The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Figaro, Paris, France, pages 1 and 16, on October 16, 1954.
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I am not sure that the Loch Ness Monster has caused unfortunate journalists, over the many years of its hypothetical existence, as many inextricable "cases of conscience" as the flying saucers and other aerial craft, whose ghostly invasion we are enduring.
It was a sea serpent, good-natured and playful, whose revelation seemed reserved for fishermen, the residents near a privileged lake, or even careless swimmers, but which mostly manifested during the summer, in the heavy atmosphere of newsrooms when the news slackens.
The saucers, however, can be seen by almost anyone. Just yesterday, based on information coming from the mayor of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse himself, the Caritat airbase dispatched two "Mistral" jets to search for the white disc topped with a spherical dome that the municipal magistrate had reported.
Needless to say, the two aircraft - whose top speed, let us recall, approaches a thousand kilometers per hour - encountered only clouds, more or less spherical, whose nimbus or other stratocumulus clouds showed no unusual characteristics.
The good faith of the witnesses who come forward each day cannot - except for a few incorrigible pranksters - be doubted.
Philippe Bouvard.
(Continued on the last page, columns 3 and 4)
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Continuation from the first page
Since the multiplication of their appearances, it has fallen to us to take stock daily; to operate, using only graphological or orthographic data, the distinction between sincere testimonies and hoaxes; and finally, to clarify for those who have yet to see anything the meaning of events whose veracity no journalist has ever been able to confirm.
The letters pile up. Phone calls multiply. Visits follow one another. Serious people no longer hesitate to indicate their civil status and qualifications at the bottom of documents recounting the encounter with a Venusian or the flight of a Uranid.
Certainly, investigations would often be necessary. But one cannot alert the commander of an airbase each time merely to chase a half-flying cigar.
The gendarmes, for their part, continue to record in their logbook sightings of blue-orange glows between a bicycle ride and a noise complaint.
This temporary cooperation by the police strengthens some in their illusions and convinces them that the government is also seeking witnesses to establish the existence of an interplanetary invasion.
Today, too many testimonies - of which the press often only has time to report the positive side without printing the refutation the next day - influence the opinion of all those - and this is still, thank God, the majority! - who have not yet personally witnessed these phenomena.
The prudent silence observed by scientists of all disciplines, as well as by spokespersons for official science, leaves the field open to all hypotheses.
Several science-fiction radio broadcasts eloquently demonstrated, a few years ago, how impressionable the public could be.
The journalist, lamenting more than ever that he does not possess infallible knowledge, now languishes between piles of letters asserting the existence of extraterrestrial beings and the fogged-up windows of the newsroom where, in the evening, fatigue aiding, it seems that the "surreal" reflection of the streetlights creates alarming luminous objects.
He then rushes to the window, opens it wide to chase away his hallucinations, and is horrified to see that, in the movement he gave the sash, the saucers have changed position!...
The majority of his readers seem to believe it, and he himself, at certain moments, is almost ready to stake his professional reputation that something strange is happening in the atmosphere.
He feeds not so much on hope, but on a single, great hope: that, on an official call, he may finally, in a Parisian police station, interview the first Martian who, coming to his earthly brethren, would have chosen our freedom...
Philippe Bouvard.
