The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Alsace, Mulhouse, France, page 5, on October 1, 1954.
See the case file.
Will we soon have the word of the enigma? The flying saucers, in recent days, are more and more talked about. We see them everywhere, and not only saucers, but also oblong-shaped aerial craft, which were immediately named flying cigars. So numerous are the observations made by people whose judgment cannot be doubted, that the most skeptical begin to doubt. Where do these saucers, these cigars, come from? From America according to some. From Russia according to others. From Mars others still say...
While waiting to get the last word of appearances which it would be surprising that they do not also concern the governmental spheres, although so far in no capital of the world one has formulated an official opinion on the problem, in the meantime, we said, we look up more and more often to the firmament.
And in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, mysterious "foreign bodies" were seen in the sky over Rixheim, quite far to the east, near the Black Forest. A phone call informed us of the time. It was given to us by one of our readers, who had just seen a true squadron of flying cigars pass by.
We had no reason to doubt his good faith, especially since he was giving us his name and address. So yesterday we went to visit him in Rixheim. He was kind enough to give us a detailed account of what he saw.
"The house in which I live is located a short distance from the large crossroads from where the national road branches off on one side on Basel and the other on Colmar. From my window I have a view to the Black Forest, and on a clear day I can see the Feldberg. When around 1:30 a.m. my wife got up to close the window, because the coolness was making itself felt, she gave a cry of fear and called me. I rushed to the window."
"And what exactly did you see?"
"Above the Feldberg stood a luminous body about forty centimeters in diameter. All around this body a dozen bright stars. The smallest of them greatly exceeding in size the largest of the visible stars, I took a pair of binoculars and followed the show under better viewing conditions."
"And the image was therefore more detailed?"
"Certainly. The luminous body gave the appearance of a cigar shining in all the colors of the rainbow. It was about three times as long as it was wide. By its middle it was surrounded by a kind of crown. Seen through my binoculars, the stars that kept him company turned out to be cigars too."
"And did this squadron stand still?"
"The cigar in the middle, the larger one, was the easiest to observe. It changed position just like the others, in sudden movements up, down or to the side. At a certain time, I thought I noticed a lateral movement specific to the craft. It was either the crown which turned around the body or the latter which was rotating inside the crown... I saw no showers of flames, no sparks, but at one time the whole set emitted an intense radiation from all sides."
"And how long were you able to watch the show?"
"About half an hour. Then my wife went to call you from the public booth in Rixheim. After her return we continued to observe cigars until around 2:30 in the morning."
Practically, the presence in the firmament of the region of the mysterious apparatuses thus extended over an hour. The whole group then disappeared in the direction of Switzerland.
These flying cigars were also reportedly seen by a railway official on night duty. It was unfortunately not possible for us to reach him yesterday.
