The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Union, of Reims, France, page 2, on October 12, 1954.
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METZ. -- On Sunday evening, around 8 p.m., while the powerful F.T.A. searchlights installed within the grounds of the Metz fair were sweeping the sky, the beam detected directly overhead the unusual presence of a sparkling globe, like a Christmas tree ornament, motionless in the sky.
About fifteen specialists surrounded Commander Cotel, who could hardly believe such an apparition. At first it was thought to be a weather balloon, and other logical assumptions were put forward. The searchlight operators, just as skeptical as their chief, even went so far as to clean the glass and the carbons of the apparatus. Nothing changed. As soon as the searchlight was switched on, it again caught in its beam the strange luminous globe which seemed to mock the crowd of people from Metz.
The said globe, whose diameter was also estimated at around fifty meters, thus dominated the exhibition grounds during the three hours the searchlight remained on.
An attempt was also made to detect it by radar, but the sensitive device proved totally ineffective, the apparition not responding to metallic waves [sic].
For lack of light, the globe - so remarkable in brightness - disappeared from everyone’s sight.
