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The article below was published in the daily newspaper La Montagne, France, on February 16, 1978.
Clermont-Ferrand. -- Yesterday morning, shortly before 7 o'clock, that is to say before sunrise, while the sky was still full of stars, many witnesses saw a curious luminous phenomenon. A ball of fire for some, a tongue of flame for others, crisscrossed the celestial vault, without noise, without smoke or wake, as is sometimes the case with jet planes.
Some observers, however, noticed either a luminous trail or sparks on the back of the object.
These observations go far beyond the limits of our region since we learned in the evening that the same phenomenon had intrigued the inhabitants of La Bresse at 6:59 a.m., that is to say, a few minutes after passing over La Marche and Puy-de-Dôme.
6:50 a.m. in Dun-le-Palestel
It was 6:50 a.m. when a butcher from the village of Lavillate, near Dun-le-Palestel (Creuse), who was loading his van to make a round, saw on the horizon a round yellow-orange shape flying at low altitude and silently in the region of Azérables.
Thinking he was dreaming, he called his three workmates who, like him, noticed the phenomenon. Quickly, the U.F.O. disappeared. But a farmer from the hamlet of Ris, who was busy caring for his herd, also witnessed the strange apparition.
A total of five people said they witnessed the passage of this mysterious object.
Alerted by them, the gendarmes went to the scene. Unfortunately, there was no trace, because the object had only passed in the sky, without landing.
Since yesterday morning, in Colondannes and Dun-le-Palestel, conversations have been going well on this phenomenon.
In the Clermont sky
As he was about to get into the car to go to work, yesterday morning, at 5:50 a.m., a resident of Romagnat, near Clermont-Ferrand, had his attention drawn to the strange glow.
The phenomenon, which was seen for four or five seconds before disappearing in the mist, was moving, in his opinion, along a line passing through Aydat, the plateau of Gergovie and Aulnat. It was in the form of a tongue of fire that spit out yellowish sparks, a bit like a fairy wand. The trajectory seemed horizontal and located between 1,000 and 2,000 meters of altitude for this witness who was to meet a few minutes later work comrades who had also observed the phenomenon from the Michelin factory in Cateroux.
So an object did indeed cross the sky yesterday morning, but is it one of those famous U.F.O.?
Consulted specialists seem to think of the fall of a satellite debris consuming in contact with the first dense layers of the atmosphere.
