The 1954 French flap:

Albi - Since the time that we talked about it, they were due to be seen!

Yesterday, around 15 o'clock, two residents of Albi, Mrs. Cadars and Mr. Rouch have, on the old road of Cordes, noted the presence of a flying saucer in the sky of our town.

They are not the only one. Mr. Rouch's wife, for example, had, from a different location, but at the same time, noted the same phenomenon. Here is how Mr. Rouch described for us the saucer which he saw: "It had the aspect, seen from the distance, of an apple. It quickly grew bigger and appeared to me to have a diameter of two meters. It left in its wake like a whitish trail which remained in the sky a long time after the disappearance of the machine. Mrs. Cadars and myself lost the saucer of sight suddenly, because it described a curve at the horizon and appeared to fall suddenly.

Descended from his "saucer" in Loctudy (Finistère)

A MARTIAN, SMALL, HAIRY AND UGLY, TAPPED ON THE SHOULDER
OF A COURAGEOUS BAKERY APPRENTICE

... While in Paris, a cardboard salesman sees a "flying disc" above the Porte Dorée

AGAIN a Martian. Each department will soon have its own. It was in the Finistère that the last specimen of the species appeared. This time, he showed himself without a helmet, with his face uncovered. He was not pretty.

A baker from Loctudy, Mr. Pierre Lucas, saw him disembark yesterday at 4 a.m. in a saucer flying three meters in diameter, in the courtyard of the bakery.

- He was no more than 1 m. 20 tall, he says. He approached me and tapped me on the shoulder with unintelligible words.

"I managed to keep my cool," continues the courageous bakery apprentice. The visitor followed me into the bakery. In the light, I could stare at him. His face was covered with hair and eyes the size of a crow's egg. I called my boss, but the Martian, when he arrived, was already gone. And the saucer was gone."

That same night, a Concarneau beer merchant saw two luminous round tables in the sky, extended by a sort of tail.

In the Nord, one did not see a Martian, but the gendarmes of Beuvry-les-Béthune wrote up a report against a manufacturer of flying saucers. He is a pensioner, named d'Oliveira. He is not Martian, but Portuguese. A whole stock of saucers was found in his attic. In fact, they were paper balloons 1 m. 50 to 5 meters in diameter, and of all colors.

I launched thousands of them, he said. It was so beautiful. In the evening, it looked like fireballs...

The saucer factory is now closed. The industrialist will be prosecuted for "having set off flaming devices within 100 meters of the homes".

Bad day yesterday for the saucers in the Nord: an investigation, carried out at Bray-Dunes, near Dunkirk, allowed to establish that the craft seen in this region were jet planes from the Belgian base of Coxide.

"Flying tram"

A resident of Haubourdin however observed a "flying tram", and a child saw a saucer land at Cheny, near Lille; which left traces "like that, he said, of a frog man". The gendarmes examined these traces; they looked very similar to those of horse hooves.

Paris, which the saucers have neglected until now, was favored by an appearance yesterday afternoon. A flying disc, followed by a plume of smoke, flew at 4:30 p.m. over the Porte Dorée under the eyes of Mr. Allouis, cardboard salesman. Several other people confirmed his testimony. But a spoilsport suggests that the flying disc, which he also observed, was, it seemed, a flying wing.

One saw yesterday a good twenty saucers, cigars, fireballs, light globes, at Limoges, at Brive, at Azat-le-Ris and at Magnac-Laval (Haute-Vienne), at Forgès and Le Mazin (Corrèze), at Payzac (Dordogne), at Chàteau-Chinon, at Nassier, in the Poitou marshes, at Vix (Vendée), at La Rochelle, at Albi.

Near Clermont-Ferrand, two saucers which, in passing, gave off a smell of nitro-benzine; near La Rochelle, another one that left oil stains when it landed in a meadow.

Finally, a technician from the weather station at Mans-Arnage observed yesterday morning at 6:08 a.m. two strong dark red lights.

- They were, he said, neither planes, nor sounding balloons, nor meteors. But I will not go so far as to claim that these are flying saucers...

At last, flying saucers in the Tarn

Less favored than certain departments, ours had not received yet the visit of these mysterious machines which, in the shape of cigars or saucers, are said to furrow in our skies. It is now done, and the Tarn will not be the department of tardiness. Tuesday towards 3 p.m., Mrs. Cadars and Mr. Rouch, living on the old road of Cordes, in Albi, are said to have seen a flying saucer having the shape of an apple, of a diameter of 2 meters, which left in its wake a whitish trail. No cigar for the residents of Albi. Well, they will satisfy themselves with an apple! Should we take these facts seriously? Future will tell.