The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Courrier de Saône-et-Loire, France, page 6, on October 8, 1954.
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Did a "saucer" haunt the skies over Poncey-sur-l'Ignon? Did it try to land in a field near the asbestos factory?
Let the witnesses speak, who are nothing if not certain.
The first mysterious craft seen by the inhabitants of Poncey had the shape of a vertical cylinder. Let's hear from the first witness, Mrs. Gainait, wife of the former mayor.
- It happened Saturday evening, around 7:40 p.m. I had just finished milking my cows and as I stepped out of the barn, I saw the farmyard completely lit up... I looked up at the sky and that's when I saw it...
- What did you see, madam?
- Well, sir, a flying cylinder, orange in color, surrounded by a square of pale green light.
- Was the cylinder moving?
- Yes, above the little woods, there, about a kilometer away... So I called my husband, my daughter Yvette, and a neighbor, Mrs. Mugneret, and we watched the cylinder move.
- For how long, approximately?
- Ten minutes, maybe. Then it disappeared, at the speed of a large airplane, silently, in the direction of Chanceaux.
And Mr. Gainait concludes: You know, I didn't believe in these crafts before, but now I have to, since I saw one!
Obviously... But things got even more disturbing. Two days later, on Monday, the cylinder returned to Poncey, this time transformed into a flying disc of the most classic kind.
It was 7:30 p.m. A young woman, Mrs. Fourneret, née Thérèse Thieblot, 23 years old, was about to close the shutters of her bedroom, in the small house she shares with her husband next to the asbestos factory. Suddenly, through the open window, just fifty meters away, she saw a disc emitting a soft orange light, flattened at both ends—"as big as my stove," specifies Mrs. Fourneret—which seemed to be hovering above a plum tree in the nearby field.
Panic-stricken, Mrs. Fourneret fled to her neighbor's house. The two terrified women barricaded themselves in and waited for an hour for their husbands to arrive.
Armed with rifles (just in case!), and carrying flashlights, the men went to "check things out."
At the spot where the saucer had landed in a field, they found fresh traces.
We saw these traces. What do they consist of?
A rectangular surface of 1.5 m by 0.6 m had been neatly cleared of weeds and the soil leveled, as if tamped down. Around the perimeter, about ten meters in a circle, the uprooted clods had been scattered. A curious thing: perennial plants like dandelions and couch grass remained rooted, which proves it wasn't a matter of digging. A farmer, Mr. Cazet, mayor of Poncey, is certain: "These aren't tool marks... It's too well done," he said.
That's where things stand for now. Chief Clément of the Sainte-Seine-l'Abbaye gendarmerie was informed and went to the scene. Captain Millet from the Semur division has opened an investigation. Is this a well-orchestrated hoax? If so, congratulations to the clever prankster—and no hard feelings!
On that note, let us point out that in the preceding days, Mrs. Fourneret had been the target of some light-hearted pranks by locals, and on the very evening in question, the prankster group had planned to trick her into believing a saucer had landed... But they arrived too late—"the real one" had landed in the meantime... So, what now?
LIMOGES. -- A farmer from Chaleix (Dordogne), Mr. Garreau, swore "on his honor" that he saw a "flying soup tureen" land on his property. Mr. Garreau said two perfectly normal-looking men, wearing khaki overalls, got out, shook his hand, and spoke to him in an unknown language. Mr. Garreau, stunned, did not reply. The two men petted his dog and got back into their craft, which took off silently at a dizzying speed. At the location Mr. Garreau indicated, it was found that the grass had been trampled.
- A luminous saucer-shaped craft, spiraling through the air, was observed in Valence by military aircraft detection specialists, who managed to "track" it with their optical equipment for a few seconds.
- A "regular flying saucer service" seems to have been established between the Poitevin marsh and La Rochelle, according to witnesses who observed a veritable shuttle of strange crafts.
- A "flying chamber pot" was seen in the Rambouillet region by Mr. Georges Leroux, brother-in-law of a minister of the Principality of Monaco. The craft emitted a dazzling green light.
- A red-orange luminous craft was observed in Pontoise [sic, Poncey], by Miss Thérèse Fournet [sic, Fourneret], 23 years old. The craft landed in front of her, to her great fright, and other residents saw it as well. Very clear traces in the grass were noted by the gendarmes, who took soil samples.
- A kind of greenish rocket landed in front of Mr. Defiz, 26, a central heating technician, and Mr. Labonne, a 63-year-old retiree from Bergerac. They saw three struts supporting the craft and felt a strong suction of air as it took off vertically. Traces resembling "black mushrooms" [sic] were visible for a few moments.
- Saucers, cigars, spheres, and various crafts were also seen in Thénon (Dordogne), in Puiset (Eure-et-Loir), in Biarritz and in Béhobie, in Duclair (Seine-Inférieure), in Duclair (Seine-Inférieure), in Heyrieux (Isère), in Dieulanvollon (Côtes-du-nord), in Jort (Calvados) and in the Island of Ré.
