This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Midi Libre, France, page 10, on December 8, 1974.
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Montpellier. -- For a few months U.F.O's were not talked about anymore. It seems that the unidentified flying objects did not quit the sky of the Languedoc, since a new observation was made under ideal conditions by a couple of professors of higher education. It was on Wednesday, December 4, between 12:35 and 12:50. The witnesses were then in the new part of the Saint-Lazare cemetery, in Montpellier. Here is their report that shows a very high degree of accuracy and an acute sense of description.
"The "object" that we saw high in the sky and in direction N.N.W, was very shiny. It appeared metallic. It had the apparent size of a grapefruit, roughly circular but with somehow blurry contour and it seemed made up of two parts slightly and incompletely separated by an horizontal line.
After having remained absolutely motionless during ten minutes - we are sure that it was motionless - the "object", to our great amazement, changed shaped and in ten seconds maximum, it split up in two parts which initially gave the impression to slip one on the other while deviating slightly. During this movement, there was a second fragmentation into two parts for each part, so that four small appreciably ovalized but identical "discs" appeared . Very quickly, these four small discs took position in a straight row whereas the first, the one that was the highest, remained at the fixed point where the initial object had been.
The three other discs seemed prolonged by a small silvery sile of the same brightness than them and they moved away to the direction of the north, very slowly, probably because they moved in the same direction than our glance, but actually, the movement was to be very fast for the apparent diameter decreased, very quickly. The first disc also dimmed little by little in the very clear sky."
The witnesses did not draw from conclusion on what they managed observe during several minutes. "The dominant impression, thy say, is that they were probably material objects capable of a concerted evolution that we can allot to nothing known. Our observation recuts by various points, in particular the prolongation which could be an emission of smoke, other observations made throughout the world about the U.F.O's and some are brought back by the American astronomer J. Allan Ynhec [Sic, J. Allen Hynek], in his book "Les O.V.N.I. mythe ou réalité? ["U.F.O's myth or reality?" i.e. "The Hynek UFO report"] (1)"
Myth or reality, it all comes back to this question which starts to seriously worry the scientific world after years of silence, contempt and indifference, all what we can add to this testimony of this couple of professors it is that it occurs exactly a year after a series of identical appearances in the area of Montpellier, the strange case of the "landing" of Fabrègues and the mysterious drowning of the bulls of the herd of Aubanel, in Vistre, close to Aigues-Mortes.
Mere coincidence? Maybe...
F.A.
(1) Editions Belfond.
