The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Ardennais, France, on September 24, 1954.
PARIS. -- The mysterious machine commonly called "flying cigar" reported in the Puy-de-Dôme and in the sky of Rome was seen Saturday, September 18, at 7 p.m. very precisely, by three trustworthy residents of Lodève, north of the Hérault, as it moved around 1,500 m of altitude. The object was heading south.
The witnesses were able to observe for about 5 minutes a tapered front, towing a fiery red-lighted globe and moving approximately at the speed of a regular plane.
Returning from a patrol during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, two gendarmes of Châteauroux told their chief that they saw, between 09:15 p.m. and 09:45 p.m., above La Fleuranderie, municipality of Montierchaume (Indre), a luminous machine immobilized in the sky at a height of about 1,500 m., and two others of greenish color at a greater altitude. The three mysterious objects, after turning at right angles, would have taken the direction north-west, south-east.
Finally, Mr. Louis Moll, country guard in Oberdorf (Moselle), said he saw on Sunday at 09:15 p.m., an intense glow coming from space and touching land east of Tromborn.
This glow, similar to that of a neon tube, added the guard, and coming from an object of rather large proportions, changed color. It became reddish and Mr. Moll claims to have seen "black dots" move silently. The object, motionless for almost 40 seconds, started rotating and climbed almost vertically, looking like an orange ball and flattening before disappearing at a vertiginous speed, in the Southeast direction. The total duration of the phenomenon was about a minute.
