The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Nouveau Nord Maritime, France, page 9, on October 6, 1954.
See the case file.
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Soon we will probably say: "A saucer"? There is nothing to make a fuss about it!" The fact is that our colleagues from France and Navarre, are now telling, by the dozens, stories of flying saucers. The thing is no longer to doubt although it is necessary, by dissecting the stories that are published, to make good count of the exaggeration or the malice of some, of the distortion which the facts undergo, of the psychosis which is created and which is not without influencing the weak brains and high-powered imaginations.
The most skeptical still concede "that there is something" and fear takes hold of "simple souls", especially since the Disciples of Christ of Montfavet announced - probably to take revenge for a public opinion which is not favorable to them - that the invasion of the flying saucers "announces the end of the world..." Brrr!...
For our part, despising these wicked prophets, distributors of curses, we prefer to abandon the "meaning and origin" side of the thing and, indulging in the disturbing mystery that envelops the appearance and maneuvers of these craft, continue to "chase" the saucer ...
Great was our emotion when a few days ago, we were going to interview, on the side of Malo-Terminus, people who "had seen something"; great was also our disappointment.
But this time we have our saucer, a sure testimony, without cracking or seasoning, a fact of which we immediately accept the guarantee.
It is not a question here of any "musketeers", but of an honorable Dunkirk resident, director of an important trade, who was accompanied by the driver of the establishment, notorious sportsman, and their ladies. These four people were driving by car - a 15 CV - coming from Dunkirk by the Furne road and heading towards Bray-Dunes, after having crossed the bridge giving access to this town.
This was on Sunday September 26 and it was around 5:45 p.m.; the air was warm and the four occupants of the car, whose windows were down, tasted the sweetness of a fine late afternoon. Suddenly, as he leaned by the door, Mr. X... saw, very high in the sky, and almost vertically, above the place where they were, a disc...
Our fellow citizen - who prefers to remain anonymous not because he fears being mocked and doubted about a fact which he is too certain, but because he does not want to be "shaved" by the curious - alerted his neighbor, the driver, who stopped the car. The four people got out of the car and were able, for a few more moments, to verify the fact: the disc, which shone with a very pronounced metallic luster, as if it were polished aluminum - and then tthe weather was not at all sunny - had the apparent diameter of a dessert plate.
It seemed motionless or at least marked by no lateral movement. And then the saucer took a rapid and vertical upward movement, went up, went up, and disappeared as if absorbed by the sky... between the moment when Mr. X... had seen the craft, and when the disc had disappeared, about a minute had passed. No noise had been perceived, no smoke, no exhaust glow had appeared...
The four people had clearly followed the phenomenon and the driver even claimed to have seen two saucers...
But we will stick mainly to the story told to us by our interlocutor, a positive man, that his profession and his responsibilities do not drive to anticipation novels, and who is more interested in figures and business results than the problem of interplanetary relationships. Modernizing a current formula of supreme indifference, he could assert: "Never mind the atom..."
But he is a wise man who devotes the right time and interest to each thing, and who, after having concisely told us what he will now be difficult to call - an adventure - returned to work, without starting any controversy.
***
In any event, here are the Dunkirks consoled; their sky is not considered taboo by pilots of flying saucers - whether they are Earthmen, Martians, Lunatics or Uranids -; they came there, they come here probably more frequently than we think, and it is not forbidden to hope that one day someone will see land not far from him (in general these facts happen in the countryside) the famous "thing" in the shape of a haystack, surmounted by a small dome, and from which will emerge a being dressed in a diving suit...
Alas! ... all those who have seen the saucers on the ground so far have been so terrified that they could not bring themselves to approach any craft and try to penetrate or saize the beings who had come out of it.
Interest is a much more powerful stimulus than curiosity or the simple taste for adventure; by promising a substantial bonus to the first person who succeeds in snatching a tangible and material evidence from a saucer or from one of its occupants, the Department of National Defense would obtain a result...
"Who will bring the first" piece of saucer "or the first helmet of a flying cigar pilot...?"
But many would have a hard time overcoming the paralyzing fear of being taken into space for a journey that would never end...
Couros
A retired miner
of Pas-de-Calais
manufactured all
kinds of craft [...]
