ALSACAT ▶ Home ☰

Cette page en français

ALSACAT:

◀ Previous case Next case ▶

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:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

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:

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 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.

• [dna1] ? "Mystère à la Robertsau", article in the regional newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, Strasbourg issue, February 16 and 17, 1973.
• [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 106, 2012.

File history:

Authoring:

Changes history:

Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on April 9, 2016.