The 1954 French flap:

The gendarmes
are looking for a
"Martian" in the
Limousin maquis

From the Moselle to the Bidassoa, the "Martian" offensive is developing. It is now by squadrons that saucers and cigars fly over the territory. We counted up to six at a time, yesterday, above Lantefontaine-les-Baroches, in Lorraine. Several dozen workers saw them.

"We first saw," they said, "two 'cigars', then four more craft joined the first two. All of them stood perfectly still for a moment and finally disappeared instantly."

Their statements are confirmed by several other people.

In Bayonne, yesterday afternoon, three were seen. A peacekeeper, Mr. Corrions, who was in the Halles district, observed these three motionless craft, arranged in a triangle and slightly oval in shape. They were, he said, the size of a rugby ball and appeared to be at a considerable height.

In Le Puy, only one cigar, but the end was, it seems, glowing.

In Clermont-Ferrand, the same probably left behind a pink trail; in Langeac (Haute-Loire), it was a white glow.

In Epinal, it is no longer a cigar but a yellow saucer, "surrounded by a paler ring".

In the Charente-Maritime, three fishermen and a customs officer saw the other night a formation of three saucers which was scouring, while that with binoculars, yesterday afternoon, in Villebois-Lavalette (Charente), Mrs. Faubert and Miss Forgeron clearly distinguished a "slightly conical" cigar.

In the Limousin, terror reigns. In Roches (Creuse), the children no longer dare to go to school alone: a man of strange appearance who is hiding in thickets was seen. Two young shepherdesses also saw him near Chamboulève (Corrèze). One wonders whether the "Martian" who, the other day, kissed a Bugeat farmer and left without saying a word on board his saucer, left a companion who wanders through the Limousin maquis. The gendarmes are looking for the "Martian", but have not yet encountered him...