The article below was published in the daily newspaper France Soir, Paris, France, page 3, on September 23, 1954.
See the case file.
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MEZIERES, September 22 ("France-Soir" dispatch). -- A "flying top" is said to have landed in the Ardennes. At least according to the "sensational" account of a farmer from Omont, a small village a few kilometers from Mézières. This farmer, who was going to pick apples on Friday morning, saw, he said, something emerging from the clouds that he first took to be a balloon, then a parachute. The object landed at the edge of a forest and was hidden from the farmer's view by a small rise in the terrain. Hurrying over, the witness got within about sixty meters of what he believed to be a parachute. But to his great surprise, he found himself in the presence of a cone-shaped craft, from which emerged a bizarre being (the witness specified that its face was "covered in long hair, and the being moved on all fours"), which headed to the edge of the forest, about 50 meters away, stayed there only two or three seconds, and then returned to the craft, which ascended in a spinning motion. The witness saw it disappear into the clouds from which it had emerged just minutes earlier.
Not wanting to be taken for a joker — which, of course, seemed inevitable — he waited until the day after next, Sunday the 19th, to speak to several people about it. Asked about the appearance of the craft, the witness said he saw a device resembling a spinning top, about 4 meters in diameter and 2.5 meters high, which seemed to be made of matte aluminum.
