The 1954 French flap:

THE FIRST
PHOTOGRAPHS
SAUCERS

One is reported in the
sky of La Chapelle-en-Serval

Flying saucers continue to be talked about more than ever. And their detractors, like those who think they exist, are likewise spoiled.

The first ones in particular, by a precision relating to the "saucer" described last week in Grenoble by Dr Martinet.

The observations of a pilot from Challes-les-Eaux, who attended the same show, established that it was in fact a... flight of starlings.

The latter will be able to report new manifestations of the saucers.

In the Oise in particular, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph van Wymersch, of La Chapelle-en-Serval, who declared to have seen in this locality, Wednesday evening, around 9 p.m., for about 15 minutes, "a luminous craft which rose and fell in the sky to then disappear in the direction of the West."

Elsewhere in France, it is at Mas de Bruzy, near Perpignan, in Rixheïm, in Pau and in Nevers, that witnesses said they saw saucers.

At Mas de Bruzy, several grape pickers claimed to have seen a shiny circular object in the sky which, after moving vertically leaving a white trail, disappeared in the clouds.

In Rheim [sic], near Mulhouse two people said they had observed a luminous craft with binoculars. They found, they say, that the object was shaped like a long cigar and was surrounded by a dozen small satellite cigars. A railway worker on night duty said he had observed the same phenomenon.

Finally in Pau, Wednesday morning, around 11:45 a.m., numerous people, says an A.F.P. dispatch, saw a cigar moving at very high altitude and, near Nevers, a farm worker who was riding a bicycle on the road to Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, saw, he claims, a semi-spherical object that moved silently with great rapidity in a northeast direction.

The "saucer" that Mr. Ates, engineer-architect from Marseille, specifies having photographed from his home on May 26, at 6:30 p.m. - our photo - was, on the contrary according to him, extremely noisy since, he said, it made the tiles of his room vibrate while remaining motionless in the sky and that, when it rose to disappear, its acceleration was accompanied by an astonishing explosion.

[Photo caption:] This photograph, where the only terrestrial element seems to be the clothesline that can be seen below, was taken by an architect from Marseille, and was communicated to us by the great weekly "Semaine du Monde". It was taken on May 26, 1954, at 6:30 in the evening, in a foggy weather. The second photo was taken at night. It would translate an impression of "flying cigar" rather than that of a "saucer".

THE PASSAGE OF A FLYING CIGAR SEEN
at St-Samson-la-Poterie

After the paralyzed worker of Quarouble, the affectionate Martian of the Auvergne, the flying saucers of Chapelle-en-Serval, the mysterious landing of St-Crepin-Ibouvillers, not to mention the hundreds of strange demonstrations of diabolic crockery, [...]

54 YEARS AGO

Ufo invasion

As in many countries and French regions, the year 1954 was rich in observations of UFOs and other strange phenomena in the Oise. It is believed that visitors to the area were particularly pleased with the department, from Crépy-en-Valois to La Chapelle-en-Serval, via Saint-Samson, Ressons-sur-Matz, Senlis or Formerie, witnesses swore they saw saucers, flying cigars and other mini-extraterrestrials helmed with an orange beam! Press clippings and gendarmerie investigations evoke these episodes, none of which, alas, brought tangible evidence.