The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this website is here.
Reference for this case: Oct-54-bb7.
Please cite this reference in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
In 1979, two ufologists who had become "skeptical", Gérard Barthel and Jacques Brucker, published their book "La Grande Peur Martienne", supposed to demonstrate that the entire wave of "flying saucers" of 1954 in France, if not all UFO reports, was made only of farces and misinterpretations.
In order to illustrate their opinion on the indigence of the reports in the press, they gave the following extract, the source of which they indicated as the newspaper Le Provençal for October 16, 1954:
"A white disc remained motionless above the village; observed with binoculars it ressembled a round, shining disc, with a light halation at the bottom."
[Ref. b1:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:
The two authors indicate, in order to illustrate their opinion on the poor content of the saucer reports in the press, the following extract of which they indicate that the source is the newspaper Le Provençal for October 16, 1954:
"A white disc remained motionless above the village; observed with binoculars it ressembled a round, shining disc, with a light halation at the bottom."
It is possible that this is the case of October 14, 1954, in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.
It is by no means certain since this latter case had been published notably in Le Provençal for October 15, 1954, without corresponding with the quotation by Barthel and Brucker.
Barthel and Brucker did not hesitate to castigate the press and the ufologists for the poor quality of the information, but here as elsewhere, they do exactly what they reproach others.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
White, disc, motionless, binoculars, round, shining, halation
[----] indicates sources that are not yet available to me.
| Version: | Created/Changed by: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | November 6, 2007 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | February 22, 2010 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. |
