The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Pays Briard, France, on August 21, 2015.
The case file is here.
September 30, 1954. A resident of Jouy-sur-Morin sees a flying saucer. "Le Pays Briard" does not believe in it and gets scolded...
September 1954. Th flying saucers, UFOs and other extraterrestrial spaceship are numerous in France and in Europe. The Brie is no exception and, in addition to the case of Quincy-Voisins – Maisoncelles – Mouroux mentionned in our last issue, "apparitions" of the same kind are reported in Melun and in Rebais... Le Pays Briard is then skeptical, it is the least that can be said and your favorite bi-weekly makes a headline only when one believes to have unmasked the pranksters, the famous columerian roadmenders (read our last issue) who would have finally admitted in front of the gendarmes that they just wanted to have some fun...
Headlining on the ufo topic only to stress this hoax, our newspaper angers one of the figures of pionneering aviation, Eugène Farnier*. The man, then aged 75 but still very "alert", as the magazine of the time put it, lives in Jouy-sur-Morin and, by mail, informs or director of extraordinary events he personally witnessed: "At about 5:20, on the evening (of September 30, 1954 thus, editor's note), being on my estate called "Les Gailles", in Jouy-sur-Morin, my attention was attracted by a whistling sound resembling a bit the arrival of a jet plane. And a few seconds later, exactly above me, I saw a big disc of 8 to 10 meters in diameter turning on the spot while letting escape red-purple gleams. It was at about 400 meters in height no more, and this craft hoveredfor more than 20 minutes above me. I thus had the time to check it out well; then after that it disappeared in the direction of Coulommiers. I learned since then that it had been seen half an hour later near Melun (told by "L'Aurore"). I said nothing. What's the use of convincing skeptics."
An the former pilot prevents in advance the accusations of hallucinations: "Former commissionner to the Aéro-club of France, having served in aviation, I was not the victim of an hallucination, and itwas not a sounding balloon, but exactly a thick circular wing hovering on the spt and then moving at a very high speed while gaining altitude. My son-in-law, polytechnician, told me that with friends, seen in the region of Grenoble, an dientical craft. This kind of craftthus really exists whatever those who did not see it are saying."
And he added an angry post-scriptum against our director: "Be sure that after the Press campaign doubting the reality of the flying saucers, witness will remain silent for fear of being ridiculed."
Later, Eugène Farnier will tell his adventure on the airwaves of Radio Luxembourg and a small booklet will be published to transcript his interview by the engineer René Leduc, then builder of a very promising rocket plane. In this document, some additional information is published: th craft is said to have been "brillant grey as if it was built in aluminum" and it was probably inhabited, "It seemed to me that I saw the inside of the craft lighted, but I cannot be affirmative because of its constqnt rotation."
Mr. Farnier, with his experience, thought of a "new weapon", but his interviewer, René Leduc, did not believe in this: "In the current state of the technique, a craft such as the one you describe to meis impossible to build."
Engineer Leduc, builder of supersonic craft, thought the thing was i,possible bevause he did not know how to do it, but was it really? The mystery of Jouy-sur-Morin remained and all the assumptions are still open nowadays...
Jean-Michel ROCHET
* Member of the Society of Civilian Engineers of France, former commissionner of the Aéro-club of France, having served in aviation during the Great War, first instructor of Guynemer and examiner who made Roland Garros pass his certificate.
