ALSACAT-1974-08-08-LEMBACH-1
The newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for Thursday, August 15, 1974, reported the following case:
On Thursday, 8 August 1974 staying at the campground lake Fleckenstein, Yves Bossier, Thierry Hurer and Jacques Flaba, three young students of Strasbourg had decided to spend the evening in the town of Lembach by a road between the hills of Thannenbruck and Wingen.
At 09:30 p.m., they were halfway there when suddenly Thierry drew the attention of his comrades on a bright triangle that had appeared in the east and crossed the valley from east to west, flashing three times.
This triangle emitted a bright light from a white matte: "It looked like very luminous lead," he told Yves.
The sighting lasted between five and ten seconds. "It was not a plane as it moved without noise. In addition, the night was very clear and we perfectly noticed the shape of the craft. It was a triangle of white metal that had to evolve at 2000 m above sea level."
| Date: | August 8, 1974 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ~11:30 p.m. |
| Duration: | 5 to 10 seconds. |
| First known report date: | August 15, 1974 |
| Reporting delay: | 1 week. |
| Department: | Bas-Rhin |
|---|---|
| City: | Lembach |
| Place: | Walking in valley halfway between the Fleckenstein lake and Lembach, UFO in the sky. |
| Latitude: | 49.020 |
| Longitude: | 7.773 |
| Uncertainty radius: | 1 km |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 to 3 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 3 |
| Witness(es) ages: | Teenagers. |
| Witness(es) types: | College boys. |
| Reporting channel: | The regional Press. |
|---|---|
| Type of location: | Walking in valley, UFO in the sky. |
| Visibility conditions: | Evening. |
| UFO observed: | Yes |
| UFO arrival observed: | ? |
| UFO departure observed: | ? |
| Entities: | No |
| Photographs: | No. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | Not a plane. |
| Hynek: | NL or DD |
|---|---|
| ALSACAT: | Unidentified, but meager information. |
[Ref. aldl:] MRS. GUEUDELOT, "LUMIERES DANS LA NUIT" ARCHIVE:
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Ist week of AUGUST 1974.-
LEMBACH. - (68)
Hour: 09:30 p.m.
Staying at the Fleckenstein lake campsite, Yves BOSSIER, Thierry HURER and Jacques FLABA, decided to go in the evening to the commune of LAMBACH following the small road which stretches between two hills, the Thannenbruck and the Wingen. They were halfway there when suddenly Thierry HURER attracted the attention of his comrades: a luminous triangle had just appeared in the EAST. Flashing three times across the valley from EAST to WEST, the unknown triangle emitted a bright, dull white light. "It looked like very luminous lead," says Yves BOSSIER. And, adds Jacques FLABA, this craft was very large. "The apparition should only last five to six seconds." It was not a plane, they declared, because it moved without noise. Furthermore, the night was very clear and we noticed the shape of the craft perfectly. It was a triangle of white metal which must have moved at an altitude of approximately 2,000 m."
"Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace" for AUGUST 15, 1974.
[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 the newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace for Thursday, August 15, 1974, reported the following case:
On Thursday, 8 August 1974 staying at the campground lake Fleckenstein, Yves, and Thierry Jacques, three young students of Strasbourg had decided to spend the evening in the town of Lembach by a road between the hills of Thannenbruck and Wingen.
At 09:30 p.m., they were halfway there when suddenly Thierry drew the attention of his comrades on a bright triangle that had appeared in the east and crossed the valley from east to west, flashing three times.
This unknown triangle emitted a bright light from a white matte: "It looked like very luminous lead," he told Yves.
The apparition lasted between five and ten seconds. "It was not a plane as it moved without noise. In addition, the night was very clear and we perfectly noticed the shape of the craft. It was a triangle of white metal that had to evolve at 2000 m above sea level."
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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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Below: Aerial view to the Fleckenstein lake with the descent to Lembach.
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A distant airplane may well seem silent if the distance is sufficient and/or the wind in the opposite direction; but here the duration of 5 to 10 seconds correspond to a very quick pass for a distant airplane, and if it was a close plane (Mirage III with its delta wing for example), it should have been heard.
So, maybe we should believe the boys when they told it was not a plane.
Unidentified, but meager 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 |
| Editeur: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 20, 2015 | Creation, [cvn2]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 20, 2015 | First published. |
| 1.1 | Patrick Gross | September 7, 2023 | Addition [ald1]. |
