The 1954 French flap:

Admired in various places not without emotion...

The ballet of the flying saucers continues in the Lorraine sky but the mysterious machines remain elusive

The "flying saucers" seem to engage in a ceaseless round in the eastern sky and elsewhere. Their passage is reported in a hundred places each day. We lack space here for us to echo all the news reaching us about it. Suffice to mention a few of the last and main stories related to this.

In Remiremont, Sunday at 11 am, a hundred people were able to see, from the enclosure of the Pomological fair of the Campus Martius, what is believed to be a flying saucer or a cigar or a disc, which let loose a trail of smoke in its wake, when rising or descending, turning around the sun. People skeptical of saucers stories told us to have observed the phenomenon very well.

The "saucer" remained ten minutes suspended in the atmosphere and disappeared. Two to three meters in length...

In the Moselle, mysterious machines attracted attention

Last Friday, around 23h, several residents of Bassing, including Mr. Romain and Mr. Renfort, saw, above the region between Vergaville and Bidestroff, a luminous object of 2 to 3 meters in length, having the shape of an ellipse and which moved at variable speeds. Witnesses heard a slight engine roar. Sometimes the alleged flying saucer slowed its course up to the point to rest, and then went back at breakneck speed.

The same phenomenon was observed on Saturday between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. by Mr. Remy Rousselle, of Blanche-Eglise and Mr. Baumann of Bassing.

A large green disk

In turn, the sky of the region of Dieuze saw evolve a flying saucer.

It was Sunday night. It was exactly 8:17 p.m. when Mr. Pierre Laplace, aged 19, electrician at the Etablissements Kuhlmann in Dieuze and living in Vergaville, saw in the sky a large bright green disk, at the hieght of the wood of Brides, between the village of Vergaville and Kerprich. The large spot was, he said, at about 3,000 meters. Laplace stood, and followed the moves of the machine. When he saw it for the first time, it was motionless. Suddenly, says the electrician, the machine threw glittering lights of the color of ultraviolet rays, it then moved at a rate such that current jet planes appear motionless in comparison. The flying saucer, because this is what it was, said the witness, as well as passers by Mr. Laplace had stopped and who are formal, stopped at the height of the Paquis of Guéblin, it flew the distance between Guéblin and Kerprich three times, always at breakneck speed, but, extraordinary thing, it always stopped at the same place.

Suddenly the craft launched new gleams, seemingly locating the ground, and went down at about 600 meters of the ground, then making a semicircle, very slowly, it got more and more close to the ground and finally, seemed to land on the hill of the Vines, located not far from Bedestroff. Thirty people, cyclists, pedestrians, motorists followed, extremely interested, the changes in the saucer. Laplace and some other spectators having wanted to go on a motorcycle at the landing place, the saucer again took off and disappeared behind a curtain of trees.

It was 9 p.m. then.

The locals who saw the saucer are Mssrs Lucien Victorien and Primon, entrepreneurs in masonry in Vergaville, Kinowsky, shoemaker in Bataville, Claude Ronfort of Bassing and the manager of the Eco in Vergaville and his family.

Curiously, at 23:45, several unknown parked on the road, and Mr. Domant, mechanic in Guéblin and Mr. Gilcher, of the same village, watched attentively but without daring to approach it, a green disc which was in the fields, a short distance from the road.

Finally, let's note that on Saturday between 20 and 21 hours, Mr. Rothfuss, of Dieuze, had also seen circulate in the air between the farm of the Boule and Maizières-les-Vic, a luminous disc whose details are exactly those given by Laplace.

Saturday, October 2 [, 1954] (continued)

[... Other cases...]

09:00 p.m.: Bassing/Blanche-Eglise (Moselle): moves of luminos obj.

[... Other cases...]

10 - Case of Kerprich, between Vergaville and Guebling, Moselle.

On October 3, many observations were made in Dieuzé, Bassing, Kerprich, Bidestroff... This prompted a lot of articles in the local press that B & B [= [bbr1]] did not consult, because if they had done so, this work would have saved them from further displaying the wickedness of the method used for their demolition work.

Page 34, they report having referred to Jacques Vallée (Phénomènes insolites de l'espace, La Table Ronde, 1966, Paris) and Guy Quincy's file. They do not give any witness names; which is already suspect and explains why they write on page 35: "It is therefore at the first house in the town, at the town hall, that we decide to knock". Which town hall? Why not give the name of the locality? Anyway, the town hall could not satisfy them and they then claim to have made inquiries with the villagers. And it is these anonymous informants from an unknown village who offer them the "key to the mystery": it was a glow produced by the fall of a high voltage cable. Conclusion: it was a misinterpretation!

However, when one reads the local press, one can realize that Le Lorrain for October 5, 1954, page 5, did indeed indicate that the "flying saucer" observed, was first spotted at 3000m, and descended to 600m (good performance for a high power cable !!). Then after several very fast courses between Guebling and Kerprich, it seemed to land "at the height of the Côte des Vignes, not far from Bidestroff." Thirty people followed the maneuvers of the "saucer" of which twelve are mentioned by name. Among them: Mr. Laplace, electrician in Vergaville, who would have been able to tell the difference between a broken high voltage line and a UFO. Better: MM. Gilcher and Domant, from Guebling, saw a disc land in a field. They ran to get closer and saw a troop of people who were contemplating the machine without daring to go closer to the phenomenon. Moreover, the next day, October 4, around the same hour, Mr. Rothfuss, of Dieuzé, could observe a luminous disc whose details correspond exactly to those given by Mr. Laplace.

What is the connection in these testimonies with a cut high voltage line? Who are their informants and where did they reside? It turns out, moreover, that I checked in the local newspapers if one could trace the accident alleged by our debunkers. However, the only mention of a broken electric cable appears in Le Lorrain of October 21, page 6, which occurred on October 20 between Habeaurupt and Barançon, a sector different from the one we are interested in here!

Here is yet another investigation knowingly sabotaged to serve the interests of their debunking. As for "going to knock on the door of the town hall" and "to inquire with the villagers", it is a way like any other to cover up one more forfeiture. The anonymity of the first and second indicates imaginary contacts, not even made by telephone, the only working tool they used...

2 October. Bassing and Blanche-Eglise, France. (9:00 - 10:00 p.m.)

Michel writes:

"At 9 p.m. the Dieuze witnesses lost sight of the object. But at the same moment two villages on the opposite sides ofDieuze began to perceive it: Bassing (already visited the night before) and Blanche-Eglise, three miles southwest of Dieuze. The same maneuver was reported by both villages, where it was followed for one whole hour. Then, at 10:00 p.m., the object once more disappeared." (xx.)

(xx.) Michel, Aime. Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery. p.180.