The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Oise-Matin, Beauvais, France, page 6, on October 8, 1954.
See the case file.
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Our villages have once again shown themselves to be at the forefront of the news. Saucers and other flying cigars being fashionable, it would have been a pity that Mssrs. the Martians ignored the pastoral charm of our countryside any longer!
A gap had to be filled, it is!
Indeed, one of our young fellow citizens has just been the hero of a sidereal adventure in which he remained somewhat... dumbfounded!
Here are the facts:
Monday evening, our man perched on a tractor was circling a high voltage pylon, nothing abnormal about that you will say, of course, but his slow gravitation, all headlights on, produced a circle in the sky luminous whose grandiose effect impressed the fragile nerves of a neighboring authority.
"Alert! The Martians! A saucer!"...
A commotion of combat, general mobilization, of the most courageous forward with hunting rifles, buckshot, rolling kitchen, aspirin, gardenal, calvados, and stirrup. Everything was ready. Erquery, at the forefront of humanity, declared war on the Martians.
We were going to see what we were going to see!
The intrepid shock commando, after a spectacular start on a Dodge, baptized "Assault Tank" for the occasion, went to his duty under the damp eyes of the weeping wives.
The expedition, after an approach march of two km., was forced to fall back on positions prepared in advance, the driver having been paralyzed by the yellow rays of the tractor - whirling dervish.
We wonder what the Martians would have thought of us on a friendly visit to our planet if we had received them with buckshot!... Come on, Gentlemen, be urban, the next time you see saucers or cigars, prepare coffee cups and ashtrays instead!...
It will be more correct and less dangerous for your neighbors!
"The Ear of Venus".
