ALSACAT-1976-09-25-MULHOUSE-1
The regional newspaper L'Alsace for October 17, 1976, reported that one of their readers from Mulhouse, Mr. M. R., thought he saw a UFO twice: on Friday evening October 15, 1976, and on September 25, 1976, in the sky of Mulhouse.
The newspaper said that Mr. R. had seen on Friday night around 11:15 p.m. what he had seen on September 25, 1976, described as a bright spot the size of the Northern star but extremely bright and orange in color; which moved quickly at high altitude.
According to the witness, this was "in no way" a plane or a weather balloon illuminated by the sun.
| Date: | September 25, 1976 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ? |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | October 17, 1976 |
| Reporting delay: | 2 wweks. |
| Department: | Haut-Rhin |
|---|---|
| City: | Mulhouse |
| Place: | ? |
| Latitude: | 47.749 |
| Longitude: | 7.338 |
| Uncertainty radius: | 4 km |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 0 |
| Witness(es) ages: | Young adult, adult or aged. |
| Witness(es) types: | Male resident. |
| Reporting channel: | Letter to the regional Press. |
|---|---|
| Type of location: | ? |
| Visibility conditions: | Night. |
| 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, not a weather balloon. |
| Hynek: | NL |
|---|---|
| ALSACAT: | Unidentified, but low strangeness and insufficient information. |
[Ref. lae1:] NEWSPAPER "L'ALSACE":
A resident of ... street in Mulhouse, Mr. M. R. thinks he observed twice, Friday evening and on last September 25, in the sky of Mulhouse an "Unidentified flying object" in other words a "flying saucer".
Mr. R. saw Friday at about 11:15 p.m. what he had already seen: a luminous dot the size of the Northern star but of an extremely bright orange color, moving fast at high altitude. According to our reader, it could not at all have been a plane, not even a weather balloon lit by the sun...
[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 L'Alsace for Sunday, October 11, 1976, in their Mulhouse issue, reported the sightings of Friday, September 25 and Friday, October 15, 1976, in Mulhouse:
A resident of ... street in Mulhouse, Mr. M. R. thinks he observed twice, Friday evening and on last September 25, in the sky of Mulhouse an "Unidentified flying object" in other words a "flying saucer".
Mr. R. saw Friday at about 11:15 p.m. what he had already seen: a luminous dot the size of the Northern star but of an extremely bright orange color, moving fast at high altitude. According to our reader, it could not at all have been a plane, not even a weather balloon lit by the sun...
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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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Since the hour is not known, I could make astronomical checks only for the second observation, that of September 15, 1976; but the witness apparently said it was the same phenomenon.
On September 15, 1976, at 11:15 p.m., from Mulhouse, the Northern Star (Polaris) was at azimuth 1°3 (due north of course) and an elevation of 48°13. There was no remarkable astronomical object in the visual proximity of Polaris, all other stars around were much less bright as Polaris. Mars, orange object indeed, was not even visible. And Mars as well as the stars are rarely described as fast moving anyway.
In short, I do not see what this gentleman has seen, but is it my fault? The newspaper could have published or gathered data such as observation duration, angular velocity, etc, but they did not.
Unidentified, but low strangeness and 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 |
| Editeur: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 14, 2015 | Creation, [lae1], [cvn2]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 14, 2015 | First published. |
