The 1954 French flap:

A Biarritz police officer and a painter saw flying saucers in the sky of the Basque Coast

After the Bayonne police officer, then customs officer Laborde, from Béhobie, who saw a mysterious green trail in the sky, a Biarritz painter and a police officer from the same town in turn saw mysterious craft in the sky.

Officer Savarit, from Biarritz, declared:

"I had just returned home around four in the morning after finishing my shift, when I heard outside something like the sound of an engine. I opened the windows of my apartment and, leaning out, I very clearly saw in the sky a luminous round craft that seemed to have a hole in its center. Two nozzles seemed to come out of this disc-shaped craft. From one of them, lights were escaping. The craft moved very quickly in the direction of the sea. I soon lost sight of it."

Another Biarritz resident, Dimitri Ziko, a well-known painter, was working Monday morning, around 9:30, in a house on the outskirts of Biarritz overlooking the lake of La Négresse. He was with one of his friends, Mr. Constant Katsupis, when he saw in the sky an oval craft from which long trails of gray-colored vapor escaped. The craft was coming from the direction of Spain and flew very quickly without any sound, very high in the sky, following the coast toward the Landes. It disappeared into the clouds.

Two other people: Mr. Chatenay, from the villa "Alcé," and Mr. Junqua, a cabinetmaker living nearby, also saw the phenomenon at the same time.

NO SAUCER IN THE SAINT-BERNARD ESTATE PARK

Yesterday evening and this morning, the rumor

Continued on page FOUR

Those who believe in it "triumph"

A "FLYING CIGAR" REPORTEDLY LEFT TRACES
in a meadow in the Côte-d'Or

IF the inhabitants of Poncey-sur-l'Ignon, in Burgundy, did not fool themselves, their testimony, supported by disturbing observations of the air police and the gendarmerie of Semur-en-Auxois, today brings to the supporters of the flying saucers an argument less questionable than conversations with more or less hairy Martians.

This time it is not a saucer, but a "pocket cigar". It was about a meter in diameter.

It was a young woman, Mrs. Fourneret, who first saw it on Monday at 8:30 p.m., when closing her shutters. The craft was posed in a meadow less than twenty-five meters from her house. Distraught, she took her baby and went to take refuge at a neighbor's.

The news spread. Ten minutes later, all the villagers, armed with rifles, went on a "cigar hunt". The craft was still there. When the hunters arrived in the meadow, the cigar had disappeared without any noise. An eighteen-year-old young man, François Bouillet, saw it take off.

- It went from orange to green, he said...

Photographed traces

The police found traces in the meadow. Over two square meters, the clods of lawn had been torn off and thrown several meters apart. These traces were photographed.

Investigators make no secret of the fact that they are surprised. There can be no question of a helicopter: the craft was posed at two meters of a plum tree; while flying, it would have animated the branches with the blades of the rotor. On the other hand, an airplane would not have enough space to land.

The testimony reproduced by our colleague from Coulommiers, "Le Pays Briard", is also disturbing. This is a letter from one of its readers, Mr. Farnier, former commissioner of the Aéro Club de France, aviator, member of the Society of Civil Engineers.

Mr. Farnier declares that he saw above his estate "Les Cailles", in Jouy-sur-Morin, a large disc of eight to ten meters in diameter, which was spinning on the spot, letting out red purple gleams.

A circular flying wing

"It was, says Mr. Farnier, about 400 meters high and it hovered over twenty minutes above me. It then disappeared in the direction of Coulommiers."

Mr. Farnier adds: "I was not the victim of a hallucination and this craft was not a sounding balloon, but exactly a thick, circular wing, hovering on the spot and then moving at very high speed by taking gradually height."

"My son-in-law, a polytechnician," concludes Mr. Farnier, "saw, he said, in the Grenoble region, an identical machine."

What finally to think of the "flying tureen" that arose - probably at dinner time - on the property of Mr. Garreau. farmer in Chaleix (Dordogne)?

Two men got out of it and shook hands with Mr. Garreau, spoke to him in an unknown language and caressed his dog before climbing back into their craft which flew silently away at a dizzying pace. At the place indicated by Mr. Garreau, the grass had been trampled.

We are starting to be a bit jaded about the apparitions of more or less quirky Martians, giant or lost, helmeted or wrapped in cellophane. But these were, according to the witness, perfectly normal men, dressed in khaki overalls...

Hallucinations, illusions, optical phenomena or reality, flying saucers, luminous cigars and other pots continue to "patrol" everywhere: in the Loire, the Eure-et-Loir, the Isère, the Côtes-du-Nord, the Calvados.

On the Spanish border

The Spanish border was yesterday particularly watched by mysterious craft. A Béhobie customs officer distinguished one from which a long green trail escaped. An officer from the Biarritz police force had observed one two hours earlier (4 a.m.); it was a round craft with two nozzles from which a yellow glow and a pink glow escaped; finally, at 9:30 a.m., a painter from Biarritz, Mr. Dimitri Ziko and two of his friends saw an oval-shaped object that left a trail of brown smoke...

In Hong-Kong thousands of Chinese, massed on the roofs, spied on a flying saucer which flew over the city. It was just a weather balloon.

Flying Saucers

Continued from Page 1 - Col. 7

...tude. Vertically, of course. Two Parisians still on vacation nearby, Mr. and Mrs. Laroche, quickly confirmed Mr. Simonetti's observation.

The Spanish border also appears to have been under special surveillance by these mysterious craft, since before the observation of a long green trail by a customs officer from Behobie, a police officer in Biarritz saw a rather chubby machine with two nozzles emitting pink and yellow lights, and a Biarritz-based painter, Dimitri Ziko, saw a rather oval craft trailing black smoke. The latter must be color-blind, despite being an artist.

A significant testimony in favor of flying household items was provided by the brother-in-law of a minister from the Principality of Monaco, Mr. Georges Leront [sic], who, over Rambouillet, tracked the movements of a "chamber pot" emitting a dazzling green light and believed he was being doused by its contents. It turned out to be just a rain shower.

It's turning into a real fireworks display: while out walking with his wife, Mr. Landrain, the waterworks official in Duclair (Seine-Inférieure), was blinded by a beam of light.

But the pilots of these craft are still hesitant to make contact with Earthlings. As Mr. Defiz, a central heating installer from Bergerac, approached a sort of greenish rocket resting on struts, he felt a strong rush of air. The craft, leaving behind traces resembling dark mushrooms visible for a few moments, was literally sucked into the atmosphere.

However, one Martian dared to descend at 7:15 a.m. through a porthole of a 10-meter-wide orange sphere, into a field called "La Vieille Tuilerie," in Mertrud (Haute-Marne), 100 meters from a road worker, Mr. André Narcy, 48 years old.

- "It was an individual about 1.20 meters tall, completely covered in hair, wearing a fur coat, with a wide salmon-colored belt around the waist, and a plush hat on his head. He stared at me, motionless. I was scared, stopped, and made a gesture to address him. The individual turned on his heels and rushed into his machine. A kind of smoke spurted from a kind of spindle, and a large vaporous swirl occurred with a buzzing sound like an electric motor."

When Mr. Narcy returned to the scene with some colleagues, the dew had vanished from a specific area, the grass had turned milky, and twelve parallel marks stretched over a certain distance, as if the craft had landed in a series of small bounces. Like a mere airplane...

J. D. [Jacques Derogy]