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The 1954 French flap:

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OCTOBER 31, 1954, NIMES, GARD:

Reference number for this case: 31-Oct-54-Nimes. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. 1619:] "LE PROVENCAL" NEWSPAPER:

A "butane bottle
luminous and sparkling
in the sky of Pertuis

Pertuis (C.P.).
Around 06:15 p.m., the day before yesterday in the evening, a luminous machine crossed the sky of Perthuis in the direction South-West-North. Of the reported testimonys, let's retain that of Mr. Tassy, sergeant chief of the services of the police force, who claimed to us that the machine had the shape and the size of a butane gas bottle and that it evolved, according to his estimates, at less than a thousand of meters of altitude. Luminous almost white, letting escape a trail of multicoloured sparks, like spouting of a grindstone, the machine moved at a very high speed. The witnesses saw it during the space from 5 to 8 seconds to the maximum. The testimony of Mr. Tassy is confirmed in all points by that of Mr. Basset, his collaborator.

On the road of Villelaure, people going to Perthuis, at the same hour, noted the same phenomenon.

[Ref. 1617:] "LE PROVENCAL" NEWSPAPER:

"I saw a disk fly at more than
3.000 kilometers per hour"

CLAIMS A HUNTER OF GARD
WHOS STATEMENT IS CONFIRMED
BY SEVERAL PEOPLE

Nimes. (O.P.).
Several hunters of Nimes saw, Sunday evening, a flying machine.

We went to see Mr. Nouguier, who is employed at the gas works and explained us under which conditions he had seen this phenomenon:

"I was, he told us, in company of Misters Nouvel, shoe manufacturer and Mr. Mathieu Joseph, at the edge of the wood of Mittau, when we saw in the sky, whereas the night fell (it was approximately 06:30 p.m.), something resembling a bottle flattened at the two poles. This machine was of a pale yellow very shining and moved towards the hills behind which it disappeared at the end of approximately a quarter of a minute. Whereas it gained distance, its colour became darker, and when it disappeared, it was of a dark orange red".

Mr. Astier, also working with Gas of France, and which was at approximately 500 meters of Mr. Nouguier, told us the same thing. He saw at the same time the same phenomenon.

To make a demonstration fir us, Mr. Nouguier seized a small hemispherical tank on a table of the factory and reconstituded the trajectory of the object for us. He then made us a diagrammatic sketch of the places. According to him, the machine flew at a speed higher than 3.000 kilometers/hour, taking into account the space crossed in a few seconds. "It appeared very large to me, Mr. Nouguier told us in the end, approximately 25 meters in diameter."

This is not an atmospheric phenomenon, nor an illusion, the machine having been observed by several people at the same time, among whose Mr. Astier who as we mentioned above, was not with Mr. Nouguier at the time of the observation.

EXPLANATIONS:

Meteor.

KEYWORDS:

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

Nimes, Gard, multiple, hunters, bottle, yellow, shining, object, dark, red, orange, duration, Mathieu Joseph, Nouguier, Nouvel, Mittau, Astier

REFERENCES:

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


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