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The 1954 French flap:

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Probably beginning of October, 1954, Villefranche-du-Queyran, Lot-et-Garonne:

Reference for this case: Oct-54-Villefranche-du-Queyran.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

The two "sceptical" ufologists Gérard Barteh and Jacques Brucker indicated in their nook "La Grande Peur Martienne" ("The Great Martian Scare"), in order to illustrate their opinion that the saucer reports in the Press were poor, the following extract of which they indicate that the source was the newspaper Sud-Ouest for October 5, 1954:

"Miss Maurillon saw an orange gleam which moved towards the west at high speed, it had the shape of cigar."

Further in their book, they quote the same newspaper as containing this text concerning an observation in "Villefranche-de-Queyrain" [sic] at 09:30 p.m.:

"Miss Maurillon saw an orange gleam, in the shape of a cigar, which moved towards the west, at high speed."

Reports:

[Ref. bbr1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:

The two authors indicate, in order to illustrate their opinion on the poor content of the saucer reports in the press, the following extract of which they indicate that the source is the newspaper Sud-Ouest for October 5, 1954:

"Miss Maurillon saw an orange gleam which moved towards the west at high speed, it had the shape of cigar."

Further in their book, they quote the same newspaper as containing this text concerning an observation in Villefranche-de-Queyrain [sic] at 09:30 p.m.:

"Miss Maurillon saw an orange gleam, in the shape of a cigar, which moved towards the west, at high speed."

Explanations:

Possible plane or meteor.

Barthel and Brucker are right about the poor quality of this press report and many other press reports. But:

When the press reported an observation in this very indigent form, it was usually because the article was about many observations coming from other newspapers. There may well have been a much more detailed primary Press source, but Barthel and Brucker did not seem to care.
Ufologists seem to have realized without the "help" of Barthel and Brucker that this Press report was "unusable", since I did not find a single other ufology source for this sighting than the writing of Barthel and Brucker neither on paper nor on the Web.
It seems from the difference between the two versions they gave of what would come from the same newspaper article that while the initial report was poor, they still impoverished one of the versions themselves just to make their point.

Keywords:

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

Villefranche-de-Queyran, Villefranche-de-Queyrain, Maurillon, orange, gleam, cigar, fast, orange, night

Sources:

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

[----] Article in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest, Bordeaux, France, October 5, 1954.
[bbr1] "La Grande Peur Martienne", book by Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker, Les nouvelles Editions Rationalistes publisher, France, pages 138,180, 1979.

Document history:

Version:	Created/Changed by:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	December 12, 2005	First published.
1.0	Patrick Gross	February 21, 2010	Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version.
1.1	Patrick Gross	November 18, 2019	Addition of the Summary. Explanations changed, were "Airplane or meteor possible."

This page was last updated on November 18, 2019.