The 1954 French flap:

A flying saucer
said to have landed near Toul

It came from the Antarctic, estimates the witness of the landing

TOUL (From our newsroom). -- The flying saucer merry-go-round and other flying machines with multiple configurations, according to any appearance, had been sulky of the sky of Toul, except for the evolution at low altitude of a strange disc a few times ago in Gondreville.

This abandon was only temporary, for now the resident of Toul can pour into the file of these phenomena his testimony, and this thanks to Mr. Roger Thiriet, 40 years old, warden in the penitentiary center of Ecrouves, domiciled rue du Petit-Bien in Blénod-les-Touls.

His vision goes back to October 10, but so far, he had preferred to remain silent, fearing to be the target of laughter of his colleagues and the inhabitants of the community. In fact, the appearances recorded almost daily encouraged him to open up about the strange appearance of which he was the witness.

On October 10 thus, around 6 hours 30, Mr. Thiriet was going by motorcycle towards his workplace. The day was not raised yet and, moreover, one rather dense fog obstructed the visibility. Suddenly, close to the railway bridge which spans R.N 60 road very exactly at the crossroads that this road makes with that leading to Charmes-la-Côte, the warden saw in the light projected by the headlight of his machine, a shape of aluminum color. Arrived at ten meters, he identified a "saucer".

In the middle of the crossroads

"It was posed, it seemed to me, right on the ground but I cannot say, because of the fog, whether or not it rested on a landing gear", he told us it was about 2 meters 40 in diameter and 1 meter 40 in height. Topped of a dome and with two portholes at its sides, it was circular."

And he continued: "I immediately stopped my motor, but as I attempted to get close, the craft rose without noise and without any emission of smoke or flames. I followed its vertical rise during five meters, but the half-light and the fog prevented me from following its evolution. On the ground, I saw no trace. After my duty service, I stopped again at the location, but then again, I could not find the least evidence."

A possible correlation

Mr. Thiriet, who is a sensible man posed, does not seem to be able to be the subject of hallucination. Moreover, his conviction can be weighed by observations that were recorded by two of his colleagues.

Those, during their service in the center of Ecrouves, saw the same day at about 1 o'clock, in the NE direction, a disc that left behind itself a reddish trail.

In addition, the same day, in Longwy, an observer saw, at 01:30, an identical phenomenon. This is what makes Mr. Thiriet suppose that a correlation between these three visions is plausible.

Only an assumption

This resident of Toul who, since his surprising sighting, reads up with interest all that touches with the mystery of the saucers, does not lean o the Martian explanation, because of the distance which separates the earth from this planet. He rather supposes that they are secret weapons built by a foreign power. He does not exclude however the assumption of the construction of these machines by inhabitants of one "6th part of the world". In other words, the Antarctic, which was indicated, nearly ten years ago, as the refuge of foreign political and scientific heads [i.e. nazi Germans at the south pole fantasies]...

In this field, where checking is difficult, all theories are good!

Anyway, it is certain that the declarations of the supervisor of penitentiary made it possible from now on to the residents of Toul to state, not without pride, that they also have "their" saucer -. A.

[Captioned drawing:] According to the statements of Mr. THIRIET, the encountered apparatus was to appear approximately under this aspect.