The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 31-Oct-54-Nesles.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In an article on page 3 of the regional newspaper Le Courrier Picard for November 5, 1954, several sightings were ported, including this one:
A teacher from the canton of Nesle had come to their office in Péronne on November 4, 1954, in the afternoon, to report that with his wife and daughter, who accompanied him by car, "Sunday" - therefore on October 31, 1954 - around 07:55 p.m., at the exit of Péronne, as he was going to reach Nesle, he saw arriving in the direction of Barleux an orange body in the shape of a crescent.
It was not at high altitude and he estimated that it was 500 meters away. It had lasted at most a minute, then suddenly, the crescent tilted and gradually, its two ends came together to finally form a kind of cone.
This phenomenon moved from right to left, and stopped above the national road, then set off again very quickly, taking a great height, in the direction of Amiens, which, according to the witness, would be the opposite direction to that followed previously.
The newspaper concluded:
"The importance of the illuminated mass was such and so close that it could not be confused. Our informant, who also carried out his military service in the weather service, cannot give any other precision, but he think he must not have been the only one to have noticed this phenomenon."
[Ref. cpd1:] NEWSPAPER "LE COURRIER PICARD":
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In the "saucers" file, today we add three testimonies which cannot be tainted with exaggeration or fantasy. They come from Mr. Pierre Duval, jeweler in Montdidier, his wife and her grandmother, Mrs. Delorme. Our fellow citizens returned from Amiens by car during the night of Wednesday to Thursday. It was 11:15 p.m. when, some 300 meters from Moreuil, they saw, in the sky, at low altitude, a kind of orange "spinning top", rigorously motionless.
The thing lit the sky a little like the sun at sunset. Mr. Duval stopped and put his headlights on hold. The "top" then moved away quickly in the direction of Ailly-sur-Noye. It was soon nothing more than a dot, like a red traffic light, and returned at a very high speed, appreciably to the place it had left, and lower still, it seems. Then it slid at breakneck speed to get lost on the horizon.
The phenomenon had lasted ten minutes. Mr. Duval cannot claim that it was a craft, but he is certain, like his wife, that he was not the victim of a hallucination. As for Mrs. Delorme, she admits having been deeply impressed, especially when the "top" returned to the car.
None of the three witnesses assesses the size of the orange mass whose contours were not clear, but all three agree that the propulsion speed far exceeds that of jet planes.
The "saucer" - you have to give it a name - has moved in the region limited by Rouvrel Sains-en-Amiénois, Estrées-sur-Noye and Guyencourt, said Mr. Duval, road map in hand.
It is possible that other motorists have encountered the mysterious flying top.
We were informed last night that two residents of Villers-Tournelle also saw a luminous object yesterday morning.
***
Yesterday, around 4:50 p.m., nine workers from the Galland firm, road of Rouen in Amiens, saw, very high in the sky, a round and luminous "object" which was moving from east to west.
The mysterious craft stopped for a few moments and resumed its course to disappear on the horizon.
Here, on the other hand, is a series of credible testimonies which are currently shaking the whole little town of Camon.
There was Wednesday evening at the town hall of the town a meeting of the Municipal Council which was to examine the ritual multiplicity of tax claims.
It is around 9:45 p.m. that this meeting ended. When the attendees found themselves on the steps of the town hall, they all saw, without exception, the following phenomenon:
Four red balls, veined like agaths, were "installed" in the sky a few hundred meters high. They seemed to designate the four corners of a hanging rectangle, the short sides at the top and bottom.
First immobilized, the balls began to descend slowly above the presbytery garden. At this moment some of the witnesses saw under the reflection of the moon a pale dome which covered the red lights. Then the two lower lights, remaining at an equal distance from each other seemed to detach and lower further towards the ground, the relief of which they seemed to explore.
The maneuver had lasted five minutes when one of the witnesses invited the others to "rush" towards the place of the red lights. This witness was Mr. Brunel, former mayor of Camon, who was with the current mayor, Mr. Garçon, of MM. Masse, deputy, of M. Pertuisot, country gardener, and of MM. Blanquart and Lottin, dispatchers.
Mr. Brunel knocked on the door of the grocery store opposite and the merchant's son rushed out in his garden which borders the place where the fires were operating.
Climbing the fence walls he saw in turn the red lights which, on his arrival, went up a few meters and fled horizontally towards Amiens, at a dizzying speed such as he it took barely a few seconds to disappear.
At 9:40 p.m., Mr. Batellino, plasterer, who lives near the Town Hall, had seen the four red globes pass over a neighboring house. But at that time, the luminous balls which could have a meter fifty in diameter at the hardly appreciable distance where they were seen, were following each other.
***
A teacher from the canton of Nesle came to our office in Péronne yesterday afternoon to report a strange phenomenon that he noted, as well as his wife and daughter, who accompanied him by car, Sunday, around 7:55 p.m., at the exit of Péronne.
As he was about to reach Nesle, he saw arriving from the direction of Barleux, an orange body shaped like a crescent. It was not at high altitude and the motorist estimated the distance between it to 500 meters. This appearance lasted at most a minute, then suddenly the body in question tipped and gradually the two ends came together to finally make a kind of cone.
This phenomenon, which moved from right to left, stopped above the national road, then set off again very quickly, taking a great height, in the direction of Amiens. That is to say, according to the witness, in the opposite direction to that followed previously.
The importance of the illuminated mass was such and so close it was that it could not be confused. Our informant, who did his military service in the weather services, cannot provide any other details, but he thinks he must not have been the only one to have noticed this phenomenon.
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When one remembers what happened on October 3, 1954, in this region, one can only be struck by the very strong resemblance to this later case:
On October 3, 1954, dozens of testimonies, documented in my catalog, mainly in the North of France, had been caused by a low crescent red Moon which had been "barred" by a cloud, and had been interpreted as a "thing" that had "split in two".
This October 31, 1954 at 07:55 p.m. from this region of Nesle and Péronne, the Moon was visible, in the direction 227°, and actually at the low elevation of 2°, and it was indeed a crescent Moon, with 21.3% of its surface illuminated.
We can go further:
The motorist was driving out of Péronne and "was going to reach Nesle" and then saw the thing "coming" from the direction of Barleux. Here are these places:
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From the spot "at the exit of Péronne" which was the most logical one to go to Nesle, which I marked on the map, Barleux is at 250°, which fairly matches with the 227° of the Moon since we do not exactly know what the witness called the "exit of Péronne". In any case, the Moon was not "behind" him, but rather, roughly in the direction he indicated.
We are then told that the thing was moving from right to left. We do not know exactly which route he was traveling on, but we do know that he was "going to reach Nesle" so that he was driving in the direction of Nesle which is to the south, and that all possible routes have a few turns. We can therefore perfectly interpret things like this: it is not the object which moved from left to right, it is the witness in the car who changed direction. The illusion is classic.
We are told that the object "came to rest over the national highway"; then another exit from Péronne seems more logical, not the red dot, but the green dot:
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It just so happens that from the exit of Péronne marked with the green dot, the road points towards 228° on the portion that I highlighted in blue. It's straight to the moon.
We are told that the object then "leaves very quickly, taking a great height, in the direction of Amiens".
Amiens is exactly west of Barleux; this suggests that the object "visually ascended" to the North. The witness is driving to the south, the Moon - the object - is on his right, and the object seems to be moving from his front left to his rear. It is therefore sufficient that the road where the witness moves turns to the left to create this impression.
As the witness goes from the exit from Péronne to Nesle which is in the South, that he was driving first against the Moon which is in the South-West, when he then goes towards the South, towards Nesle, the Moon necessarily seems to "fly" from his left front to his right rear, as if it was leaving to head for Amiens. So everything fits pretty well so far, except:
"taking a great height"...
The moon is indeed very low, a little less than 2°, and it sets.
But this effect can also be explained: the terrain, whatever road he took, is not flat, there are slight undulations. It therefore suffices that he drove a downward slope for the object to appear to "rise rapidly". The expression "take a great height" is not quantified, The Moon taken for an object at 500 meters could cause such a description.
Of course, we must keep in mind that the witness speaks of a crescent-shaped object above his road, and that he does not say a word about the moon, which was crescent-shaped and above his raod. He had to see it, and mention it in addition to the object, if there were at the same time the Moon and the object which he believed to see.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Nesles, Somme, Moon, crescent, hovering, move, road, car, cone, split
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | February 8, 2020 | First published. |
