The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Courrier de Saône-et-Loire, France, pages 1 and 5, on October 6, 1954.
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PARIS. -- The round of "flying saucers" is intensifying. Reports of strange, unknown craft are now coming in from all over. There's no doubt that imagination plays a part. But nevertheless, the phenomenon is attracting the full attention of the scientific community.
Several Parisians reported seeing flying saucers yesterday afternoon in the skies over the capital.
Passersby claimed to have seen one around 4:30 p.m., near the Porte Dorée.
"Visitors from another world are observing the Earth and are probably mapping it. They have recently turned their attention to East Africa." Such are the claims of the vice-president of the Astronomical Association of Kenya, Mr. G. Duncan Fletcher, following reports he received from numerous observers stating they had seen flying saucers.
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Mr. Fletcher himself observed an object flying over Nairobi. He was in his observatory with four friends at the time.
- "It was 1:40 a.m.," he said, "when a large glow appeared very low in the east, at about 700 meters altitude, intensifying to a pale yellow. The object rose, descended, then climbed again before finally disappearing into the clouds."
Mr. Fletcher believes that the existence of flying saucers should not be doubted: "The reports," he says, "come from very experienced observers all over the globe." And he adds:
- "The most reassuring feature of the affair is that the unidentified flying objects do not appear to be piloted by beings hostile to the inhabitants of our planet."
LILLE. -- On the night from Sunday to Monday, between Annoeuillin and Provin, near Lille, hundreds of people saw a "flying crescent" moving through the sky.
A miner from Annoeuillin, Mr. Gaston Lecoeuvre, alerted the patrons of a café, claiming he had just seen a luminous crescent-shaped object about three meters high land in his garden. When the café customers came outside, the "flying crescent" was maneuvering in the sky along with two other similar objects.
Soon, about a hundred people in Annoeuillin, Provin, and surrounding villages were observing the three objects, which only disappeared after 25 minutes. Regional gendarmerie units have already collected numerous testimonies.
Saucers, cigars, discs, balls, and other "flying" objects were seen in Chancelade (Haute-Vienne), Willer (Haut-Rhin), Gouesnach, near Quimper, Ambazac (Haute-Vienne), Dijon, Marcoing near Cambrai, Pommier (Indre), Rouen, Ajaccio, Cholet, Vannes.
Flying saucers have also been seen in the Ivory Coast. The news came via an official report sent to the governor by Mr. Vernhet, chief administrator of the Danané subdivision, a town located 500 kilometers northwest of Abidjan. The phenomena were observed on September 19, between 8:30 and 9:05 p.m., by the local population, the gendarmerie post commander, the chief doctor of the medical center, Father Vyars of the Lyon Missions, Mr. Vernhet, the subdivision chief, and his wife, all gathered in the courtyard of the residence.
In the sky over Briançon, from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., a flying cigar was observed by credible individuals. The first to see it was a gendarme, Mr. Roux. The craft was later seen in Mont Genève by Mr. Paulin Balcet, deputy mayor, Mr. Falconnet, a hotelier, and other people.
While many reports suggest the existence of mysterious flying machines, others are highly fanciful. Such is the case of Mr. Angelo Giraudeau, 53, from Breuil-Chaussée (Charente-Maritime). This villager claims that, on his way to work at 5 a.m., he saw a luminous craft landed on the road, beside which stood a small man wearing a spacesuit. This being from another planet made gestures toward Mr. Giraudeau, who chose to flee...
- An oval disc, five times the size of any star, was seen in Vondrecourt (Meuse) by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, electricians, who observed it with binoculars as it moved from east to west. The two witnesses are considered by the gendarmes who took their statements again to be absolutely trustworthy.
- A red-orange luminous disc was seen above the Sainte-Foy hill, south of the Fourvière basilica, by a Lyon journalist.
- Two green luminous discs were seen Sunday evening between Véraville and Perpirch (Moselle) by several motorcyclists.
- A luminous diamond, moving southeast, was seen at the same time in Hagondange.
- A barrel one meter in diameter and two meters tall, studded with luminous yellow nails and seemingly mounted on a pivot, was seen on the road from Montmoreau to Villebois by a young Charentais farmer, Mr. Jean Allary, 27. The object disappeared quickly.
- A flying cigar was seen Sunday by a resident of Dieuze (Moselle).
- Mr. and Mrs. Peyssier of Saint-Etienne, who were camping in Aurec-sur-Loire (Haute-Loire), saw in the sky a luminous object resembling a group of stars moving at high speed, about 2000 meters above the ground.
At the same time, several people saw above the bell tower of Aurec several similar objects that, after hovering briefly, crossed the sky heading southwest.
HAMBURG. -- Flying saucers exist and represent at least ten percent of objects observed in the sky, declared last night Professor Hermann Oberth, German rocket specialist and honorary president of the "German Society for Astronautics," during a lecture in Hamburg.
Professor Oberth added that, in his opinion, it is possible these craft carry crews of beings similar to humans, and proposed the term "uranides" to refer to these unknown beings. The "uranides," continued the German scientist, are probably thousands of years ahead of our time.
To explain why no flying saucer has yet crashed on Earth, Professor Oberth suggests that the pilots may have perfect control of their machines and that, for reasons beyond human understanding, they may not wish to make contact with Earth's inhabitants.
Considering another possibility, Oberth recalled that the observed saucers might be improvements of the V-7, German rockets from the end of the war, several prototypes of which, according to the scientist, fell into Russian hands in 1945.
