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The article below was published in the daily newspaper Nord-Eclair, Roubaix, Nord, France, page 1, on September 15, 1954.
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The mystery of flying saucers fascinates public opinion. It is no longer from America or Australia that the testimonies come, but from France. They multiply in a quite peculiar manner. We reported the declarations of Mr. Dewilde, of Quarouble. The latter, semsible man, claims that "he saw." A farmer from Corrèze just made such surprising revelations. On the other hand, a German scientist publishes a study disputing the existence of mysterious craft. Who is right?
Suspicious traces were found on the disused railway track, where Mr. Marius Dewilde claims to have seen a landed flying saucer during the night from Friday to Saturday.
After carefully examination of the sleepers near P. N. 79, the air police inspectors noticed that one of them bore symmetrically arranged marks, some sort of "claws", we were told at the Onnaing police station.
The wood has received deep prints in five different locations, and investigators believe they may have been caused when the craft landed.
In addition, they collected some of the stones from the ballast, whose appearance and layout had caught their attention. However, no footprints were noticed. But it may be that the paths hardened in this place by the passage of many cattle, did not keet trace of the "strange little beings" seen by Mr. Dewilde.
Let us add that several people - including a young man from Onnaing - stated that they saw Friday at around 10:30 p.m., a luminous ball moving towards the West.
Continued on page 9
under the title: SAUCERS
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Tulle. -- The gendarmes of the Bugeat brigade (Corrèze), learning yesterday morning, by public rumor that a farmer in the hamlet of Mouriéras, commune of Bugeat (Corrèze), Mr. Antoine Mazaud, had conversed with the passenger in a "flying saucer", went to the farmer, to have these rumors confirmed.
Mazaud tells them that on September 10, at 8:30 p.m., returning from his fields, he met an unknown individual of normal size, wearing a helmet without earmuffs, on a path, 1.500 meters from his home, who shook his hand and kissed him, saying unintelligible words.
The man then climbed into an unlit cigar-shaped craft, three to four meters long which, taking off vertically, set off towards the West, making no more noise than a bee.
Mr. Mazaud then declares that he did not want to speak about this story, because he feared that one would scoff at him.
The eminent German astronomer Hans Haffner claims that flying saucers, apart from hallucinations and aerial reflections, are balls of fire produced by lightning at high altitude. He claims his theory fits with all sightings of flying saucers reported so far.
"Let's get rid of the flying saucer psychosis," he writes. "Flying saucers are actually a natural phenomenon that occurs in the layer of air surrounding the earth."
Mr. Haffner, professor of astronomy at the University of Hamburg and head of section at the Hamburg-Bergedorf Observatory, says that all of the flying saucers that have been seen so far can be classified into four groups:
1) Hallucinations, more frequent than generally believed.
2) Optical illusion even deceiving the lens of the camera. The so-called flying saucer photographs are reflections often seen when taking photos against the light.
3) Weather balloons.
4) Unknown flying objects.
All the objects of the fourth category can be explained by what we know about balls of fire produced by lightning. This phenomenon rarely occurs and we only have two or three photographs. The size, shape, speed, color, brightness, duration, electrical composition and mode of dissolution of these balls of fire are "remarkably similar" to descriptions of flying saucers, Professor Haffner writes.
The balls of fire often emit very bright rays of light, which also matches the story of people who say they saw saucers.
