The 1954 French flap:

THE STRANGE CHARACTER WAS NOT A MARTIAN

TRONDES. -- Mr. Lelu, an egg merchant, was returning home by car from Lay-Saint-Rémy via the departmental road through Trondes. As he came around a bend, he saw two lights near the woods. At first thinking they were car headlights, he slowed down, approached, and saw a strange man with blond hair standing motionless, with his back turned. Intrigued, Mr. Lelu drove to the Pagny-sur-Meuse station, about a kilometer away, and called the Vold gendarmes. The news spread quickly, and many residents of Troussey and the surrounding villages gathered at the scene.

They then saw the man, oddly dressed, with shoulder-length hair, dancing near a campfire. He was amusing himself by throwing salt into the fire, creating showers of sparks. No flying saucer was in sight. But the character truly seemed to come from another world.

The Vold gendarmes soon arrived, approached the individual, apprehended him, and took him back to the station where he provided an explanation.

He turned out to be a 48-year-old Polish farm laborer named Romejko, employed at the Palameix farm. He explained to the officers that after leaving his employer, he had no means to dress decently or cut his hair. The poor man, slightly unbalanced, had wandered nearly sixty kilometers through fields and woods. He was released, but received a citation for violating foreigner laws and another for lighting a fire near the woods.

- A bright yellow ball, leaving behind a long trail, was observed on the night from Saturday to Sunday near Chartres by two Parisian "Guides de France," Misses Sylvie Grosclaude and Bernadette Moreau.

- A craft resembling a chick brooder rose vertically in front of Mr. Germain Mahou, 30, of Arraye-et-Han (Meurthe-et-Moselle), after he discovered it in the middle of the road.

FLYING CIGARS DATE BACK... TO 1034

NANCY. -- Flying cigars are not unique to our century. Yesterday, while combing through the city archives of Verdun, a scholar, Canon Boulleaux, discovered an incunabulum from 1493 originating from the Saint-Airy library.

The author, German humanist Hartmann Schaeden, recounts that in 1034 a strangely sized fireball was observed in the sky, traveling from south to east, then turning toward the setting sun. The document is contemporary with the famous Nuremberg chronicles and is illustrated with an illumination. One sees, against a blue sky, a kind of flying cigar surrounded by flames flying over green valleys.