The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Nouveau Nord Maritime, France, page 3, on August 31, 1954.
See the case file.
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Lille, 30. -- Friday, around 4:30 p.m., the inhabitants of Salomé, near La Bassée, heard a noise like a thunder roll.
A few moments later, slowly came from the direction of Marquilles, an elongated cloud of vaguely conical shape, the point of which was constituted by a grayish ball of 1 m. in diameter.
For one or two minutes, the tin sheets of several hangars were torn off, carried away by the immense whirlpool and they fell back with a crash. A sheet metal roof was completely dismantled.
The cloud, dragging birds and spreading a strong smell of sulfur, projected the sheaves of wheat several tens of meters high. It took about a quarter of an hour to cover three kilometers...
It moved towards the canal and lifted bundles of water some twenty meters high. The phenomenon then moved towards La Bassée.
