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ALSACAT:

ALSACAT is my comprehensive catalog of UFO sighting reports in Alsace, the region is the North-East of France, whether they are "explained" or "unexplained".

The ALSACAT catalog is made of case files with a case number, summary, quantitative information (date, location, number of witnesses...), classifications, all sources mentioning the case with their references, a discussion of the case in order to evaluate its causes, and a history of the changes made to the file. A general index and thematic sub-catalogs give access to these Alsatian case files.

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Case of Strasbourg, on February 14, 1973:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1973-02-14-STRASBOURG-1

Summary:

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 under the title of "Mystery in the Robertsau", the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace of Strasbourg published on February 16 and 17, 1973, an observation of Wednesday, February 14, 1973, at 9 p.m., by several residents of the Robertsau district in Strasbourg.

They had noticed over the forest to the East several spots forming a strange triangle of light.

Trying to approach the phenomenon, three of the witnesses saw 5 or 6 dots of light aligned between the trees on the road to the dam of the Rhine, looking like "bright white circles floating 2 or 3 m above the ground. They were absolutely silent."

Around 11 pm, the phenomenon disappeared.

This bright triangle was also seen from Wangen, Obernai, Muttersholtz and Mittelhausbergen, where one of the witnesses thought it was the flagship markup of three ski slopes recently opened near the summit of the Hornisgrinde in the Black Forest. Depending on weather conditions, they were visible from the Strasbourg region.

The explanation was confirmed by the disappearance of the phenomenon at the precise time when the ski resort closed, 11 p.m.

Data:

Temporal data:

Date: February 14, 1973
Time: ~09:00 p.m.
Duration: ~2 hours.
First known report date: February 16, 1973
Reporting delay: Hours, 2 days.

Geographical data:

Department: Bas-Rhin
City: Strasbourg
Place: From the Roberstau district in Strasbourg, and from Wangen, Obernai, Muttersholtz, Mittelhausbergen, UFO un the sky.
Latitude: 48.608
Longitude: 7.797
Uncertainty radius: 1 km

Witnesses data:

Number of alleged witnesses: 8 or more.
Number of known witnesses: ?
Number of named witnesses: 0
Witness(es) ages: Adults.
Witness(es) types: ?

Ufology data:

Reporting channel: The regional Press.
Type of location: From city and villages.
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: Puzzled.
Witnesses interpretation: ?

Classifications:

Hynek: NL
ALSACAT: Ski slopes beacons.

Sources:

[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 under the title of "Mystery in the Robertsau", the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace of Strasbourg published on February 16 and 17, 1973, an observation of Wednesday, February 14, 1973, at 9 p.m., by several residents of the Robertsau district in Strasbourg.

They had noticed over the forest to the East several spots forming a strange triangle of light.

Trying to approach the phenomenon, three of the witnesses saw 5 or 6 dots of light aligned between the trees on the road to the dam of the Rhine, looking like "bright white circles floating 2 or 3 m above the ground. They were absolutely silent."

Around 11 pm, the phenomenon disappeared.

This bright triangle was also seen from Wangen, Obernai, Muttersholtz and Mittelhausbergen, where one of the witnesses thought it was the flagship markup of three ski slopes recently opened near the summit of the Hornisgrinde in the Black Forest. Depending on weather conditions, they were visible from the Strasbourg region.

The explanation was confirmed by the disappearance of the phenomenon at the precise time when the ski resort closed, 11 p.m.

Discussion:

Scan.

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

Map.

The Hornisgrinde is in the Black Forest in Germany, about 30 kilometers at the crow flight to the East of the Robertsau in Strasbourg.

Alsace is a broad valley between the Vosges and Black Forest; so there are many opportunities to be intrigued by lights such as ski slopes beacon and castle lightings in the two mountain ranges.

Evaluation:

Ski slopes beacons.

Sources references:

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

File history:

Authoring:

Main author: Patrick Gross
Contributors: None
Reviewers: None
Editor: Patrick Gross

Changes history:

Version: Create/changed by: Date: Description:
0.1 Patrick Gross April 9, 2016 Creation, [cvn2].
1.0 Patrick Gross April 9, 2016 First published.

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This page was last updated on April 9, 2016.