The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: 9-Jan-54-Vesoul.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
The regional newspaper L'Est Républicain, of Nancy, reported on January 11, 1954, about several of the observations of January 9, 1954, in the region around 7:50 a.m.
For that of Vesoul, the newspaper indicated that at exactly 07:46 a.m., a certain number of city residents suddenly saw appear above the hill of the Motte and going from west to east, a luminous object, oval, yellow, orange, red; which, before disappearing, left behind a multicolored and flamboyant trail.
The observatory of Besançon, alerted, "could not give any information likely to explain these authentic visions."
Charles Garreau, then journalist of La Bourgogne Républicaine and already a flying saucers enthusiast, had put the observations of this day on a map to show that since the thing had zigzagged, it was not a meteor. He had naively taken for granted the hours quoted, giving 07:46 a.m. to the Vesoul sighting, whereas most of them were, of course, only approximate hours. It is because of this that some still speak of a "sudden change of course" of phenomenon, but it was not so.
This obvious meteor was explained as such by the "skeptical" ufologists Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker in their 1979 book, but some continued to cite the observation as if it were "unexplained".
[Ref. ler1:] NEWSPAPER "L'EST REPUBLICAIN":
It was obvious that there was growing concern throughout the eastern region. Anxious and a little annoyed too, it must be confessed. We have always had at our heart to place ourselves at the forefront of progress and, for nothing in the world, we would not want to be laggards. Tranquillise yourselves, we are now up to date, like most regions of France, Navarre and elsewhere.
We, too, have our flying saucers.
True!
Good things come to those who wait for.
Young girls who went to their college are formal. The yellow disk spun into a low sky, gorged with snow, dragging behind it a luminous beam. It had the exact appearance of the moon, but had a circumference reduced to about a quarter of that of the pale star, in which we shall spend our holidays one of the next few days.
An official from Nancy, too, saw the mysterious craft at the same moment, and gave a description in all respects conformable to that furnished by the girls.
In Lunéville, a few moments earlier, the students of the college clearly saw the machine and its reddish trail, and several people of the city, absolutely trustworthy, also witnessed, amazed at this unusual spectacle. At the same hour the phenomenon was observed above the station of Metz, by a surveyor of Courcelles-Sur-Nied.
The flying saucer scoured the weekend's conversations. But Lorraine was not the only region to enjoy the privilege. Franche-Comte also had its saucer.
It was also on Saturday, at 7:50 a.m., that a gentleman, whose words cannot be doubted, residing in Montrond-le-Château, in the Doubs, which left the parish church, with two ladies and a child, and saw the saucer. It came from the northwest and was heading south-east.
"It was," said the witness, "a luminous craft that has the elongated form of a rocket and run very fast, shining brightly and having a comet-like star-tail on which were all the colors of the rainbow. This is by no means a hallucination. We were four and we saw the machine for several seconds..."
At the same hour, the saucer-rocket was seen in Besançon. It was, in fact, 7:50 a.m. when Mr. Nicod, a city supervisor, who was conversing with Mr. Marcel and Mr. Brocard, an employee at the Bouchu house, suddenly said to them: "Look quickly... It looks like a flying saucer!" The two men watched the sky and, in the morning clouds, saw "like a red cigar lying backwards, 2m50 in length (visual) and spinning horizontally at a dizzying speed, from the northeast to the southeast..."
This meteor (?) whose surface appeared "speckled of black", disappeared behind the clouds. The vision had lasted a few seconds and was apparently allowed by a thinning in the sky. The testimony of the three seers did not fail to elicit very diverse comments among the municipal employees of Besançon. Children from the Rue des Vieilles-Perrières reportedly also saw the celestial bolide at the same time.
It should be noted that Mr. Nicod was at the municipal workshops at Canot, a place close to the Rue des Vieilles-Perrières. The "saucer" in the shape of a cigar, was also seen in the direction of Beaume-Les-Dames.
An identical phenomenon was observed on Saturday morning at 7 a.m. in Vesoul, where a certain number of inhabitants of the town suddenly saw appearing above the hill of La Motte, going from west to east, a luminous object, of oval shape, in the yellow, orange colors, which, before disappearing, left behind a multicolored and flamboyant trail. The Observatory of Besançon, warned, was unable to give any information likely to explain these genuine visions...
The mystery remains whole: saucer, saucer-rocket, saucer-cigarette will continue to fuel conversations. The witnesses, formal, will give all the details possible to their interlocutors, most of whom will remain unfortunately skeptical. For those who have not seen feel an indefinable feeling in the depths of themselves, a sentiment not very noble, to say the least, of regret and vexation. Of envy perhaps.
"If you do not believe us, do not believe us," said the witnesses. And yet, we know well that we have seen.
[Ref. bre1:] NEWSPAPER "LA BOURGOGNE REPUBLICAINE":
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After the celestial phenomenon of August 12 which, from the Jura to the Morvan, had thousands of witnesses, the appearance of November 9 [sic] seems to be a date, in turn, in the voluminous file of "non-identified aerial objects."
Information has poured in from all over the region.
Our correspondents, our readers have communicated to us the observations they have gathered.
Observations which cast a strange light on the extraordinary object which, on Saturday morning, moved for nearly two hours over eastern France.
The first reports left the door open to all hypotheses: meteor, balloon, jet plane... or saucer!
Those that we have since collected allow us to reject outright the hypothesis of a meteorite [sic], whose trajectory is perfectly regular in direction and speed, always very high: around 40,000 km. per hour.
They also make it possible to reject the hypothesis of the balloon, as its apparent speed cannot exceed those of the most violent currents: 300 km.-hour.
Indeed, what did we see on Saturday?
Saturday morning, 6:15 a.m. With a flash of blinding light, a craft of round shape tears the sky of Lunéville. It flies from North to South. No noise.
7:20 a.m.: in Neuvelle-les-Champlitte, a red glow casts a reflection of blood on the snowy countryside. Very high up, a rather long object, followed by an incandescent trail, describes an immense arc of a circle and heads north.
From Lunéville to Neuvelle: 130 km, in straight line, that the craft covered in one hour.
7:40 a.m.: in Nancy, a yellowish disc spins in the low sky, trailing behind it, a beam of light. Its size seems approximately that of a quarter of the moon.
From Neuvelle to Nancy: 125 kilometers, covered in 20': the pace, although still reduced, increases: 375 km per hour.
7:45 a.m. Chaumont-Montigny-le-Roy-Langres-Gemeaux. In a few tens of seconds, at an altitude which seems relatively low to the witnesses, a dazzling craft, with a capricious trajectory, splits the emerging day with its intense light, red at the front, clearer at the rear, with greenish reflections forming like a triangular bundle.
In Gemeaux, change of direction: the craft veers clearly towards the east. We see it in Oisilly, Vesoul, where a witness gave the exact time of his passage: 7:46 a.m.
Watch mismatch or temporary slowdown? It was not seen in Besançon until 4 minutes later.
New change of direction, less accentuated: Dole is overflown. From Chaumont, the object traveled about 250 kilometers, in 5 minutes. The morning snail has given way to a real racing car: 3,000 km.hour! (approximately).
And the extraordinary journey continues: Poligny, where it is seen as a disc of red yellow color, seeming to spin on itself, and followed by a bluish trail. Lons-le-Saulnier, where it moves slowly, stopping almost completely for ten seconds, before starting abruptly towards Switzerland, leaving behind it, as it accelerates, a huge glowing plume.
Which meteorite, which balloon would have indulged in such astonishing maneuvers, and, for a balloon, at such speeds?
However, to leave no doubt, we questioned the various weather stations in the region.
"No ballon was released" we were told.
Same answer at the American base in Semoutiers: it was neither one of our planes, nor a balloon launched by us!".
The Besançon observatory saw nothing, and for good reason: employees do not take service until 8:30 a.m.!
So, no question of balloons, even if we tried to admit an error of approximation of speed, speed otherwise confirmed by the figures.
These two hypotheses being eliminated, what remains?
There are only two possible explanations left: unmanned earthly vehicle... or a saucer.
However, to our knowledge, since the removal of the Mailly test station, there is no longer either in France or in Western Europe any launching base for such devices.
So here we are, once again, in front of a beautiful question mark: what was it then?
Another troubling point adds to the problem. At the same time as Haute-Marne, Doubs, Côte-d'Or, Jura were flown over, the region of Beaujeu and Mâcon also saw a circular, yellowish object moving quickly in the NNW-SSE direction, and seeming to move at a fairly low altitude.
It seems unlikely that this is the same object. Indeed, a simplified triangulation determines fairly approximately the "necessary and sufficient" conditions for the craft to have been seen from both Nancy and Beaujeu, 350 kilometers away in straight line!
Required altitude: 30,000 meters, in formal contradiction with the estimates given by witnesses, and which vary between 1,500 and 3,000 meters.
Minimum diameter so that the object has been seen as a single point (assuming that the separating power of the eye is equal to 1°) and not as "a large tangerine" or a disk as big as a quarter of the moon: a hundred meters.
And these conditions are all theoretical. They require, indeed, perfect visibility, which was not the case, many nebulous clusters covering certain places of the region.
In Dijon, and its surroundings, for example, there were two eighth covers, at 1,000 meters, at the time of observation. In Besançon: five eighths at 400 meters. In Nancy, no ceiling. The wind was calm everywhere.
We can therefore reasonably assume that it is not just one, but several unidentified objects, which furrowed the sky on Saturday morning.
[Map caption:] From Lunéville (top, right) to Lons-le-Saulnier, here is, roughly reconstructed from the testimonies collected, the extraordinary journey of the strange "unidentified object." Better than long comments, this sketch highlights the changes of direction and the variations in pace noted by the witnesses. A question mark: was it another craft that was seen at the same time in Saône-et-Loire?
And these objects were not optical illusions. Too many reliable witnesses (among them professors, school directors, engineers) in too many different places, gave details which clearly locate a material object:
What remains then as an explanation?
Those who have seen have their opinion more or less fixed: they saw one of these mysterious saucers, whose appearances in all parts of the globe have unleashed the most heated controversies.
To the others, I leave it to them to draw the conclusions that they find most satisfactory.
Anyway, here's a nice extra piece to the bulky "unidentified aerial objects" file!
Ch. GARREAU.
After America, France increasingly sees strange objects appear in its sky...
What are they? Where do they come from? The question, so far, has remained unanswered.
But the United States Air Force, the first, has opened an investigation that has dragged on for seven years.
Very soon, under the signature of an American expert [Donald Keyhoe] our journal will start publishing a fascinating series of articles; which will reveal to our readers some of the secret files of the US Air Force.
[Ref. cgu1:] CHARLES GARREAU:
French journalist and pioneer of French ufology Charles Garreau drew the map underneath to plot sightings which all occurred on January 9, 1954, between 06:15 A.M. and 7:50 A.M. in the East of France.
Though no narrative is joined, it is visible on the map that according to Garreau a sighting of some sort occurred on January 9, 1954, at 07:46 a.m. in Vesoul.
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[Ref. cgu2:] CHARLES GARREAU:
The journalist, author and pioneer ufologist indicated that on Saturday January 9, 1954, at dawn, there was a "flash invasion" on the east of France; which according to him "seems to be a highlight in the voluminous 'flying saucers' file."
Garreau indicated that from "all places" in the region, information flocked to his desk, about an object that "flew for almost two hours above the East."
He said that the first reports left the door open to all hypotheses, meteor, balloon, jet plane, "or saucer!", but that the reports which reached him later would eliminate all these hypotheses except that of the flying saucer.
He recalled that meteors always have a perfectly rectilinear trajectory, a relatively high constant speed of 30.000 to 40.000 km/h, and that balloons have an apparent speed which cannot exceed that of the strongest stratospheric currents, from 300 to 400 km/h.
He indicated that "the craft" was seen in Vesoul, where a witness had the reflex to note the exact time of 7:46 a.m. He wondered if there was a "discrepancy between the watches or momentary slowing down "because we don't see it in Besançon until 4 minutes later."
He explained that no meteor or balloon could have engaged in the "zigzag" shown according to him by the observations of this morning, and that no plane of the time could have been able "to stop then accelerate at more than 3,000 per hour", performances which he deduced from some of the observations and distances between observation spots relative to the reported observations hours.
Garreau added that "to leave no doubt", he had questioned the various regional weather stations, and that he had been told that no balloon had been launched.
At the American base in Semoutiers, near Chaumont, he was told "It was neither a balloon, nor a plane, from here."
He added that the Besançon observatory had seen nothing, and that the Contrexéville and Dijon radar sets as well as the Perrogney goniometer in Haute-Saône had seen nothing, since their specialists only took their duty at 8 a.m.
He added that the "Scientific bureau" had hesitated to take a position, saying that the only possible "natural" explanation would be that of a meteor, but "the journey described by the object is such that it could not have been a single meteor. It would therefore have to be admitted that it was a swarm of meteorites which crossed "(under the clouds!!!)" the sky of eastern France following different trajectories."
[Ref. fdz1:] FRANCOIS DIOLEZ:
F. Diolez of the French ufology group CNEGU set up a catalogue of cases in the Vosges, in November 1984, with the help of ufologist François Lagarde.
The catalogue indicates that on Saturday January 9, 1954 at approximately 07:50 or 07:55 local time, in Vesoul, a sighting took place which was reported in an article of La Liberté de l'Est for January 13, 1954.
[Ref. lcn1:] LUC CHASTAN:
Luc Chastan indicates that in the Haute Saône in Vesoul on January 9, 1954, at 07:46 "Observation of a discoïdal object of a dazzling red luminosity with trail. Coming from the southwest and seems to make a loop towards the south."
The source is indicated as "Les soucoupes volantes viennent d'un autre monde by Guieu Jimmy ** Fleuve Noir 1954".
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The January 9, 1954, 07:48 a.m. meteor.
Charles Garreau had decided to interpret the hours as precise to the minute, to concoct his "zigzags"; which may be the case here with these "7:46". But this time would have been that displayed by the witness's watch, not necessarily set correctly to the minute. In any case, it is one of the few that was not rounded to the nearest 5 minutes (like 7:40, 7:45, 7:50...).
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Vesoul, Haute-Saône, multiple, luminous, oval, yellow, orange, red, trail, multicolored, flaming
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | August 9, 2004 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | January 10, 2010 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. Addition [lcn1]. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | January 25, 2017 | Addition [ler1]. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | January 26, 2019 | Additions [fdz1], Summary. |
| 1.2 | Patrick Gross | February 3, 2020 | Addition [cgu2]. In the Explanations, addition of the paragraph "Charles Garreau had decided..." |
| 1.3 | Patrick Gross | January 9, 2021 | Addition [bre1]. |
