The article below was published in the daily newspaper La Bourgogne Républicaine, Dijon, France, page 4, on January 12, 1954.
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(From our private correspondents).
- Giant meteorite or "saucer"?
The question remains. In any case, many witnesses lean for this second hypothesis. In the Haute-Marne, in the Jura, and also in the Dijon region, here is what they saw:
One saw the flamboyant fireball in Montigny-le-Roy, where several people saw it around 7:45 a.m.
They gave a description identical to the others.
In Chaumont, a truck driver, Mr. Bourgeois, and Mr. Thibault, to whom "a luminous spot appeared in the sky. I followed it with my eyes for 10 to 15 seconds, before it disappeared. At its base, I recognized the shape of a disc."
In Langres, employees of the treasury, and Mr. Mache, municipal councilor and school principal.
Having seen the object, he called Mrs. Hunion, a lady on duty at the School, who had time to come up and see an extremely luminous craft, followed by a thin shining trail.
"Saturday morning, an inhabitant of Auxonne, who was traveling on the Pont de France, saw, heading north-east, an elongated craft moving eastward.
At some point a part of the "cigar" ? which until then appeared to be of a yellow orange color went out, then all light disappeared.
Our compatriot who observed this phenomenon for a few seconds, immediately looked at the time. It was 7:49 a.m.
Did other people see this phenomenon? So far, we have not been able to obtain any further information."
Around 7:50 a.m., Saturday morning, an entrepreneur from Dole, Mr. Marcel Girard, was at the intersection of avenue de la Paix and boulevard Wilson.
Looking up, he saw a strangely shaped craft in the sky, moving at great speed, in the direction, he said, from Mount Roland towards Salins-le-Bains.
The craft therefore cut Wilson Boulevard roughly at the height of the school.
The vision was very short. Mr. Girard estimates it to be about three or four seconds; the craft having slowed down very clearly above Wilson Boulevard, as if the occupants (?) intended to take a closer look.
Here is how M. Girard describes the craft: "It is an object whose general shape is reminiscent of a cigar, the tip of which has a dazzling blue color; on the other hand the lower part is orange or red, like if there were sparks at the rear; it was moving at a very high speed, but, for lack of landmarks, neither the speed of the craft nor its supposed height could be estimated. First, these measurements are very difficult to do, even by technicians; then the light was too far away."
On the other hand, an employee of the S.N.C.F., Mr. Maillot, who was on the "Pont de Mouchard", saw the craft at the same hour.
According to him, it was a circular object, which would have moved at a height of 3000 m. (?).
The craft moved silently, and Mr. Maillot was able to follow it with his eyes for four seconds.
Several residents let us know that they too were eyewitnesses to the strange phenomenon. This is how two trustworthy people: an employee of the P.T.T. and the young daughter of a tobacconist of the city, tell us that they saw and observed with understandable astonishment, Saturday morning at 7:50 a.m. exactly, a ball which seemed to move slowly vertically above the Pannessières mountains.
"This craft, "a large tangerine", the young girl would tell us, left behind, when it accelerated, an enormous glowing plume."
Other information received from La Marre, Mirebel, Crançot, further corroborate the assertions of our Lédonians.
All the witnesses also agree to point out the almost complete immobility of the craft for a few tens of seconds and its rapid start towards Switzerland.
From all this information, what can we conclude? A lot of information is still lacking, in particular on the exact hour of the passage, the direction of the object, its changes of pace and direction, to be affirmative one way or the other.
Let us hope that readers will have proved to be precise observers, and will communicate their remarks to us.
In the meantime, the mystery remains whole...
