The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le R publicain Lorrain, France, on February 22, 2014.
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We are at the Metz Fair on Sunday, October 10, 1954. On the exhibit of the French army, visitors can admire a powerful projector and a radar station, ultramodern gear of the FTA (Anti-aircraft Land Forces) of the time. They were installed and regulated by some military technicians, under the authority of Commander Cottel.
When around 8 p.m. the projector was lit up and turned to the sky, its beam was caught on a motionless globe, in midair, at the vertical of the fair. It was an object "glittering like a Christmas tree ball!", Commander Cottel later said.
Incredulous technicians decided to turn off the machine and clean its components, but nothing changes: once the projector is turned on again, the mysterious globe is still there, at an altitude that the military estimates at 12,000 m. It is here, the spectators see it, and yet, the radar does not detect its presence!
The machine, estimated at about fifty meters in diameter, is parked in the sky during the three hours of the demonstration of the projector.
The phenomenon is relayed by the press: Le R publicain Lorrain, the AFP, L'Alsace, Le Proven al... The news worries the military authorities and the General Governor of Metz requires a report from Commander Cottel.
Investigation is underway, especially on the possibility of a meteorological phenomenon. Yet, no communication from the army will ever come to clear the mystery...
[Photo caption:] A UFO photographed in the USA in 1966. Photo rue des Archives
Between October 1st and October 21st, 1954, about twenty testimonies of UFO observers in Moselle were recorded: in the communes of Vergaville, Bidestroff, Kerprich, Gu bling, Morsbach, Moncourt, Saint-Avold, Saint-Quirin or Jouy-aux-Arches. Most have been reported in our columns.
Spheres, cones or luminous cigars, batteries that discharge, dancing colors, the phenomena follow each other.
In Pournoy-la-Ch tive, two children even saw a furry-faced extraterrestrial descending of his flying saucer and speak to them in an incomprehensible language.
Collective madness or encounter of the third kind? No definitive answer will ever be made.
