The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Berry Républicain, Bourges, France, pages 1 and 8, on January 8, 1954.
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Dieppe, January 7. -- This morning, between 4:30 and 5:15 a.m., nearly 70 dockworkers from the port of Dieppe saw a blinding light in the sky followed four minutes later by a tremendous explosion that opened many doors and shattered the windows of houses throughout the city. Most of the inhabitants of Dieppe were awakened by the deafening noise.
The postal vehicle operating between Dieppe and Rouen was near the first of these two towns at the moment the light appeared. According to the two occupants of the vehicle, the explosion occurred only eight minutes after the flash.
The Dieppe semaphore made contact with the one in Fécamp and with those in all the small ports along the coast. All confirmed that the phenomenon was seen in each of these locations.
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However, several witnesses living in La Mailleraye, a locality located about 80 kilometers south of Dieppe, and in Serqueux, a village about 50 km southeast of Dieppe, are categorical: they saw the light, which came from the direction of Dieppe.
Finally, it is worth noting that about a week ago, a fishing boat arrived in Dieppe riddled with small fragments that could have come from a meteorite.
At the moment, speculation abounds regarding the nature of this strange phenomenon.
This morning at 4:27 a.m., a railway employee starting his shift at Orchies station saw in the sky a disc of fire moving horizontally at dizzying speed. A luminous trail followed the glowing disc along its path.
The same phenomenon was seen at roughly the same time in Arras. A witness stated that he saw the disc standing still for a moment in the sky, but did not have time to observe it further. It immediately resumed its course and disappeared over the horizon.
It is very likely, according to the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, that the phenomenon observed this morning was nothing other than a fireball. The very time at which the observation was made supports this opinion. But, they add, such explosions are not very rare and have been recorded many times all over the globe.
It is known that fireballs are bodies whose origin and composition are poorly understood, and which, when moving through the sky, heat up as they encounter the Earth's atmosphere due to the resistance it exerts. It is then that they become incandescent.
