The article below was published in the daily newspaper Nord-Matin, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, page 2, on October 3, 1954.
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In Comines, Thursday around 10:30 p.m., a mysterious craft flew over a part of the city.
We met with Adjutant Cocquel and Constable Segars, both judicial police officers from the Comines brigade, who heard at length on Saturday morning, the witness to this appearance; in this case Mr. Anicet Corneillie, mason worker living in Comines, rue des trois Ballots. Here are the facts:
Coming home Thursday around 10:30 p.m., Mr. Corneillie was suddenly surprised by the purple reflections that shimmered on the jacket with which he was adorned. Looking up, he saw at a height of forty meters, a craft in the shape of a cigar, which emitted a rather bright gleam. According to the witness, the craft might have been 8 to 10 meters long and 2 to 3 meters wide. At the same time, a motorist from Tourcoing observed the same phenomenon.
This was happening at the intersection of the streets of the Apothicaire and the Processions, the mysterious craft seeming to be heading towards the hamlet of Vieil Dieu.
Frightened, Mr. Corneille quickly returned home and it was not until the next day that he entrusted the matter to his work comrades. Long questioned yesterday by MM. Cocquel and Segers, the witness still under the effects of emotion, related the facts that we have just reported. The gendarmes of the Comines brigade, while recording Mr. Corneillie's statements, acknowledged the witness's excellent good faith on Thursday evening.
According to the declarations made to us by residents of Roubaix who wished to remain anonymous, during the night of September 14 to 15, around 3:20 a.m., a flying saucer was reportedly seen in the northwest of the city, at a fairly high altitude.
The husband says he saw a kind of very shiny disc, below which we could see a kind of bright and transparent cylinder.
His wife, whom he had woken up, declared to have seen a red ball surrounded by green, the colors being very beautiful besides. It was nothing like the stars, and they could observe the mysterious object for a period estimated at 30-40 seconds, then the disc went up vertically and disappeared.
