ufo - UFOS at close sight: the 1954 French flap, August 30, Paris

Reference for this case: 30-Aug-54-Paris.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

Summary:

The Parisien Libéré newspaper for September 3, 1954, reported that one Mr. Jolivet, Paris resident, had stated that he saw on August 30, 1954, a luminous circular object flying above the city.

In his 1958 book on the French wave of 1954, Aimé Michel evoked the meteor of August 30, 1954, seen by hundreds of witnesses in nearly twenty departments.

He noted that the meteor had been seen exploding at the zenith by a witness from the Porte des Lilas in Paris.

Reports:

The number of saucer sightings continued to acce1erate. Each day several were reported. By the end of August [1954], at the moment when Wilbert Smith, who had predicted the phenomenon, closed his observatory at Shirley's Bay near Ottawa because nothing special was happening in Canada, the skies over Lyon, Angers, and over the entire Paris region were swarming with saucers.

Aimé Michel published very interesting pages on this case: it was a meteor, and he takes advantage of this example of a meteor event to point out similarities and differences between meteor reports and UFO reports.

Discussing that meteor of August 30, 1954, Aimé Michel notes an apparent curiosity, which was that the witnesses at the South of Paris saw it going north and that the witnesses north of Paris indicated that it was towards the South. He explains that the solution came from a witness at the Porte des Lilas [in Paris] who saw the meteor explode at the zenith, and that coming from a radiant located not far from the zenith, it was the perspective that had led to this direction North from South of Paris and South from North of Paris.

August 30 [1954]

08:20 p.m.: Seine/Seine-et-Marne/Yonne and 15 other departments: liminous body + trail of sparks + explosion on Paris. (meteor)

about 9 p.m.: Sens (Yonne): luminous ball (same observation?)

"False saucer" excites France.

Things didn't really begin to boil over in France until the very end of the month (the 31st) when a spark shedding meteor exploded in the sky at extreme altitude above Paris (8:20 p.m.). People in 20 departments of France witnessed the show resulting in hundreds of reports being made to the newspapers.

UFOlogist Aime Michel was satisfied with the meteor hypothesis since there was no evidence to indicate otherwise, however the following afternoon (12:50 p.m.) a group of six persons, watching military aircraft perform in the sky over Asnieres-les-Dijon, which is about five miles north of Dijon, spotted a mysterious glowing body crossing the heavens east to west at an altitude that exceeded that of the French airplanes. During its quick passage, the strange object changed color from red, to orange, and then finally to silver.

Michel's collaborator, Charles Garreau, a Dijon resident, checked into the incident and was puzzled over the speed. The thing seemed to be too slow to be a meteor and too fast to be an airplane. 216.

Michel began to suspect something unusual was looming when he learned that about six hours after the sighting near Dijon, witnesses in the Paris region observed two orange-colored oval-shaped objects crossing the sky in a side by side formation. He became aware of the sighting from two independent sources.

Just by chance a Mrs. A. Fouquiau of Orly, noticed the speeding pair of UFOs as they came out of the western sky, cannonballing eastward. Startled and instantly convinced a rare event was in the making, Mrs. Fouquiau summoned her husband and young daughter to "come and see" the "chunky cigars." Highly curious, the trio of witnesses kept watch after the UFOs passed out of sight and were rewarded when another object, a carbon copy of the others, came into view on the same course.

This third object was evidently also witnessed by some people at the town of Chennevieres-les-Louvres a dozen miles away to the northeast, when at 7:30 p.m. a "very long bright egg" zoomed overhead. If the objects in question were "meteors," wondered Michel, how come Mrs. Fouquiau had time to call her family to come and look at the objects? 217.

216. Michel, Aime. Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery, p.31.
217. Ibid, pp.31-32.

Jerome Beau indicates that on August 30, 1954, Jolivet, a resident of Paris, saw a luminous circular object flying above the city. After his report was published in the press, many other people, whose the source gives names and addresses, reported to have seen the phenomenon the same day. Some of the reports indicate that the object was directed South-South-West, while others speak about the North-West; but according to Claire Cordier and Andre Gréfier, two natives of Angers, the object disappeared towards the North. Claire Cordier announced a "disc" flying above her city also.

Jérôme Beau indicates as source the article "De nombreuses personnes voient un objet inhabituel au-dessus de Paris", Le Parisien Libéré, Paris, September 3, 1954.

Luc Chastan record in his database indicates that on August 30, 1954, many people saw a luminous circular object flying above the city. Some of the reports indicate that the object was directed South-South-West, while others speak about the North-West and even the North.

The website indicates that on 30 August 1954 at 20:20 in "Porte.Lilas", France, "Luminous body, trail of sparks exploded at Porte des Lilas, definitely meteor. Explanation: Meteor."

And: "A mysterious explosion was reported. One object was observed by 200 witnesses very briefly."

The sources are indicated as "Michel, Aime, Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery, S. G. Phillips, New York, 1958; National Investigations Committee Aerial Phenomena, NICAP investigation files".

Explanations:

Note on the meteor for that day:

As soon as 1958, Aimé Michel published [aml1] very interesting pages on the observations for August 30, 1954: it was a meteor, and he uses this example of a meteor event to show the similarities and differences between UFO reports and meteor reports. He notes that this meteor was reported by hundreds of witnesses in more than 20 departments. It was seen finally exploding by a witness at La Porte des Lilas in Paris.

It however appears that except Aimé Michel, almost none of the authors of the other later sources publishing these sightings took care to give the explanation. Yet these other authors are generally aware of Aimé Michel's book, which they sometimes quote for other cases, as if they had a quite selective reading method... or as if they chose to use the poorest sources instead...

Neither did they understand the descriptions of the sightings. They call "UFO" what was obviously a meteor, and let their readers believe in an unexplained observation.

Vanves	48.824	-2.289
Buxerolles	46.616	-0.4833
Le Coudray-sur-Thelle	49.305	-2.124
Angers	47.466	-0.550
Paris	48.856	-2.351
Creil	49.258	-2.479

Note on the sighting times: it would be silly to mistake the given hours for stop watch measurements, like some ufologists did in some cases (For example Charles Garreau...). People did not inevitably walk around with a wristwatch then, did not inevitably look at a clock, did not think inevitably of asking or checking the hour. The press was then satisfied enough to write things like "at about 08:30 p.m.". The most probable hour is "approximately 08:20 p.m."; it is the less "rounded at half an hour".

These descriptions are concise, they are the ordinary words of ordinary people, noted by newspapermen subjected to brevity rules, they are not scientific descriptions. What is clear is that there is no strangeness at all in the reports, no "impossible manoeuvers", no "humanoid occupants", no beams, no landings etc.

08 30 54(20)	SN Paris		100C3
08 30 54(20)	SN Paris(see above)

Case Nr.	New case Nr.	Investigator	Date of observation	Zip	Place of observation	Country of observation	Hour of observation	Classification	Comments	Identification
19540830			30.08.1954		Paris	France
19540830			30.08.1954		Porte Lilas	France	20.20	NL

Vanves, Hauts-de-Seine.	21:00
Buxerolles, Vienne.	20:30
Le Coudray-sur-Thelle, Oise.	~20:30
Angers, Maine-et-Loire.	20:20
Paris.	~20:20
Creil, Oise.	20:00

Vanves, Hauts-de-Seine.	?
Buxerolles, Vienne.	Luminous
Le Coudray-sur-Thelle, Oise.	glowing ball seeming to fall.
Angers, Maine-et-Loire.	Fast brown disc surrounded of green gleams. Shining disc-shaped light followed of a rather short tail, very fast, seems to fall.
Paris.	Luminous circular flying object.
Creil, Oise.	?

Version:	Created/Changed by:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	September 10, 2007	First published, [cia1], [aml1], [jbu1], [lcn1], [uda1].
1.0	Patrick Gross	March 2, 2010	Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version.
1.1	Patrick Gross	March 20, 2010	Addition [uda1].
1.2	Patrick Gross	October 30, 2011	A search on the web and in my documentation did not reveal other sources. Explanation changed from "The meteor of that day" to "The 30 August 08:20 p.m. meteor". Addition of the "Note on the meteor for that day".
1.3	Patrick Gross	November 25, 2016	Additions [lgs1], [ubk1].
1.4	Patrick Gross	February 23, 2021	Addition [gqy1].
1.5	Patrick Gross	April 16, 2022	Addition [gep1].
1.6	Patrick Gross	July 11, 2022	Addition [aml2].

The 1954 French flap:

August 30, 1954, Paris, Paris:

Summary:

Reports:

Explanations:

Note on the meteor for that day:

Keywords:

Sources:

Document history: