France 1954 -> Home 

Cette page en françaisCliquez!

The 1954 French flap:

The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.

< Previous  All  Next >

Mid October, 1954, Harlettes, Pas-de-Calais:

Reference for this case: Mid-Oct-54-Harlettes.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

The regional newspaper La Voix du Nord, in the local issue of Saint-Omer for October 21, 1954, repported three cases of recovey of weather baloons debris, as the region had a number of sitghings of "flying saucers".

One of the discoveries was made by a Coulomby farmer, the young Albert Curcheval, in a beet field in the hamlet of Harlette, near the national road which leads to Boulogne. It was a 2 meters high object, with tubes of 1 meter, held in the center by a cable and a thin net, surmounted by an oiled paper parachute and a punctured balloon.

Reports:

[Ref. vdn1:] NEWSPAPER "LA VOIX DU NORD":

Scan.

LUMBRES

The "saucers"
were sounding balloons

On Sunday and Monday, locals could boast of seeing flying saucers. There is currently such a profusion of these machines that we were not too surprised that they made their appearance in the Audomarois sky. We were not far from feeling some pride.

Some may be disappointed to learn that these were just common weather balloons. Indeed, near Lumbre, Mr. Léon Bournonville, 53 years old, gamekeeper, in Sénighen, on tour in the "Bois Large", discovered a spherical, shiny object connected to an exploded balloon and an aluminum sphere of 30 cm in diameter. Writing in English were very visible there...

A Coulomby farmer, the young Albert Curcheval, found in a beet field, in the hamlet of Harlette, near the national road which led to Boulogne, an object of 2 m. high, with tubes of 1 m., held in the center by a cable and a thin net, surmounted by an oiled paper parachute and a punctured balloon.

One reports the discovery in Bouvelinghem, of an identical object by Mrs. Marie Dallery. It bears writing printed in English.

Explanations:

Map.

Negative case, fallen weather balloon.

Keywords:

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

Harlettes, Pas-de-Calais, negative case, balloon, weather balloon, debris, crash, Albert Curcheval, farmer, Coulomby, field, beets, object, tubes, cable, net, parachute, paper, oiled, balloon, punctured

Sources:

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

Document history:

Version: Created/Changed by: Date: Change Description:
1.0 Patrick Gross October 9, 2021 First published.

Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict



 Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home
This page was last updated on October 9, 2021.