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Case of Wittenheim, on October 23, 1954:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1954-10-23-WITTENHEIM-1

Summary:

On October 22, 1954, the Press reported that many witnesses had seen impressive maneuvers of a flying object above Wittenheim in the Haut-Rhin. You can find information on this observation in its own file.

Quite on the sidelines of this event, a quite ridiculous and funny affair took shape:

One of the witnesses of the sighting, policeman Muller of Wittenheim, later found in a garden, or his garden, a forked radish that had the looks of a "Martian".

Duly made up as Martian, the radish was quickly exposed at the Zimmerman coffee shop in Wittenheim, where the witnesses of the saucer of October 22 had gathered. Everyone had fun and it was nothing more than fun, reported as such in the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for October 30, 1954:

However, the Parisian weekly tabloid Radar for November 7, 1954, thought it was clever to tell about it as if policeman Muller was serious, as if the radish was a real Martian.

In the 1970s, the case entered as a summary in the "UFOCAT" catalog in the USA, and in the "CE3" catalog by Ted Bloecher and David Webb, believing that the radish shown in Radar magazine would be a recreation of a "real" Martian resembling a radish.

Then in 1979, debunkers Barthel and Brucker told of the case as an "example", explaining that during the 1954 French saucer flap, "people invented Martians of the most extravagant shapes" such as the "vegetable Martian" of Wittenheim.

The same year, ufologists Figuet and Ruchon explained that it had only been an innocent joke, the "Martian" was never taken for anything else than what it was, a radish with a weird shape.

This did not prevented others thereafter in France and elsewhere, to write such nonsense as "Messrs Muller, Meyer, and Settner [sic] and Mrs. Zimmerman saw a little creature that looked like a radish."

And it continued like this though I narrated the case on my website in 2008.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. dna1:] NEWSPAPER "LES DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE":

Translation:

[Ref. rdr1:] "RADAR" MAGAZINE:

This weekly magazine of Paris published the photo of the radish from [dna1] with this caption:

[Ref. uct1:] UFOCAT:

[Ref. tbw1:] TED BLOECHER AND DAVID WEBB:

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

The authors indicate that in 1954 people invented Martians with the most extravagant forms, like the "vegetable Martian", a small being in the horseradish shape observed in Wittenheim in the Haut-Rhin at the beginning of November 1954.

[Ref. mft2:] MICHEL FIGUET:

This ufologist noted:

[Ref. mft1:] MICHEL FIGUET:

[Ref. rre1:] RAOUL ROBE:

[Ref. cnu1:] UFOLOGY GROUP CNEGU:

CNEGU noted among "FRANCAT solved cases":

[Ref. mye1:] UFOLOGY MAGAZINE "LES MYSTERES DE L'EST":

[Ref. jsr1:] JEAN SIDER:

[Ref. rre2:] RAOUL ROBE:

[Ref. rre3:] RAOUL ROBE:

[Ref. ars1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

[Ref. djn1:] DONALD JOHNSON:

[Ref. uda1:] "UFODNA" WEBSITE:

The website indicates that 23 October 1954 at 23:00 in Wittenheim, France, "Muller, a policeman, saw a being in his garden that resembled a big bifurcated "black raddish". three other witnesses."

And: "That same night a big, bifurcated black "radish"-shaped creature was seen walking around Wittenheim, France ."

And: "An unidentified object at close range and its occupants were observed by four witnesses (as reported to the police) in a garden for ten minutes (Muller). One radish-like being was seen."

And: "M Muller, a police officer, saw a "Martian" in his garden that resembled a big bifurcated black radish. There were three other witnesses. No other information."

The sources are noted as Webb, David, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports; Vallee, Jacques, Computerized Catalog (N = 3073); Newspaper Clippings; Rosales, Albert, Humanoid Sighting Reports Database.

[Ref. djn2:] DONALD JONHSON:

Donald Johnson indicates that in 1954, among the UFO occupants reported, were nonhumanoid "radish" looking creatures.

[Ref. prn1:] PETER ROGERSON:

[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he writes about the observation in Wittenheim on October 22, 1954, with the testimony of the son of Jean-Marie Stattner, witness like his father. The son told 50 years later, on 23 February 2004, to Christian Valentin, that he remembers that a few days after the observation, the newspaper published a photo of a "Martian" carved in a beetroot. The object had been brought to the Zimmerman coffee shop where witnesses of observation had gathered on October 22, 1954. The son notes that the irony and skepticism had greatly affected her father, who had been deeply upset by the scoffing.

Christian Valentin reproduces the article and photograph of the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace (See [dna1] above), give the source reference and his French translation:

He adds that other, less rigorous publications had then presented the affair in a more "attractive" manner, like the weekly magazine Radar #300 for November 7, 1954, who had published the photo with this caption:

Valentin adds that 25 years later, in their book "La Grande Peur Martienne" ("The Great Martian Scare"), Gerard Barthel and Jacques Brucker highlighted the Radar version indiscriminately.

[Ref. tai1:] "THINK ABOUT IT" WEBSITE:

[Ref. nip1:] "THE NICAP WEBSITE":

[Ref. ubk1:] "UFO-DATENBANK":

This database recorded the case four times:

[This database recorded the case four times instead of one time.]

[Ref. prn2:] PETER ROGERSON - "INTCAT":

[For previous and next cases in his catalog, Peter Rogerson quoted my present catalog as a source, but this time he apparently did not see what I said here about this case. So, his date is wrong, etc.]

[Ref. cnu2:] UFOLOGY GROUP "CNEGU":

[Ref. ezr1:] ERIC ZURCHER:

Discussion:

This was never an observation of an UFO or occupants, it was never presented as such neither by the "witnesses" nor by ufologists except for UFOCAT, a database started by the Condon committee in the US where the radish is claimed to have been walking! The "witnesses" were perfectly conscious of the reality: they found a radish with an unusual and funny shape and told about it. It was fun stuff, and certainly not intended to convince people that the radish really was an extraterrestrial. The story was used by the press to ridicule the flying saucer topic, and much later by French debunkers Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker to ridicule ufology.

And as if to prove them right, the case was then disseminated mainly in brief summaries and without explanation on the web.

Evaluation:

"Martian-shaped" radish, turned to "true CE3" later by uninformed ufologists.

Sources references:

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

• [dna1] * Article in the regional newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, Mulhouse, France, October 30, 1954.
• [rdr1] * Article in Radar magazine, Paris, France, #300, November 7, 1954.
• [uct1] * Entry in UFOCAT.
• [tbw1] * "HUMCAT", catalogue by Ted Bloecher and David Webb, USA, circa 1979.
• [bbr1] * "La Grande Peur Martienne", book by Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker, Nouvelles Editions Rationalistes publisher, Paris, page 85, 1979.
• [mft2] * "Catalogue Francat des rencontres rapprochées en France (Listing 800 1982) (2 - Suite)", catalogue compiled by Michel Figuet, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #257-258, page 20, November / December 1985.
• [mft1] * "Catalogue Francat des rencontres rapprochées en France - Listing 800", "Explained CE3s", catalogue by Michel Figuet, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #265-266, page 19, July / August 1986.
• [jbt1] ? Ufologist Jacques Bonabot, Belgium.
• [rre1] * "Catalogue Régional des Observations d'Humanoïdes du Nord-Est de la France et du Luxembourg (1)", compiled by Raoul Robé, Alain Gamard, M.L. Blaise, M.D. Bleux, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans la Nuit (LDLN), France, #267-238, page 38, September - October 1986.
• [cnu1] * "Cas élucidés de FRANCAT", list in the ufology bulletin Circulaire CNEGU, CNEGU, France, #5, March 1987.
• [mye1] * "Catalogue Nord Est des observations d'humanoïdes", in the ufology magazine Les Mystères de l'Est, CNEGU, France, annual, #1, page 16, 1995.
• [jsr1] * "Le Dossier 1954 et l'Imposture Rationaliste", book by Jean Sider, Ramuel publisher, France, pp 64-65, 1997.
• [rre2] * "Catalogue régional des apparitions d'humanoïdes dans le Nord Est - Réponse des 'débunkers de l'Est' à Jean Sider", article by Raoul Robé, written in January 1998, in the yearly ufology magazine Les Mystères de l'Est, CNEGU, France, #4, page 143, 1998.
• [rre3] * "Similitudes entre science fiction et ufologie", article by Raoul Robé, in the ufology magazine Les Mystères de l'Est, CNEGU, France, #7, page 18, 2002.
• [ars1] * "1954 Humanoid Reports", compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2007, at www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1954.shtml
• [djn1] * "Encounters with Aliens on this Day - October 23", web page by Donald Johnson, USA, circa 2006, at www.ufoinfo.com/onthisday/October23.html
• [uda1] * "23 Oct 1954 - Wittenheim, France", web page by the UFOdna website, circa 2008, at www.ufodna.com/uf00/uf3/003477.htm
• [djn2] * "The Worldwide UFO Wave of 1954", electronic article by Donald Johnson, Ph.D., USA, page 16, 2009, at www.ufoinfo.com/onthisday/papers/Worldwide%20UFO%20Wave%20of%201954.pdf
• [prn1] * "Incat 1954 - International Catalogue of Entity Reports", compiled by Peter Rogerson, U-K., circa 2012, at intcat.blogspot.fr/search/label/1954
• [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 51, 2012.
• [tai1] * "1954: October Sightings", catalog on the UFO website Think About It, USA, not dated, found 2014, at http://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/8-1954-october-sightings
• [nip1] * List on The NICAP Website, USA, found in 2014, at http://www.nicap.org/reports/1954_ufocat.htm
• [ubk1] * Online database UFO-Datenbank, Germany, found in 2016, at ufodatenbank.de
• [prn2] * "INTCAT 1954", catalogue compiled by Peter Rogerson, U-K., circa 2016, at https://intcat.blogspot.com/search?q=1954
• [cnu2] * "Catalogue Nord-Est des Observations d'Humanoïdes", unsigned electronic catalogue, ufology group CNEGU, France, page 15, not dated, circa 2020.
• [ezr1] * "Les Apparitions d'Humanoïdes", book by Eric Zurcher, JMG publisher, France, page 357, 2020.

File history:

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This page was last updated on February 3, 2023.