The 1954 French flap:

AS THE MARTIANS
Take us seriously...

Definitely, the abundance of materials will push us to create a new chronicle: that of flying saucers. It seems that they are no longer just flying. They land, level off, change shape, leave oil traces on the ground, give off a smell of nitro-benzine, let out purple, greenish flames. They are one meter in diameter, 2,3, 10. They move horizontally, vertically, immobilize, vanish.

They have furry passengers like monkeys who enter a baker's bakery, tap a cultivator on the shoulder; beings the size of children. This time, we have more details. Let us rejoice deeply: they have not yet caused harm to anyone. Our visitors, for sure, are almost ready to break the ice.

Let's wait with serenity.

But before this historic hour strikes strong souls no longer dare to look up at the sky without emotion: "It it my turn to see a saucer?"

Planes of Koksijde, which run along the coast, balloons - meteorological probes, fanciful meteors of which Sénèque - already - had described the whims, shooting stars, full or half-full moon when you find yourself gathered in the big celestial concert you must laugh at the people of the earth!

Because today the testimonies are such that nobody is thinking about you anymore.

Go pretend that the orange disc identified by Mr. Julien Bédié, Mr. and Mrs. Quennehen was not a saucer; go pretend to Mrs. Nelly Mansart that she was not literally chased on the road from Hérissart, to Amiens by a dazzling ball which followed her car, bypassing the villages, resuming hunting at their exit, stopping when the car stopped, leaving at the same time as it, that its terrors were in vain... Might as well promise the moon.

In the Somme where sky users become invasive, from Saint-Just to Boves, from Montières to Dreuil, from Rainneville to Amiens, in Brittany, to Saint-Brieuc and Trégueux, in the Vendée, at Thouare-sur-Vie, in the Finistère in Quimper, the daily quota of new visions fuels the myth. Once again let us do so, let us welcome with a wide smirk the accumulation of this new form of testimonies from the beyond.

If it were to be true that beings from other planets would be busy raising, as a scientist from Kenya put it - that's all that far! - the map of the earth, let's not bother them in their work.

Better, shave our mountains, divert the course of our rivers to the best of our industrial aspirations, fertilize the deserts, in short, let us work hard for the good of humanity to change the appearance of this earth. No doubt this will not go unnoticed by the Martians. And that they will take all the time they want to play this card.

Lady, you have to be sure of yourself to change the planet.

And above all, let's take a serious look at our astrology.

Jean HAUTEFEUILLE

October 3 [, 1954]

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09:05 p.m.: Raineville (Somme): disc disap. to the West.

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The Fabulous day of October 3, 1954

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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.

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48) Hour not specified, RAINNEVILLE (80)

- Witnesses reportedly saw the same object as Mrs. Nelly Mansart.

(additional data of the investigation of the case of Herissart)

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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.

Analysis of the observations of October 3, 1954

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48) Hour not specified, RAINNEVILLE (80)

Proximity avec with the identified case of Hérissart [Moon].

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