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Case of Mulhouse, on August 25, 1954:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1954-08-25-MULHOUSE-1

Summary:

On August 27, 1954, the regional newspaper L'Alsace reported that three boys, Bernard, aged 16, Peter, aged 14 and Roland, came to see them the evening before, to tell them that they had seen a flying saucer. Another boy, Rene, 16, had seen it too but had also dared to come to tell about it at the newspaper's office.

These four young friends were on August 25, 1954, like every evening, at the channel "Canal du Rhône-au-Rhin" at the level of the Sanara near the street of Tunis. Looking up, Peter saw a maneuvering luminous disc, but he said, "I was not paying attention." The object actually quickly left.

But it came dancing before his eyes a few moments later and Peter, this time, alerted his comrades. They told to the newspaper:

"It was a sort of very bright disc, whose diameter was about one meter. The craft zigzagged in the sky for a few seconds and then flew away quickly towards the railway station and we lost sight of it. Throughout its maneuvers we did not hear any noise."

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Temporal data:

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Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. lae1:] NEWSPAPER "L'ALSACE":

[Ref. cvn1:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

In his dossier on the flying saucers flap in Alsace published in 2004, Christian Valentin indicates that on Wednesday August 25, 1954, the first observation in Alsace of an unidentified object not took place above Mulhouse.

He indicates that four young people aged from 13 to 16 which were usually gathering in the evening at the edge of the channel of the Rhone to the Rhine near Tunis Street made a simple and laconic testimony. One of them whose first name was Pierre spoke about a sort of very shiny disc which was zigzaging in the sky, and which moved silently away after a few seconds in direction of the railway station.

[Ref. spa1:] "SPICA" UFOLOGY ASSOCIATION:

[Ref. mps1:] MICHEL PADRINES:

The author indicates that the first sighting of 1954 in Alsace takes place on August 25, 1954 in Mulhouse, "four young people observe a very brilliant disc."

No source is given.

[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

Discussion:

About Christian Valentin's book:

It is not at all my habit to "advertise" a book or anything, and I have no interested relationship with the author, but I wanted to say a word on the book by Christian Valentin, "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés" (i.e. "Myths and Realities of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (cover on the left), ref. [cv2]; which, as its subtitle indicates, is about Alsatian UFO sighting reports and the saucer lore in Alsace.

I think Alsatian ufologists and, generally, people interested in the UFO question, or in the history of Alsace, my region, would probably like this book.

The 144 pages book is sober but well presented, unbiased, richly documented and illustrated. It is the first work in print specifically about UFO sightings in Alsace. (There was another one a few years ago, but it was partly made by copying - pasting without mention of the sources, portions of my website, especially the Alsatians cases I almost exhaustively documented in my catalog of UFO sightings in France in 1954, and copies from another websites; the trivial explanations I proposed or gave there being almost always stripped off!)

The author does not want to prove or disprove the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors or some other so-called "extraordinary" explanation, he rather offers a chronologically ordered review of Alsatian UFO reports, starting from the origin and stopping in 1980, based on known sources ufology, on the articles of the regional Press, and cases less known or even unreleased so far that he collected directly with the witnesses. His own comments are printed in a different color, references to the sources are always given. A very nice work in my opinion!

The author currently has a blog where he shows what libraries in Alsace have the book available, see: christian.valentin.overblog.com

The SANARA indicated in the newspaper was the "Société Alsacienne de Navigation Rhénane" ("Alsatian Rhine Navigation Company"), with its facilities at the Canal du Rhône-au-Rhin there. The witnesses were at the location marked "Canal" on this aerial view of the South East of Mulhouse. The flying saucer went towards the Mulhouse railway station ("Gare"), according to the boys.

The newspaper L'Alsace was referring to a saucer landing in Norway, the case of Oeydalen, where two sisters had seen a man, a human, in khaki outfit, who laughed at the sight of them, did not understand what they were saying even when they tried English. He allegedly sketched a map of the planets to tell them what planet he came from, and would have brought them in a clearing to show them his 5-meter craft; which "looked like two giant pans lids stuck against each other". The man went into the craft; which took off with "no more noise than a bumblebee." The military investigator explained that it was a NATO American pilot and his helicopter. Then, U.S. pilot Marly Fauro of NATO came forwards as having been the pilot. But oddly the military investigator then stated that the clearing was too small to land a helicopter there...

This case caused a sensation in the Press in Europe. Another case caused sensation, that of flying cigar and saucers seen in Vernon in the Eure in the night of August 22 to 23. We can therefore argue that these boys could have perfectly known what a "flying saucer" was supposed the be, and could have hoaxed their story.

If this was not a pure invention, I have no convincing ordinary explanation. But on the other hand, it lacks too much information: the hour, durations, angular sizes, speed, trajectory, color etc. etc. An investigation could have comprised separate interviews of the boys and could have filled these gaps, but at the time it simply was not done, with very rare exceptions.

Evaluation:

Unidentified, low credibility, lack of information.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [lae1] * "Une "Soucoupe Volante" au-dessus de la ville?", article in the regional newspaper L'Alsace, France, August 27, 1954.
• [cvn1] * "1954, l'année des OVNIS - Des observations par dizaines, des témoins par centaines", article by Christian Valentin in Saisons d'Alsace, quarterly magazine, Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace publisher, Strasbourg, France, pp 90-91, summer 2004.
• [spa1] * "Il y a cinquante ans - Les Ovnis en Alsace", article by the Alsatian ufology association SPICA, in the UFOmania ufology magazine, Didier Gomez publisher, France, #41, Fall 2004.
• [mps1] * "OVNIS Générations Ufo", book by Michel Padrines, self-published, France, page 187, 2006.
• [cvn2] * "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés - Histoire des soucoupes volantes en Alsace jusqu'en 1980", book by Christian Valentin, Grimoires d'Alsace publishers, France, page 29, 2012.

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This page was last updated on June 2, 2018.