The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 3-Oct-54-Amiens.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The local weekly newspaper Journal du Santerre for October 8, 1954, mentioned among other sightings, essentially of October 3, 1954, that on the Amiens - Roye road "a female driver also witnessed similar visions."
I find an observation in Amiens dated October 3, 1954, unknown hour, in the ufology bulletin GEPO Informations #20 of May - August 1980.
In 1978, then again around 2017, "skeptical" ufologist Dominique Caudron, based in the Nord, cataloged sightings in the Nord region for October 3, 1954, neglected by ufologists, including many that were previously unpublished, and mostly explainable by a red moon whose appearance was altered by clouds.
One of these observations was reported in the regional newspaper Journal du Santerre for October 8, 1954:
At an unspecified hour, on the Route Nationale 334, between Amiens and Roye, a female driver reportedly saw a mysterious object.
[Ref. jds1:] NEWSPAPER "JOURNAL DU SANTERRE":
Appearances in the region
Martians spend their weekends on earth. They are reported everywhere, from North to South, from the shores of the Ocean to the banks of the Rhine.
Besides, they are not Martians, because according to our most learned astronomers, neither Mars nor Venus can be inhabited. Mars is too cold and lacks oxygen. As for Venus, it is currently in the middle of the carboniferous period, much like Earth, 300 million years ago.
The unknown beings, piloting the diabolical crockery, are Uranians, the German professor Hermann Oberth, rockets specialist, revealed recently.
The whole world is lost in guesswork. There are supporters of the thesis of craft coming from another planet. There are those who believe them to be terrestrial, something like improved V2s. Finally, there are those who see it as the object of hallucinations.
We are looking for explanations: fireballs, false suns, false moons, refraction phenomena, comets, meteors, rockets. Nothing satisfactory. Nothing final.
There are many testimonies. Many are fragile. Some apparently solid do not always resist observation or lack precision which can guarantee authenticity.
The enigma is complete, the file of the saucers remains open but the windows of the museum of unknown objects remain empty.
***
After the Abbeville region, it's several people from Boves who have just seen "flying saucers", or at least one strange glow that moved slowly. According to these people, the craft seemed to fly off from the edge of the Boves soccer field. The "saucer" was therefore seen by Mr. and Mrs. Dhelly and Mr. and Mrs. Quin, as well as by Mr. Laurent Laporte, seller at Pont de Fouencamps.
We learned shortly after that other people from the village of Demuin had also noticed the craft. According to Mr. and Mrs. Deslandes, it was a kind of "phosphorescent lampshade" which moved without noise and sought to land. When these people alerted neighbors, the object was gone.
Sunday evening, a resident of Moreuil, Mr. Julien Béder, baker, rue Thibeauville, came back, with his wife and children, Mr. and Mrs. Quenehen, butchers in Péronne, by car, on the Amiens-Saint-Quentin road when between Foucaucourt and Estrées, he saw, around 9:15 p.m., a luminous object moving at ground level, towards Montdidier, at a distance which was, it will be understood, impossible to assess.
The shape and (apparent) size of a "four pound loaf" (sic) curved on the top, the "thing", the color of minium, was motionless, and the occupants of the car, after stopping, were able to observe it at leisure, while making the most diverse assumptions. A dark vertical bar, occupying about 1/5th of its width, appeared in the middle of the luminous dot, and remained there all the time that the observation lasted, about 10 minutes.
Also, we learn that a retired miner from Beuvry-les-Béthune confessed to have made flying saucers himself made of paper that functioned like hot air balloons.
The hoaxer claimed that he had already built and launched more than a thousand of these devices.
***
Finally, a young man from Montdidier returning to Etelfay, on September 30, was reportedly dumbfounded when he saw a strange craft, around 11 p.m. o'clock, above Faverolles.
[Ref. dcn1:] DOMINIQUE CAUDRON:
TIMELINE OF A FANTASTIC SUNDAY
The weekend of October 2-3 appears on all charts as the maximum-maximum of the 1954 wave. Various newspapers and magazines that I have been able to check for this period give us an almost complete overview, in any case very broadly representative of the regional observations that were reported in the press for Sunday October 3rd. I have included the observations of the Somme which seemed to me inseparable from those of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and which appear moreover in the chapter entitled "Zigzag on the mining country" of the book by A. Michel: "Mysterieux Objets Célestes." I count, as one case, each observation made by an independent group of witnesses. The astonishing number of observations reported below, once again shows the interest of thoroughly digging into the newspapers archives.
OCTOBER 3, 1954:
[...other cases...]
46) idem [=time not specified]- RN 334 - between AMIENS and ROYE -80-: A female driver reportedly saw a mysterious object. (Journal de Santerre) (10/8, p.3)
[...other cases...]
[...]
We know that that evening, at 9:30 p.m., the crescent Moon was setting in the southwest and that according to case 9 it was distorted by low clouds...
Disaster! This bundle of suspicions throws a total discredit on this magnificent series of observations, one of the most beautiful that we have ever found yet. We will have to verify certain data, the direction of certain sightings, the weather conditions, but already the doubt is too great for us to be able to classify these sightings as UFOs.
[...]
In his article, Dominique Caudron listed 46 cases for October 3, 1954 in the north of France; he explained that this corresponds to hundreds of witnesses who do not know each other within an hour and a half time interval, which gives an impression of a "real phenomenon".
He noted that the times do not always match, that there are gaps of up to 40 minutes for the same case depending to its different versions.
He noted that "all these cases are a bit similar", listing the part of the cases where the phenomenon splits in two, or where is said that a disc detached to go to the ground, and recalls that one of the witnesses, Mr. Bonte, explained that the moon was barred by a stratus.
He noted that in 5 of the cases the object is described as a crescent, in others it is a disc, a dome, a collar, in others it is compared to the moon. In 7 cases, the object is said to follow a moving car, but stops when the car stops.
He indicated that in 13 of the cases there was an indication of direction, always the southwest, where the moon was.
He indicated that in 7 cases the object was lowering on the horizon, and that the moon was indeed setting.
He noted that some cases may be explained by the hot air balloons of the retiree from Beuvry-les-Béthune.
[Ref. gep1:] UFOLOGY GROUP "GEPO":
10/03/54 | ( ) | Santenay La Dree Amiens Pommiers | 300V1 Y | 30m |
[Ref. dcn3:] DOMINIQUE CAUDRON:
Dominique Caudron drew up an inventory of observations in the Nord on October 3, 1954, containing 51 reports, including this one:
[...]
Chronology of the observations of October 3.
We give here only a summary of what was published in the press of the time, for the nord region, regardless of what the ufologists could later say. We have numbered all these observations, the first of which have nothing to do with the setting of the moon, in order to be able to study them globally in a table. Some are already the subject of a special file.
[... other cases...]
46) Hour not specified, RN 334 - between AMIENS and ROYE (80)
- A female drive reportedly saw. a mysterious object.
(Journal du Santerre 8/10 page 3)
[... other cases...]
All this is only a compilation of the information given by all newspapers of the time, including local editions, and of which ufologists only used a part.
We will see that the analysis of this information makes it possible to eliminate the hypothesis of a flying saucer, in favor of those of multiple observations of the moon, whose image was reddened and deformed by clouds, which also gave it a illusory apparent movement.
[Ref. dcn4:] DOMINIQUE CAUDRON:
[... other cases...]
46) Hour not specified, RN 334 - between AMIENS and ROYE (80)
Insufficient information.
[... other cases...]
Totally insufficient information.
The road from Amiens to Roye is in 2022 the "Route Départementale 934", in straight line to the Southeast, the trip being about 40 kilometers.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Amiens, Somme, Route Nationale 334, Roye, female, car, driver, object
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
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1.0 | Patrick Gross | June 5, 2019 | First published. |
1.1 | Patrick Gross | April 22, 2022 | Additions [jds1], [dcn1], [gep1]. Explanations changed, were "Totally insufficient information". In the Summary, addition of the information from [jds1], [dcn1] and [gep1]. |