The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Journal de Biarritz et de la Côte Basque, France, page 2, on October 29, 1954.
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There was much talk of flying saucers at the last Capitou of the Gascon Academy. The director of the honorable "company" himself opened the fire by recalling a news item that caused some stir - for 24 hours - in Bayonne's Landerneau.
It was November 2, 1927. At eleven in the morning, a large crowd gathered on Rue Port-Neuf. What was happening? An accident? A quarrel? Neither one nor the other. People, noses in the air, were gazing in amazement at a magnificent star that sparkled brightly in broad daylight, in a sky of perfect clarity.
Comments abounded and a reporter, mingling with the onlookers, collected the most picturesque ones...
Some announced the end of the world as imminent; others saw in it a portent of the worst calamities. A "scientist" hailed the birth of a new comet in the Bayonne sky; a naive soul called this motionless star a "shooting star." A joker, noticing in the crowd a soldier dressed in leather, said to his neighbors: "Do you see that aviator?... He's wondering how he's going to get back to his monoplane that's broken down up there!"
A traveling salesman insinuated that it was an advertisement, and made good use of the moment to promote Pattes de la Lune and Martel Trois Étoiles.
The next day, the "Courrier de Bayonne" gave the solution to the enigma: "Go down into a well," it wrote, "for it is even darker there than Rue Port-Neuf. From there, you will see not one, but a hundred stars in broad daylight, especially if the weather is clear."
The story does not say whether anyone tried the experiment. What is certain is that no one spoke again of the famous star.
Our elders were, decidedly, less gullible than we are today!
PEILLIC
