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The 1954 French flap:

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OCTOBER 4, 1954, PONCEY-SUR-L'IGNON, COTE D'OR:

Reference number for this case: 4-oct-54-Poncey. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. vm1:] "VAR-MATIN REPUBLIQUE" NEWSPAPER:

[Ref. qh1:] "LE QUOTIDIEN DE LA HAUTE-LOIRE" NEWSPAPER:

[Ref. cg1:] OURANOS, CHARLES GARREAU:

French ufologist Charles Garreau wrote in 1955:

[Ref. am1:] AIME MICHEL:

French ufologist Aimé Michel gave a detailed and lively account of this case. Here is its substance.

On October 4, 1954, at about 08:00 P.M., Mrs. Fourneret of Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon is inside her residence. The night has fallen, so she goes towards a window to close the shutters, she then sees a luminous object hovering with gentle oscillations in the air at about twenty meters of the house, on the right of the plum tree on the field of a neighbor, Mr. Cazet. She stated that the luminous object seemed to get ready to land.

She described the luminous object as being approximately three meters in diameter and with an elongated shape, horizontal, and of orange color, with a luminosity which slightly lit the branches and the leaves of the plum tree.

Frantic with terror, she takes her little child and takes refuge with him at a neighbor's, Mrs. Bouiller, and the two women carefully close the door. At this time, two neighbors, Mr. Girardot and Mr. Vincent show up, note the state of panic of the two women and ask what happened. When being told, they get their rifles and run towards the field, where the object is nowhere to be seen anymore.

However, looking at the ground, they discover a very fresh trace, which convinced them that Mrs. Fourneret did not dream. The two men check the trace. Aimé Michel will give following description of it:

October 4, 1954, towards 20:00, Mr. Fourneret and some potato gatherers were gathered together at Mr. Cazet's, the Mayor of Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon, when a villager came on a bicycle, breathless, and called Mr. Fourneret, shouting to him to come quickly, as Yvette, Mr. Fourneret's wife, "saw something in the field" in front of Mr. Fourneret's house, had been frightened and took refuge in the residence of Mr. Bouiller, near Mr. Fourneret's house.

The entire group goes to Mr. Fourneret in some minutes and finds Mrs. Yvette Fourneret, her young son, Mr. and Mrs. Bouiller, and two other neighbors, Mr. Girardot and Mt. Vincent. Everyone hears Mrs. Fourneret's story, and gathered around the hole.

At this time, François Bouiller, aged 18, shows up, returning from work, and before anyone can tell him about the reasons of the gathering, he explains with great excitation that he just had the fright of his life, for he had just seen a sort of luminous craft which flew at high speed towards South-east while gaining altitude. He describes the craft as similar to a plane without wings, reduced to its only fuselage, which took an increasingly greenish color as it accelerated.

On October 5, 1954, at about 07:00 P.M., the Mayor of Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon, Mr. Anatole Cazet, phoned the Gendarmerie station at Saint-Seine the Abbey and tells them that a flying saucer had landed in a field the day before and that several people saw it. He adds that the machine left unexplainable traces. The Sergeant is skeptic enough but indicates that he will come to the premises for an investigation.

Meanwhile, many inhabitants went on the spot of the landing and contemplated the trace. All were very excited by the event.

The Gendarmes who carried out the investigation collect the testimony of several other people in the area who stated to have seen a luminous object which had risen near Poncey and had slipped by in the direction of the South-east, shortly after 08:00 p.m. on October 4.

On-field investigations were carried out by Charles Garreau, by the Sergeant of the Gendarmerie of Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye, who initially thought that he was going to find a simple hoax there, changed opinion in consequence of the investigation, and contacted his superior Captain Millet of Sémur-in-Auxois. Captain Millet went to the site, with the firm idea that his subordinate had been fooled by pranksters, but after having interrogated the inhabitants and having examined the trace, he changed opinion and contacted his own superior, Commandant Viala of Dijon. Viala organized a follow-up investigation by the services of the Aeronautics of Dijon, by the Air Force, and an unnamed professor of the University of Dijon who tried to check if the ground were radioactive and determined that it was not. Photographs and soil samples of the trace were taken. Metallic objects of the neighborhoods were checked against magnetic remanence traces but nothing could be found. The case also interested General De Chassey, c.o. of the Dijon Air Force Base. The entire case circulated up to the highest official authorities within only two days. The totality of the people having taken part in the investigation, gendarmes, military, scientists, ufologists all were convinced that the case was absolutely not a hoax.

Aimé Michel carried out checks against the ground samples at the Institute for Radium, in Paris, he could not detect any radioactivity. He regretted later than at that time nobody had thought of performing what decades later became a common practice in these cases: the search for alterations in the roots of the plants and in the plants.

Michel deeply thought about Lieutenant Plantier's theory. Plantier, of the French Air Force, had a few years before written a speculative study on the problem of the propulsion of the flying saucers and emitted an idea which was quite new and daring for those times: flying saucers may be propelled by creating their own flexible gravity field. Michel thought that the fast departure of the craft would have quite simply involved an upwards fall of the ground under the machine, which seems to be the only judicious assumption to adapt the so particular characteristics of the trace, where all looked indeed to be as if gravity had been reversed in this place, the ground initially "falling" towards the sky, leaving the roots intact, then falling down to ground on the sides of the hole once the machine and its gravitational effect left.

[Ref. jv1:] JACQUES VALLEE:

[Ref. jv2:] JACQUES VALLEE:

The author indicates that on October 4, 1954, in Poncey-sur-Lignon, a housewife fled when an orange, circular object of approximately 3 meters in diameter was oscillating in the airs and landed close to her farm. When her neighbors arrived, armed with rifles, they observed that the ground "had been sucked" on a square surface, so that the idea of a joke had to be abandoned. Extensive research and analyses were made by the police force and the French Air Force. The nature of the object, just as the traces it had left, remained unexplained.

[Ref. 522] CLAUDE POHER, UFO RESEARCH GROUP "GEPA":

In 1968-1969, before the official GEPAN ufology effort started, its future head Dr Claude Poher was a member of the unofficial GEPA ufology group, and gathered a computer coded listing of more than 700 UFO reports on which multiple factors statistical computation could be run. In the file were a number of 1954 French UFO reports, among those this one.

For readability, a decoded interpretation of the data is provided here under the original 80 character encoded string. Decoding was done according to the original indications, the code number and its generic meaning is given. Please not that the generic meaning of each code is a predefined category, not the real specific details of the case. For example, if the main witness' age was 33, the coding would result in a number "3" which corresponds to a category "Adult from 21 to 59 years."

[Ref. gl1:] CHARLES GARREAU AND RAYMOND LAVIER:

The authors describe the case of the landing in Poncey-sur-l'Ignon on October 4, 1954, noting that the gendarmerie investigated it lengthily.

In Poncey-sur-l'Ignon in the department of Côte-d'Or,at 8 p.m., Mrs. Yvette Fourneret, in her thirties, in her apartment of the old asbestos factory located at a few hundreds of meters of the village, close to the National Road RN71 from Dijon to Troyes. She opened the window of her kitchen to close the shutters, whereas the night had completely fallen and the outside was very dark. This window, located on the back of the building, faced the countryside, i.e. a very narrow valley boxed between two hills with rather stiff slopes.

Mrs. Fourneret indicated the day after the sighting Charles Garreau who came to interview her, that she had thrown a casual glance at the meadows behind the house, and that she then saw a luminous object which gently swinging, on the right of a plum tree, as if it prepared to land.

She stated declared that the tree, which was some 20 meters from her window, was slightly lit by an orange gleam coming from the object. The object had an oval form, horizontally lengthened, with a length that seemed to her to be of approximately 3 meters. She became panicked and closed the window, then took her baby on the arm and fled by the front door to the house of a neighbor, Mrs. Bouiller, and the two women barricaded themselves while waiting for the return of their husbands.

But it was first two other neighbors who arrived, Girardot and Vincent. They noted the panic of the two women and decided to go to see the object, taking their rifles. They run to the meadow but there is nothing anymore.

While looking near the plum tree, they discovered that on a surface of 1,50 m long, broad at its base of 70 centimeters, and at its end of 50 centimeters, the ground was like sucked up. Grass mounds were torn off and thrown around, turned upside down, in a circle of ten meters in diameter. The ground was removed by below, with the result that the bottom of the hole was broader than on the ground level.

Charles Garreau examined this trace 24 hours later, and it made him think of an enormous suction which would have torn off the grass, except however for a wild plant that remained rooted as if it resisted, alone in the middle of the pickled surface. He noted that the lumps of earth were like if they had rained around the hole.

Charles Garreau took one of the mounds and brought it to Aimé Michel, who had it analyzed and checked by various laboratories, but nothing was not found by these examinations. He notes however that neither him nor Aimé Michel had heard about the US Air Force's ATIC discovery on another trace case (that of Sonny Devergers), in which the roots of the grass had been superficially carbonized without showing damages on the leaves.

Another witness was a 18 year old boy, François Bouiller, who was unaware of all the fuss when he arrived at the old factory where a certain number of the village's residents were gathered and discussed the event. The young man was pale and announced immediately:

"I have just had one of these jitters. I saw a kind of luminous craft rising in the direction of the South-east. You would have said a fuselage of an plane, without wings, and it accelerated very quickly. Its color gradually changed to green."

Charles Garreau notes that Commander Viala and Captain Millet, of the gendarmerie, the air police force, the intelligence service of the Chief of Staff of the 1st Air Area came to investigate in turn into this landing, and that it revealed another sighting two days before, that of a luminous craft in the shape of an "oil barrel" which had flown over the village while following a trajectory parallel with the road from Dijon to Troyes.

Charles Garreau went back on the premises 1971 with Raymond Lavier, they met Mrs. Fourneret again, she had not forgotten a thing of the event and provided another interesting information, saying:

"During four years, the grass did not grow back at this place."

[Ref. fr1] MICHEL FIGUET AND JEAN-LOUIS RUCHON:

The two authors indicate that in Poncey-sur-l'Ignon in the department of the Côte-d'Or on October 4, 1954, at 07:30 p.m., whereas she was in her bedroom, a first witness was closing her shutters, when she saw at approximately fifty of meters of her residence and above the trees, a luminous thing having the size of a cooker which was swinging gently in the air, on the right of a plum tree.

This object lights the branches and the leaves of the tree. Frightened, she flees, with her child in the arms, to a neighbor's, while passing by the back of her residence not to be in contact with the luminous phenomenon.

She cannot explain what she had just seen only five minutes later to her neighbor and a friend of the latter. One hour later, the neighbor's child and the husband of the friend arrive, they warn another neighbor and then proceed to the place, armed with their shotguns, and in company of the first.

In the meadow next to the courtyard, they discover traces.

Another member of the neighbor's family who was regaining his residence towards 08:45 p.m. saw in the sky an unknown object in the shape of large cigar, sort of like a fuselage of a plane but shorter and without wing, entirely luminous, the color which one would have said to be transparent had green and orange reflections. It could have been at a thousand meters of altitude, it moved north to the south, a double the speed of a jet airplane. Frightened, he went back to his residence, where he found the members of his family who had already noted the traces left by the luminous ball. The latter were within a few meters of the plum tree whose foliage had been lit by the ball, it had a surface of 1 m 50 broad at its base of 70 cm and its end of 50 cm, the grass had been like sucked. Grass sods of 0 m 20 by 0 m 30 were widespread and were turned over around on a radius of 4 meters. On the very fresh hole, white worms were still agitated.

The commander of section of the Gendarmerie came on the location. An investigation was carried out and was the subject of the official report Nr. 391 of the brigade of Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye. Samples were taken. A lump of earth was presented to a Geiger counter of the university of Dijon. Result: nothing, no radioactivity.

A mound was examined by Aimé Michel with instruments of the Institute of the Radium with the same lack of success, and this small piece of ground would eventually be thrown away.

[Ref. cc1:] GILBERT CORNU AND HENRI CHALOUPEK:

The authors indicate that on October 4, 1954, a "quasi-landing" "seems" to have been "certain" in Poncey-on-Lignon in the Côte-d'Or, having rather numerous witnesses and important traces on the ground.

Initially, Mrs Fourneret, when closing her shutters towards 07:30 p.m., saw an oval luminous object of yellowish color which was gently swinging about fifteen meters above the ground near a close plum tree. Thrown into a panic, she fled to neighbors' with her child in the arms, taking great care to pass "behind" the house to avoid being in contact with this worrying light.

Other witnesses saw a luminous phenomenon in the sky, but more remote. One hour later, when the men returned, they went on the spot with neighbors, armed with rifles, and discovered near the plum tree a surface of 1.50 meters out of 0.70 meters where the grass had been torn off recently since "the white worms are still agitated there."

These plates of this grass from 20 to 30 centimeters side and "turned over" were scattered around at a distance of several meters as if they had been torn off the ground by aspiration.

The authors indicate as sources "A propos des S.V." by Aimé Michel, page 167; Ch. Garreau and R. Lavier in "Face au E.T." page 39.

[Ref. bp1:] JOURNAL "LE BIEN PUBLIC:"

In an article of October 22, 2000 headlined "The first UFO seen in Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon 46 years ago. Can it be believed?", this regional daily newspaper of Dijon summarized the events:

IMAGES:

From right to left: Mrs Fourneret showing peculiarities of the trace to reporter and ufologist Charles Garreau and ufologist Jimmy Guieu as they investigated the case and interviewed witnessed on location.

NOTES:

Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon is a small village of the department of Côte-d'Or, in the area of Burgundy, and had approximately 140 inhabitants at the time of the events.

In 1959, Charles A. Maney, in the continuation of a discussion on UFOs carried through in Akron (Ohio), U.S.A., and using the maps raised by Aimé Michel, evoked the following possibility:

EXPLANATIONS:

Not looked for yet.

KEYWORDS:

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

Poncey, Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon, Côte-d'Or, Fourneret, Anatole Cazet, Bouiller, Girardot, François Bouiller, orange, luminous, hovering, landing, trace, traces, police, Gendarmes, Army, analysis, roots

REFERENCES:

[---] indicates sources that I have not been able to check yet.

• [---] Article in the national newspaper Franc-Tireur, Paris, France, October 7, 1954.
• [---] Article in the national newspaper L'Aurore, Paris, France, October 7, 1954.
• [---] Article in the national newspaper Libération, Paris, France, October 7, 1954.
• [vm1] Article in the regional newspaper Var-Matin République, France, October 8, 1954.
• [---] Article in the national newspaper France-Soir, Paris, France, October 8, 1954.
• [---] Article in the national newspaper Paris-Presse, Paris, France, October 8, 1954.
• [qh1] Article in the regional newspaper Le Quotidien de La Haute-Loire, France, October 9, 1954.
• [---] Article by Aimé Michel, in the weird phenomena magazine Fate, USA, 1956.
• [cg1] "Rapport d'Enquête: Poncey-sur-L'Ignon (C. d'Or. - France) - 4 octo. 1954 - Atterrissage", by Charles Garreau, in the ufology magazine Ouranos, France, pp 37-38, 2nd quarter, 1955.
• [am1] "Mystérieux Objets Célestes", book by Aimé Michel, Seghers publisher, France, pp 183-188, 1958.
• [jv1] "Un Siècle d'Atterrissages", article by Jacques Vallée, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans la Nuit (LDLN), France, #43.
• [jv1] "Passport To Magonia - On Ufos, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds", book by Jacques Vallée, Contemporary Books publisher, USA, 1969.
• [jv1] "Chronique des Apparitions Extra-terrestres", French translation of "Passport to Magonia", book by Jacques Vallée, Denoel publisher, France, page 268, 1972.
• [jv2] Summary by Jacques Vallée in "The Humanoids: A Survey of World-wide Reports of Landings of Unconventional Aerial Objects and Their Alleged Occupants", book by Charles Bowen, Neville Spearman publisher, U-K., 1969.
• [jv2] Summary by Jacques Vallée in "En Quête des Humanoïdes", book by Charles Bowen, French translation of "The Humanoids", J'ai Lu publisher, France, page 43, 1974.
• [jv3] "Ufo's in Space: Anatomy of a Phenomenon", book by Jacques Vallée, page 71, NTC/Contemporary Publishing publisher, USA, January 1965.
• [gl1] "Face Aux Extra-terrestres", book by Charles Garreau and Raymond Lavier, Delarge publisher, J'ai Lu, France, pp 41-42, 1975.
• [cp1] "Statistics from 735 UFO observations", paper by Dr Claude Poher, GEPA, France.
• [fr1] "OVNI, Premier Dossier Complet des Rencontres Rapprochées en France", book by Michel Figuet and Jean Louis Ruchon, Alain Lefeuvre publisher, France, 1979.
• [cc1] "Ephémérides des Années d'Espoir de l'Ufologie", article by Gilbert Cornu and Henri Chaloupek, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans la Nuit (LDLN), France, #255-256, page 26, September/October 1985.
• [bp1] "Les Premiers OVNI Aperçus à Poncey-sur-l'Ignon Il Y A 46 ans. Peut-On Y Croire?", ("The first UFOs seen in Poncey-Sur-l'Ignon 46 years ago. Can it be believed?"), article dans le journal "Le Bien Public", Dijon, Côte d'Or, France, October 22, 2000.

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