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The 1954 French flap:

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Beginning of November, 1954, Ronsenac, Charente:

Reference for this case: Beg-Nov-54-Ronsenac.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

The regional newspaper La Croix du Nord, of Lille, told on November 10, 1954, in their colums signed "Le P'tit Quan Quan" - mixture of "gossi" and "p'tit Quiquin", local nickname, that in the Charentes department (almost at the other end of France), between Ronsenac and Juillaguet, a group of cyclists who returned home in the middle of the night had noticed in a hollow path close to the road, lights sometimes white, sometimes red, which mysteriously appeared and disappeared.

One of the cyclists allegedly whispered "Martians" with "a voice choking with emotion."

The cyclists reportedly concerted, took their "courage in both hands", decided to go check it out, not without having disconnected the dynamos from the bikes so as not to be spotted by the said Martians.

Eventually, the strange white and red lights were the front and rear lights of the local gendarmes vehicles, as they were doing a round, and each cyclist "returned home with a gift from the martial Martian Marshals: a fine for lack of lighting."

Reports:

[Ref. cdn1:] NEWSPAPER "LA CROIX DU NORD":

Explanations:

In the best of event this is a "negative case", that is to say a case which received a prosaic explanation immediately, without investigation or intervention by any ufologist, and which was not presented other than as a resolved matter.

But I suspect that the whole story may well be just a pure journalistic invention:

1. I currently have no other source on the case, particularly, no more local source. And this kind of "funny" incident was very, very popular with the press, reported in countless newspapers (see for example the misinterpretations of Sinceny and Tain-l'Hermitage with their national and even international massive Press coverage.)
2. The story is published in a "gossip" section ("Le P'tit Quanquan" means something like "the little gossiper") which does not argue for its credibility.
3. The location towards Ronsenac may have been inspired, so as not to risk any verification, by a well-publicized case there in October.
4. If the event, the misinterpretation, recounted here, is quite plausible in the context of the moment, the mention of the whispering "voice choking with emotion" pleads for the invention because the "witnesses" would not have told something so literary, and the journalist was obviously not there to notice that the voice was "chiking with emotion."

Keywords:

(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)

Ronsenac, Charente, cyclists, multiple, misinterpretation, headlights, gendarmes, journalistic invention

Sources:

[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.

• [cdn1] Article in the regional newspaper La Croix du Nord, Lille, Pas-de-Calais, France, page 6, November 10, 1954.

Document history:

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This page was last updated on March 27, 2020.