This article was published in the daily newspaper Le Courrier de l'Ouest, Angers, France, on September 3, 1954.
Here is the case file on these meteor sightings.
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In our issue of yesterday, we reported a certain number of testimonies about the unusual phenomenon noted Monday evening at Angers, which suggested the passage of a flying saucer in our sky.
During the morning two new witnesses turned up to further confirm this appearance, noted also, we told it, by two of our reporters.
Mr. and Mrs Chancoin, vacationing at Fresne-sur-Loire that day, have very well seen a greenish ball; which light was compareable to that of the neon tubes of that color, and which seemed to go to the indicated direction.
We were completely surprised, tells us Mr. Chancoin, by this phenomenon, which did not seem comparable at all with the passage of an aerolite. Although fast, the speed of the machine was quite lower than that of a shooting star, and besides the night hardly had started to fall."
A second confirmation was given to us by Mrs. Rousseau, inhabitant of the Saint-Michel suburb, and who returned towards 8:20 p.m.. Monday evening from the Pont-du-Cé, while passing on the way of the Ruelles [the Lanes].
"I clearly saw, he says, a green ball, surrounded of a completely rare gleam and which disappeared towards the north in a few seconds. This ball, apparently large as an electric bulb, emitted a very pretty green light."
Finally, several letters came to us in the day of yesterday, as well as a newspaper clipping apparently likely to put an end to this flying saucer business, if any saucer at all.
From Villevêque
First of all, a reader of Plessis-Grammoire writes to us in connection with the greenish gleam seen Monday evening in the sky: "We had gone to lead friends to Villevêque. We were chatting on the campsite, when a gleam drew my attention. I [illegible]: Look at this, a shooting star. But as there were no stars, this appeared odd to us.
"This gleam resembled a fireworks rocket. It lasted approximately 10 seconds and disappeared towards the North. We did not see any brown disc and did not hear any noise, this gleam was very high in the sky."
We bring closer this letter to another also dispatched by a reader of our newspaper, who also saw at the same hour a luminous sphere moving towards the North and "leaving only a faint trail in the sky." Mrs. Ernest Chupin, of the Vault-Rousselin, also saw an orange disc with a green tail crossing the sky between two clouds.
The saucer in Indre-et-Loire
A reader of Rigny-Ussé, in the Indre-and-Loire, whom our first article intrigued, also confirms for us the statement by Miss Claire Cordier, who signed [signaled] us, the first, the phenomenon. This reader was on a farm, beating, and saw, at 08:20 p.m. very precisely, the brown disc and the gleam "moving at a vertiginous pace towards the North. We were ten men - he tells us - who have seen it. The diameter of this disc could have been 50 cm. And our subscriber who had supposed for a few moments that this phenomenon could have been a rocket launched from the Fonterrault test range, adds: "Besides, this disc was seen in several places in Touraine." Lastly, a reader of Faye-in Anjou confirms these various depositions in identical terms.
"An aerolithe in the sky of the Poitevin"
Before closing this article, we would like to bring together these testimonys and those which preceded them with a article published in "Libre Poitou". Our colleagues say they have received from abbot Colin, priest of Buxerolles, close to Poitiers, graduate of the World Office for Meteorology, an extremely interesting communication about an aerolite which appeared in the sky of the Poitevin on August 30 towards 08:30 p.m.. This specialist saw, 30 degrees above the horizon and coming from the Gamma star from the Andromede constellation, "a splendid aerolite of an apparent length of 1 m. 50, of a green color, dazzling and slipping by slowly towards the ground. This aerolite, about as large as a bottle - specifies abbot Colin - did not present itself in the form of an ordinary shooting star, fast and followed of a luminous whiteish tail."
This interesting deposition by a knowledgeable witness would seem all to explain the phenomenon which many people witnessed. At the most we might classify the appearance of last Monday in the category of the "unidentified heavenly objects" and reserve for later the "flying saucers" naming.
