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The 1954 French flap:

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OCTOBER 24, 1954, LES EGOTS, RHONE:

Reference number for this case: 24-oct-54-LesEgots. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. 1044:] JOURNAL "LA DEPECHE-LIBERTE":

IN SAINTE-CATHERINE-SUR-RIVERIE

Janine SEON (aged 10) saw sunday
a flying bin (with windows)
and a red martian with bull's eyes!

RIVE-DE-GIER. -- More and more, the number of people having seen or claiming to have seen interplanetary machines is increasing. Those hasten to proclaim it as soon as it happens. However, in the countrysides, it seems that one is less prolix, one is wary and hesitates to spread the news. This is how last Sunday, October 24, around 07:30 P.M., a ten year old young girl, Janine Séon, living in a farm at the locality "Les Egots", community of Sainte-Catherine (the Rhone), returned precipitately to her parents, after having seen and heard speak ... the occupant of a flying cigar.

The news, which one had taken care not to spread, reached us only yesterday, and thanks to the kindness of Mr. Pierre Bonjour, aviator, which these stories fascinate - we understand that - we reached, around 12 hours, this nice village before climbing a rocky path which was to lead us to the farm inhabited by young Janine.

Dominating the rare farms of the area, a wooded slope surmounted by a high cross: the Cross of Chatelard. It is there that the young girl saw landing and fly away the mysterious machine and its no les mysterious occupant...

THE YOUNG GIRL WAS ALL
"UPSET!"...

At the farm, we find only one young and sympathetic lady, the aunt of young Janine, the latter being at the school of the village. It is her who was the first to tell us the return of the child, Sunday evening, after this vision which had upset her.

"Janine arrives running and we understood that it had just occurred something out of the ordinary. She was very pale and did not manage to explain herself. She was all "revolutionized"!...

"Then, we put her to bed after having purged her, and the following day, we did not send her to school. "

"A MAN ALL HAIRY
WITH EYES LIKE
THOSE OF THE BULLS..."

We then knocked at the school where the teacher, Miss Lombardin, welcomes us very pleasantly. Young Janine lunches accompanied by the teacher and two other pupils who, like her, live too far away from the school to return to the farm for lunch.

We try, while referring us to the declarations of the aunt of the child, to change the version and to mislead Janine. Not once did we succeed in catching her at fault. These statements made calmly, agree in all points with those which she already told to her parents.

"I was in my field, occupied making my cows "turn", when I saw in the sky, a very white "thing", of oval shape, which went down. The slope masks it from my sight and I moved towards it."

And the child told us that she then saw an apparatus resembling a bucket, though larger, with window panes. She approached it when, suddenly, a man who was resting on a fagot and whom she had not seen up to now, approached as if he wanted to prevent her from going towards the apparatus.

This man was dressed in red, but his clothing looked like if they were in iron. He walked with stiff legs - Janine mimics his walk for us - and was making gestures. He had long hair and a hairy face. He was slightly taller than her and it can be estimated that he was about 1 meter 40 tall.

"What frightened me, were the large eyes which were... like those of oxen! He spoke to me with a low voice, but I did not understand. Then it showed me something green that he held flat in his hand, approached me again, touched me the shoulder and went up in his apparatus. He opened a door which was in one end of the cigar, the apparatus rotated then it went straight up in the sky.

""It did not make more noise than a sewing machine. Arrived at a certain height, it seemed to me that I saw like flames come out of the apparatus, I saw blue, red and green colors, and then nothing anymore..."

THE DOGS RUN AWAY

When young Janine moved towards the apparatus, her two dogs followed her, but arrived near the cigar, they run away without even barking. However usually they bark when they see hunters.

Another young girl who was by there, but which could not see the apparatus, was to state to have seen the cows and the dogs, in the field of a neighbor.

THE TEACHER BELIEVES
IN THE TRUTHFULNESS OF JANINE'S TALE

Which credit can be granted to young Janine's account? Isn't it the product of a rich imagination? Didn't she make this story up to gain a certain importance?

Miss Lombardin, Janine's teacher, questioned, is convinced that the young girl told the truth.

"Never, she told us, did Janine invent any stories. She is a very positive pupil, who learns well - she's the sixth in the class - and we can only praise her. She is not the kind to have invented such a story and, personally, I believe in the truthfulness of her account ..."

And we left Sainte-Catherine, leaving the young Janine to her schoolgirl's homework...

H. MEILLAND.

[Ref. 187:] JACQUES VALLEE:

305

Oct. 24, 1954, 05:30 P.M., Les Egots (France).

Near Sainte Catherine, a child saw a man emerge from a strange craft. He was "dressed in red, his clothes looked like iron. He walked with his legs stiff, had long hair and a hairy face. His eyes were large, like those of the cows." (Personal).

[Ref. 438] CHARLES GARREAU ET RAYMOND LAVIER:

The two ufologists report in their book on the case of Les-Egots-Sainte-Catherine in the Rhone, of October 24, 1954, at about 05:30 P.M., indicating as sources #305 of the Vallée catalogue.

Noting that the information is spares, they indicate that a child stated to have seen a being leaving a strange machine: "Its clothing was red and had the aspect of fire. It went with stiff legs. It had a hairy face. Its eyes were as large as those of a cow."

[Ref. 1433:] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:

The two authors first reproduce the short summary of Jacques Vallée's catalogue. They then point out on a sarcastic tone that there is a lack of care in the work of Jacques Vallée since the case being already referenced by him as of "his personal source" and that in addition there exists many locality of the name of Sainte-Catherine, and that thus the location "Les Egots close o Sainte-Catherine" indicated by Vallée would put almost all the researchers in impossibility to counter-investigate "such a case."

The two authors then state that they "overcame these obstacles" within a few weeks time and found out that the place is actually "Les Egauts" and not "Les Egots", close to Sainte-Catherine-Sous-Riverie.

They indicate that in this village, one remembers very well "the joke played by the children of the village" and that "the mother of one of the girl" has "specified this again" to them "with a smile." The two authors wonder whether she "was laughing at the credulity of the ufologists" or at a funny remembrance.

[Ref. 223] MICHEL FIGUET AND JEAN-LOUIS RUCHON:

The two authors indicate that on October 24, 1954, at 07:30 p.m. in Sainte-Catherine in the Rhone, at the location Les Egots, a child observed a strange machine and a being in red clothing having the aspect of iron. The being walked with stiff legs, had long hair and a hairy face. His eyes were as large as those of a cow.

They indicate Vallée, Garreau and Lavier as sources.

[Ref. 144] FRANCAT, MICHEL FIGUET:

24.10.1954

Saint-Catherine-sous-Riverie [?]

Hoax by the children. B.B. p. 79.

[Ref. 134:] ALBERT ROSALES, HUMCAT:

199.

Location. Les Egots France

Date: October 24 1954

Time: 1730

A child saw a man emerged from a strange craft. He was "dressed in red, his clothes like iron. He walked with his legs stiff, had long hair and a hairy face. His eyes were large, like a cow." No other information.

Humcat 1954-115
Source: Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia
Type: B

NOTES:

Jacques Vallée indicates the location as "Les Egots near Sainte Catherine", and Barthel and Brucker seem to suggest that it would have been to prevent checking. However, the article of the time in the newspaper "La Dépêche-Liberté" indeed indicated "Les Egots near Saint-Catherine." Jacques Vallée thus does not have to stand accused on this point, except for lack of spell-checking a locality's name!

Barthel and Brucker are in addition the only ones to mention "several" children. Only Janine Séon is mentioned in all the other sources. If, as claimed by Barthel and Brucker, the mother "of one of the girls smiles", that implies that they spoke to her in person and not over the phone. Ufologist Jean Sider noticed that Barthel and Brucker invented some their investigations; here, their assertion of several witnesses whereas there is only one in the newspapers which would not have failed to indicate others if there had been any and if one believes the charge of newspapers' sensationnalism by these same authors.

Barthel and Brucker say that the locality is not Les Egots but Les Egauts. Indeed, the only locality "Les Egauts" that I could find in France is close to Saint-Just-en-Bas, which as Rive-de-Gier is in the department of the Loire and not in the Rhone, the nearest big city being Saint-Etienne, where the reporting newspaper is located. As that can result from Barthel and Brucker, the newspaper is mistaken with "Catherine-sur-Riverie" which is "Catherine-sous-Riverie" in the Rhone, which is all the same with at more than 70 kilometer of the locality "Les Egauts" close to Saint-Just-en-Bas, while Rive-de-Gier is within 20 kilometers of these places. We are thus probably correctly in the department of the Loire, Rhone-Alpes region, somewhere in the vicinity of Saint-Just-en-Bas and Rive-de-Gier.

As for "La Croix du Chatelard," there is indeed a "Croix du Chatelard" in Maurienne quite far from there, a quasi-alpine summit that has nothing of a timbered hill. There is on the other hand a Wood of Chatelard which dominates the valley of Gier, in a landscape decorated with many crosses of which the oldest date of 1533.

EXPLANATIONS:

Not looked for yet. This is however nothing more than a story by a young girl.

KEYWORDS:

(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)

Sainte-Catherine-sur-Riverie, Rhône, Rhône-Alpes, Les Egauts, Les Egots, man, craft, child, clothes, red, iron, legs, stiff, walk, hair, long, eyes, cow, hoax

REFERENCES:

[-] indicates sources which I have not yet checked.


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