ALSACAT-1968-08-15-STRASBOURG-1
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 reports that about the same time than the observation in Ittenheim on August 15, 1968 at about 11 p.m., a sighting took place without being reported in the Press. The witness wanted to remain anonymous and phoned him as one of his friend had asked him to do knowing Valentin was interested in flying saucers..
Aged 16 at the time, he lived with his parents in a flat in the Strasbourg district of Cronenbourg, and from the balcony at the second floor facing west, he had seen between 5 to 7 luminous craft of flattened shapes.
These disks hovered between Wolfisheim and Oberhausbergen before disappearing in the direction of Hurtigheim.
| Date: | August 15, 1968 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ~11 p.m. or shortly before |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | 2012 |
| Reporting delay: | Years, decades? |
| Department: | Haut-Rhin |
|---|---|
| City: | Strasbourg |
| Place: | From the balcony of a 2nd storey flat in the Cronenbourg district, UFOs in the sky. |
| Latitude: | 48.596 |
| Longitude: | 7.717 |
| Uncertainty radius: | 4 km |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 0 |
| Witness(es) ages: | 16 |
| Witness(es) types: | Teenager. |
| Reporting channel: | By phone anonymously to local ufologist. |
|---|---|
| Type of location: | From the balcony of a 2nd storey flat in a big city, UFOs in the sky. |
| Visibility conditions: | Night |
| UFO observed: | Yes |
| UFO arrival observed: | ? |
| UFO departure observed: | Yes |
| Entities: | No |
| Photographs: | No. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | ? |
| Hynek: | NL |
|---|---|
| ALSACAT: | Insufficient information. |
[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 reports that about the same time than the observation in Ittenheim on August 15, 1968 at about 11 p.m., a sighting took place without being reported in the Press. The witness wanted to remain anonymous and phoned him as one of his friend had asked him to do knowing Valentin was interested in flying saucers..
Aged 16 at the time, he lived with his parents in a flat in the Strasbourg district of Cronenbourg, and from the balcony at the second floor facing west, he had seen between 5 to 7 luminous craft of flattened shapes.
These disks hovered between Wolfisheim and Oberhausbergen before disappearing in the direction of Hurtigheim.
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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
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Cronenbourg is a district in northeast of Strasbourg.
The consistency with the case in Ittenheim is not good as to the observation itself; in Ittenheim a single "object" was seen and may have been the star Arcturus. Here, there are several "objects".
The stationary phase "between Wolfisheim and Oberhausbergen" seen from the Cronenbourg district - the witness's position is not accurately specified - suggests that this phase was roughly west of the witness. The movement toward Hurtigheim must have been roughly westward since Hurtigheim is visually between Wolfisheim and Oberhausbergen seen from the district of Cronenbourg. It is therefore possible that there was no movement but a dimming of light giving the illusion of distance increase.
Flying saucers? Planes? Helicopters? Something else? I do not know...
Insufficient information.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | August 17, 2014 | Creation, [cvn2]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | August 17, 2014 | First published. |
