). Let us add that B. Méheust is in favor of the helicopter explanation, which has been proposed for this case. It is also the opinion of Charles Garreau which is at the origin of this hypothesis. We will be much more reserved for the following reasons:

the tracks (two parallel lines spaced 50 cm apart) do not correspond to the spacing of helicopter skids.

Mme Geoffroy herself did not believe in this explanation. We know what it is about these very practical helicopters which furrowed, it seems, the skies in 1954.

Mrs. Geoffroy, of Diges, saw on the ground a craft in the shape of a shell

SIMILARITIES WITH HELICOPTERS:

24/09/54 Diges (89) à 09 h 00 un appareil en forme de cigare posé sur des patins. Ce cas a déjà fait l'objet d'une enquête, il est classé comme hélicoptère possible.

Becar, near Diges and "Les Michauts" or "Les Jolivets"

9/24/1954 9:00

Two women (Widow Geoffroy and Miss Gazelle Fin) made independent reports of a dark gray disk, 6 m in diameter, 1 m high, seen in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and a kind of cap. Miss Fin came within 30 m of the craft and stated the man was repairing it. Traces.

73.
Location. Becard France
Date: September 24 1954
Time: 0900A

Miss Simone Geoffroy saw a flying saucer in a clearing; it was 35 ft in diameter, elongated, with a dome on top. Behind it stood a dark complexioned man wearing a uniform and a khaki skullcap, looking at her. She hastened away. Miss Gisele Fin, a shepherd, was led to the clearing by the barking of her 2 dogs; she had to restrain them from attacking the pilot, who had his back to her and was leaning on his craft. At the site afterwards was found a small green pill.

Humcat 1954-53
Source: Humcat quoting Newspaper source
Type: C

Encounters with Aliens On this Day

September 24

[...]

1954 - At 9 o'clock in the morning two women, Mrs. Geoffroy and Miss Gazelle Fin, independently witnessed a dark gray disc, six meters in diameter, in a clearing in Becar, near Diges, France. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and some kind of cap. Miss Fin came within 30 meters of the craft and said that it looked like the man was repairing it. Traces were found on the grass. (Sources: Le Parisien, September 28, 1954; Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia, p. 211).

[...]

Report 9/24/54 Becar, France: multiple witness, humanoids, traces.

from the UFO Files...

1954: FRANCE'S LONGEST DAY

Forty-three years ago, on October 2, 1954, a wave of UFOs invaded France. Here's the summary...

[...]

"Mme. Simone Geoffroy of Diges, a hundred miles south of Paris, said, 'I saw a curious engine like a cigar pointed at both ends in a field.'"

[...]

3831: 1954/09/24 09:00 20 3:23:00 E 47:43:40 N 3333 WEU FRN YNN 8:7

BECAR,FR:2 SEP OBS:DRK SLNT 6M DISK/WOODS:PSH FIXES IT:TRACES:/r194#10+/r30p84

Ref#197 WEINSTEIN, D: French Newsclips 1954 Page No. 27 : FOREST

September 24

09:00 : In Diges (Yonne), widow Geoffroy and Gisèle Fin have a CEIII. 2 traces distant of 50 cm and wide as a fingre are noted in the dew by Mrs Fin. The grass is dry at this place. Traces too small for a Bell 47 helicopter.

09/24/54 France, Becar: Two women made independent reports of a dark gray disc, 21 feet in diameter, 4 feet high, seen resting on the ground in a clearing. A man of normal height was standing near it. He wore dark clothes. One witness within 100 feet of the object stated that the man was repairing it. Traces were found in the grass.

September 24. 09 hour: in Diges (Yonne), Yves Geoffroy and Gisele Fin make a CE3. Two traces distant of 50 cm and wide as a finger in the dew are noticed by Miss Fin. The grass is dried at this point. The traces are considered too small to be those of a Bell 47 helicopter.

This picture was taken at the very place and with the same orientation that the reconstitution by the draughtsman for the newspaper "L'YONNE REPUBLICAINE".

September 1954

Fri 24

09:00 Close to Diges (Yonne), Vve Geoffroy and Gisele Fin see independently a dark gray disc 6 m in diameter and 1 m in height, seen in a clearing of Becar. A man of normal size, wearing dark clothing and a kind of cap, is standing close to the object. Miss Fin approaches to within 30 m of the apparatus and sees that the man is repairing. The object flies away without noise. 2 traces 50 cm apart and broad like the finger are noticed in the dew by Miss Fin. The grass is dry in this place. Traces too small for a Bell 47 helicopter.

*Sep. 24, 1954 - At 9 o'clock in the morning two women, Mrs. Geoffroy and Miss Gazelle Fin, independently witnessed a dark gray disc, six meters in diameter, in a clearing in Becar, near Diges, France.. A man of normal height was standing close to it. He wore dark clothes and some kind of cap. Miss Fin came within 30 meters of the craft and said that it looked like the man was repairing it. Traces were found on the grass. (Sources: Le Parisien, September 28, 1954; Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia, p. 211).

Date: September 24 1954

Location: Becard France

Time: 0900A

Miss Simone Geoffroy saw a flying saucer in a clearing; it was 35 ft in diameter, elongated, with a dome on top. Behind it stood a dark complexioned man wearing a uniform and a khaki skullcap, looking at her. She hastened away. Miss Gisele Fin, a shepherd, was led to the clearing by the barking of her 2 dogs; she had to restrain them from attacking the pilot, who had his back to her and was leaning on his craft. At the site afterwards was found a small green pill.

Source: Humcat quoting Newspaper source

I would now like, from a specific example, to show the margin of distortion to be expected, (...), in a diurnal "landing with humanoids" observation. This case, observed at 100 meters, is very interesting because we can measure exactly the deformation operated by the witness, since the real stimulus was identified with precision a few days later. This is the "landing" at Diges, in Yonne, on September 24, 1954, which I was able to easily investigate, since I live nearby. (...) That day, around 9 a.m., Mrs. Geoffroy went to the municipal wash house, located in a grove, in the hollow of a valley, about 1.8 km from Diges. Suddenly, at the bottom of a meadow surrounded by woods, on the edge of the forest, about a hundred meters away, she sees a machine that she describes as an "overturned boat hull", dull gray, khaki, and mounted on skates. Nearby stands a being of absolutely human appearance, "dressed in a dark color", and who "wore a sort of khaki cap on his head". He also seems to observe another man next to him - in his underwear! We are in full of the wave and talks are rife. Frightened, the brave lady immediately fled, and told the village that she had seen a flying saucer. One returned shortly after and traces of skates were found and, in the flattened grass... pills. Big excitement in the region. (I was 7 years old then, and I remember it like it was yesterday). An article appeared two days later in L'Yonne Républicaine. A few days later, Charles Garreau, finding that it looked too much like a helicopter and its crew, telephoned several air bases and discovered the solution.

"It was an American helicopter - at the time the Americans still had bases in France - which, coming from the East, went to the base of Vierzon and, therefore, flew over the region of Diges that day. The responsible authorities confirmed to Charles Garreau that the said helicopter landed in a clearing in the Yonne... one of the pilots wishing to satisfy a natural need. It is therefore easy to measure the deformation. A hundred meters away, the occupants' clothing has been faithfully described, down to the khaki cap. The incongruous scene of the aviator pulling his pants was indeed "hung" but without being related to a simple frame of reference."

"Moreover, in 1954, Mme Geoffroy, like most people in the countryside at the time, had never seen a helicopter. From then on, the presence of such a machine in a clearing was completely incongruous for the peasant woman, so that the scene was integrated into the ambient saucer pattern, the cultural models quickly being substituted for the too brief initial information. Note also that the skates, and the khaki color of the helicopter, were faithfully described. Mrs. Geoffroy, frightened, observed the scene for only a few moments. She did not see the machine, whose rotor was stopped at the time of the observation, either land or take off; that she had no additional information to make the correction. This shows that one should refrain from publishing similar cases (objects briefly glimpsed in a field from a car, which the witnesses neither saw nor landing or taking off, etc.)".

September 24 1954. 0900hrs.

DIGES (YONNE : FRANCE)

Widow Geoffroy was by her wash house when her attention was drawn to an object, a few hundred metres away, 5-6m long, resembling an inverted saucer. Near it was stood a man wearing brown=grey clothes and a peaked cap. The lady became afraid and left the area. This was also seen by Miss Giselle Fin, a public assistance apprentice employed by a Mrs Guillot. She was taking the goats out when her dogs began to bark. She walked on for about 10m, and came across a dull coloured machine about 1m high and 5m long, tapered at one end and standing on skates. Squatting beside it was a man wearing dark clothing and a helmet. She walked her goats away from the scene

• Gross 1954. citing Jacques Delindry in Var Martin Republique 29 September 1954. + Garreau 1956 citing press and own investigation

Evaluation - Garreau concluded that it was a Bell Helicopter and crew