The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Figaro, Paris, France, page 11, on October 6, 1954.
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In all four corners of France, countless witnesses, whose good faith does not seem to be in question, continue to report to the authorities detailed accounts of the appearance of saucers, half-moons, barrels, cigars and other mysterious flying craft in their respective skies.
Several Parisians stated that they saw flying saucers maneuvering in the sky over the capital yesterday afternoon. Passersby claimed to have spotted one around 4:30 p.m., near the Porte Dorée.
Mr. Pierre Allouis, a cardboard packaging representative, was riding in a taxi when the vehicle stopped at a red light. Hearing, he said, a shrill whistling sound, he looked out the door and saw a flying craft that [sic] disappeared vertically, leaving behind it a plume of smoke.
Mr. Allouis describes the saucer as a disc larger than a normal airplane and silver in color.
The same testimony is reported by Mr. Gilbert Bacon, residing at 25, Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and by Mr. Paul Julien, a house painter who lives at 3, Rue de la Pompe. The latter, however, believes that it was not a saucer but a flying wing shaped like a triangle with rounded edges.
At Le Bourget it is explained that, given the intensity of air traffic, it is impossible to confirm by radar the passage of the craft at an insufficiently specified time. Moreover, radar could only record the passage of a heavier-than-air object as a luminous spot, whatever the nature of the craft.
At Le Havre, a taxi driver, Mr. André Lefèbvre, who was parked at the harbor, saw an incandescent disc which, to the west of Deauville, rose into the sky leaving behind it a phosphorescent trail. This phenomenon, which was visible for ten minutes, was also witnessed by several sailors returning to their ship.
Mr. and Mrs. Teyssier, who were camping at Aurec-sur-Loire in Haute-Loire, saw in the sky a luminous object resembling a large headlight moving at great speed at about 2,000 meters altitude. The craft emitted an orange beam of light and followed a north-south trajectory.
Two residents of Lézignan, Messrs. André Gardia and André Darzens, who were traveling by truck, saw - so they claim - a strange disc 10 meters in diameter resting in a field between Lagrasse and Villemagne (Aude).
At Bergerac, Mr. Jean Labonne asserts that a "saucer" three meters wide landed in his garden. A city firefighter, Jean Defix, corroborates this testimony.
A farmer from Mégrit (Côtes-du-Nord), Mr. Henri Lehérissé, maintains that a craft one meter in diameter landed in the courtyard of his farm. Inside the craft appeared two strange beings the size of a child.
The other evening, around 9:30 p.m., at Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, a craft shaped like a pot and spinning on itself was seen in the sky by two people. At the same time, another craft, this time shaped like a crescent, was seen at Liévin.
After hovering for a few moments, the crescent split in two. The upper part then remained motionless while the other landed in a field between two melons, from where it took off shortly afterward to rejoin the part that had remained in the air.
Furthermore, between Annoeuillin and Provin, near Lille, about a hundred people observed "flying crescents." The gendarmerie brigades of the region have already collected numerous testimonies about these craft which, numbering three, disappeared only after twenty-five minutes of low-altitude maneuvering.
The first of his profession to be confronted with the numerous phenomena, a journalist from Lyon, stated that he was able to observe a red luminous disc south of the Basilica of Fourvière.
The other evening around 11 p.m., on the road from Montmoreau to Villebois-Lavalette (Charente), Mr. Jean Allary, 22, clearly saw in the light of his moped headlamp a brand-new object about 1.80 meters long studded with golden nails which was resting at the side of the road.
When Mr. Allary had passed the mysterious craft, he turned back a short distance later but saw nothing more. Tracks seven meters long were soon afterward found at the location indicated by Mr. Allary.
