The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Yonne Républicaine, France, page 3, le 31 août 1974.
Sunday evening, Mr. and Mrs. Garteau, residing at 8, rue de la Paix, in Cheny, were returning home around 10 p.m., when their attention was drawn to a large luminous dot in the sky.
It appeared the size of an orange, halfway up the horizon and zenith, heading southeast, and seemed motionless.
Taking binoculars, Ms. Garteau observed this phenomenon for a long time. In the objective, it had appreciably the dimension of the moon. Its shape, which changed at times, no doubt in a movement of rotation on itself, sometimes resembled a bowl, sometimes a plate seen in profile.
It was extremely bright and seemed to shoot lightning as its face changed somewhat.
Wanting to have other people in the area observe what she saw herself, she no longer, to her great regret, find anyone outside because of their late hour.
For more than two hours, she was able, at her leisure, to look through binoculars at this object which was barely moving and had to stop her observation around quarter to midnight, to go to bed while it was still there in the sky.
Is this one of those mysterious U.F.O. (unidentified flying object) we talk about so much? -- R.L.
Or was it planet Mars?