The 1954 French flap:

Weekly "LES NOUVELLES DE SABLE" (SABLE, 72) of Sat 10/16/54, p.1:

A FLYING SAUCER LANDS IN THE MAYENNE

Great excitement prevailed in the Méral area following the statements of a local resident who has an excellent reputation and whom his fellow citizens consider a fully trustworthy witness.

It is about Mr. Baptiste Potin, 40 years old, living in the town of Méral. On Monday morning, around 6 a.m., he left his home to go work at the Barres farm. As he was climbing the hill at the edge of the village, heading toward Saint-Poix, he saw in front of him, high in the sky, a shiny orange sphere that appeared to descend and indeed landed at the top of the hill, near the transformer. Taken by fear, Mr. Potin stopped. Resting on the ground, the flattened, dome-shaped disc, with a diameter of 5 to 6 meters, emitted a blinding glow. Mr. Potin stated that he could clearly make out the countryside within a 200-meter radius.

The disc was transparent, and inside the dome he could see a dark shape. After 8 to 10 minutes, during which Mr. Potin did not dare move, the disc turned red, rose rapidly, and disappeared toward the northwest.

Arriving at the Barres farm, Mr. Potin noticed that his clothes were covered with a white layer of a slightly sticky substance, like paraffin.

He brushed himself off, but his clothes remained marked with white streaks. The shock for Mr. Potin was so great that he had to take a few days of rest.

At Le Pertre, in the Ille-et-Vilaine, 12 kilometers in straight line from Méral, also on Monday evening, a young boy ran screaming in fear to his parents, claiming that he had seen a flying saucer approach the ground.