This article was published in the daily newspaper Sunday News, USA, on May 12, 1957.
Amiens, France, May 11 (Reuters). -- Another flying saucer report fizzled out today with a police explanation that excited villagers actually had seen a lantern carried over a hill by a farmer's wife.
The police chief of Albert, a town of 9.000, said tonight: "The whole affair is nothing but a collective hallucination."
He has received telephone calls all day about the reported landing of a saucer in a field near the village of Beaucourt-sur-Lande late Friday night.
Saw "4 little men"
The story started at midnight when a Hungarian refugee, Michel Sekete, 29, was "dazzled by a strange projectile" as he was cycling home.
He said he hid behind a telegraph pole and saw "four little men" walking along the road. He said they walked toward him in a threatening manner.
He pedaled fast to the local railroad station shouting "Let me in quick. A flying Saucer had landed and I am being attacked."
Then it flew away
Six eyewitnesses, including the station watchman and his wife, made statements to the police saying the saucer was of a "reddish color." They said it hovered for a few minutes above the village and then flew off.
The Albert police chief said after investigation that the so-called flying saucer was nothing more than a farmer's wife returning home with a lantern in her hand.