The 1954 French flap:

Saucers, cigars, etc.

The lacquered "Martien"
spoke "Russian"?

A worker from Saint-Rémy (Vosges), Mr. Ujvari, 40 years old, has just told the gendarmes of Raon-l'Etape that, last Wednesday, around 3 a.m., he was stopped on the road by a stranger of large build and average height, wearing a gray jacket, decorated on the shoulders with shiny badges.

The man spoke an unknown language. Mr. Ujvari, of Czech nationality, tried to speak Russian. His interlocutor understood it perfectly. "Where am I, he asked, in Italy, in Spain?" He then inquired about the distance separating him from the German border, and the time. The worker having told him that it was around 3:30 a.m., the man took out of his jacket a watch that marked 4 a.m.

Then the stranger gave the worker the order to move forward. Soon Ujvari saw in the middle of the road a craft in the shape of two plates reversed one against the other, from which emerged a kind of periscope.

Arrived at about thirty meters from the apparatus, which was about 1.50 high and 2.50 m. wide, the stranger tells him to move away. But, looking back from time to time, Mr. Ujvari varies could see the machine rise slowly vertically with a noise of sewing machines. Arrived at an altitude of 500 meters, it took the horizontal and disappeared in direction of the south.

Mr. Ujvari said the unknown was wearing a helmet similar to that of a motorcyclist. He had a gun in his hand.

His last word to Mr. Ujvari was "farewell" in Russian.

He had a bottle!

Friday evening, in Binic, a passerby alerted the residents of rue Wilson to inform them that he had just seen a little man all covered with hair. Several resident set off to meet the "Martian" who seemed to be waiting for them. Arriving a few meters away, the delegation realized that it was a gas bottle!

We wonder if the passer-by hadn't emptied one too many!

The War of the Worlds did not take place in Anzin

The War of the Worlds did not take place in Anzin. A false alarm had worried many people who believed... Friday evening, in an invasion of "Martians."

It was around 10 p.m. when a few strollers walking along avenue Anatole-France saw bright spots in the sky.

A person, seized with fear, sounded the alarm at the police station, while firefighters, on duty in a movie theater, rushed to screams in the street by witnesses of the strange apparitions.

The saucers were going faster and faster and leading an infernal dance, much to the excitement of passers-by who expected their landing. A firefighter even prevented motorists from driving with their headlights on, so as not to serve as a landmark for the "Martians".

Ten minutes later, one noticed that they were light reflections on glass insulators placed at the top of a pylon of a high-voltage power line.

The cigar was lit

Returning from a surveillance tour, Mr. Albert Tilly, rural policeman in Ecury-sur-Coole (Marne), saw a machine flying at very high speed. It was elongated and lighted inside. The machine moved silently and at a speed four times that of a jet plane, leaving behind a red trail of about 50 meters.