The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this site is here.
Reference number for this case: 5-oct-54-Loctudy. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
[Ref. 1686:] "VAR-MATIN REPUBLIQUE" NEWSPAPER:
The flying saucers file grows richer...The "Martian" of the Finistère has the face covered of hairs and the eyes as large as a corbel's eggQuimper, October 6. -- Towards 4 o'clock, yesterday morning, Mr. Pierre Lucas, working baker in Loctudy (the Finistère) who was occupied drawing water in the court of bakery, saw suddenly in the night, a machine of the shape of a saucer of 2,50 m to 3 m of diameter. He saw an individual measuring approximately 1,20 m emerge of it, who approached him and tapped to him on the shoulder while uttering inintelligibles words. The workman baker succeeded in keeping his coolnes and returned to the bakehouse where the unknown followed him. In the light, Mr. Lucas managed to distinguish the visitor: he had an oval face, entirely covered of hairs and the eyes of the size of a corbel's egg. The young man called his owner, but before the latter had the time to come down, the unknown as well as the saucer disappeared without leaving a trace. A beer salesman of Concarneau has, on his side, stated to have seen in the sky, two luminous discs of the form of round tables prolonged of a kind of tail. One of the discs was motionless while the other evolved in the vicinity. The two discs disappeared at the end of ten minutes after having launched a rocket. |
[Ref. 1680:] "LE QUOTIDIEN DE LA HAUTE-LOIRE" NEWSPAPER:
DAILY SAUCERS[...] A HAIRY "MARTIAN" FOLLOWS TO THE BAKEHOUSE A BAKER OF BRITTANY!But the most sensational observation, a little too sensational, but utlimately we are not used anymore to be afraid of the most incredible, was made yesterday in the Finistère. Around 4 hours of the morning Mr. Pierre Lucas, bakery workman in Loctudy, who was occupied to drawing water in the court of bakery, suddenly saw in the night a craft of the shape of a saucer of 2,50 to 3 meters in diameter. He saw individual measuring approximately 1,20 meters come out of it, who approached him and tapped him on the shoulder while uttering inintelligibles words. The bakery workman succeeded in keeping his coolness and returned to the bakehouse where the unknown followed him. In the light, Mr. Lucas managed to see the face of the visitor: he had an oval face, entirely covered of hair and the eyes of the size of an egg of corbel. The young man called his owner, but before the latter had the time to go down, the unknown had disappeared, as its saucer of which no trace was found. |
[Ref. 812:] "LE PROGRES DE CORNOUAILLES" NEWSPAPER:
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This bakery workman of Loctudy
Since the saucers start to fly, one has always wondered who could operate them. By an association of ideas, as mean as it is inaccurate, some bad spirits implied that it was by alcoholics! In Loctudy, this week, a bakery workman saw one of these famous Martians. Similar to the hero of antiquity as for his single eye [*], he moreover had in the face covered with hair, except the chin (beneficial action of Gilette Bleue [**] undoubtedly). It is a shame that this Martian considered convenient to disappear, himself and his saucer, at the moment when the boss came running, alerted by the shouting of his workman... Pierre Lucas, the bakery workman of Loctudy, won the honor of the Press from his adventure - or his mishap. Here, he is seen on the spot of the appearance, between his owners. Photo Studio Kérisit - Quimper
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[*] The Cyclop.
[**] Very popular brand of shaving blades.
[Ref. 1389:] "SAMEDI-SOIR" NEWSPAPER:
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The big joke of the "Martians"[...] A Crow in the FlourLoctudy (Finistere), Tuesday October 6, 1954, 4 hours of the morning: PIERRE LUCAS, bakery workman, had almost finished his task. The paste is in the furnace and while waiting that it cooks, it is necessary to clean the kneader. Pierre takes a bucket and leaves in the bakery's courtyard to get water from the well. However, what's that, that master Pierre sees right in the middle of the courtyard? A machine of the shape of a saucer of 2 m. 50 to 3 meters in diameter, from where an "individual" measuring approximately 1 m. 20 suddenly gets out. This individual, without any fear, approaches Pierre, hand puts the hand on his shoulder and tells him: - Oombrrr... Grabotrri Trozi... Brroophphialoq... What do you think Pierre Lucas did? Did he start to yell? Does he flee at full speed? It's not that usual all the same, in Loctudy, to see a flying saucer and a Martian in the court of the bakery. But no! Pierre is a real tough guy. Quietly, he returns in the bakehouse with the "individual" on his steps. There, in the light, he sees the facial features of the visitor: an oval face, much covered of hairs, and eyes of the size of an eye of crow. Good golly! Sure that the boss would like to see that. - Boss! Boss! Come see this! But the Martian, if he does not speak French, undoubtedly understands it, because here he goes springing out of the bakehouse, crossing the courtyard, climbing in his saucer and whoopy! Gone... Pierre Lucas's boww will not see the being with the eyes like crow eggs. Too bad... Really too bad, because two pairs of eyes are better than one. |
[Ref. 813:] "RADAR" MAGAZINE:
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QUIMPER -. Yes, Sirs, yes, declares the workman baker Pierre Lucas, of Loctudy (Finistère) to the reporters of "Radar", it was high as this the character I saw the other night. I went out for a while to go to seek water at the fountain. Suddenly, I see a ball of fire which goes down from the sky. No noise at all. In a wink, it lands in the meadow on the other side of the road. I distinctly saw the three feet which retained it on the ground. A yellow light enlightened the higher part. And then it happens that this individual (our illustrator represents it opposite) gives me a tap on the shoulder. I saw it as I see you. It had a bearded face and only one eye, but perhaps he had a mask. On his head, a helmet which resembled that of the motorcyclists. Wires like those of the radio antennas came out of it. Frankly, I was afraid. I let my bucket ball. I returned. My boss came out. There was nothing any more... |
[Ref. 1259:] "TIME" MAGAZINE:
The article underneath has been published in the Time magazine, USA, for October 25, 1954.
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SCIENCEMartians over FranceOne morning last October, Jean Narcy, a road mender of Haute-Marne, France, was riding to work on his bicycle. In a wheat field he saw a little whiskered man just under 4 ft tall, who wore a fur coat, an orange corset and a plush cap. "Bonjour, [Hello]" said Mr. Narcy. The little man muttered something like "I'll be seeing you." Then he jumped into a small (10 ft. in diameter) flying saucer, took off with a buzzing sound and disappeared into the clouds. With Narcy's "Hairy Martian" as a starting point, the French press run wild, and a deluge of Martians have been raining down ever since. They have come in flying cigars, crowns, comets, winged mushrooms, even a flying chamber pot. Unlike Americans who have seen flying saucers, the French "sighters" paid little attention to the vehicles. They were interested in the people from space. The Martians were anything but standardized. One who stopped Mr. Roger Barrault near the town of Lavoux had brilliant eyes, an enormous moustache, wore rubbers and spoke Latin. Another asked Mr. Pierre Lucas, a Breton baker, for a light. He was bearded and had a single eye in the middle of the forehead. Mr. Lucas could not remember what language he spoke. Paralysing Pygmies. As the Martian invasion of France proceeded, the invaders became more bizarre. A troup of pygmies in plastic helmet gamboled down a railroad track near Quarouble and transfixed Mr. Dewilde with "a paralyzing beam of light." Some Martians were blue, others were yellow or pink. A traveling salesman of the Côte du Nord saw a wonderful sight: a deep rose flying cigar from which stepped a zebra-stripped Martian. As he alighted, he changed color, chameleon-like, from yellow to green. The Martians marched en masse into French affairs. Cartoonists welcomed them delightedly (see cuts). As they multiplied, they even gained respectability. Le Figaro reported: "Counsellor General of Alpes Maritimes greets flying saucers' first appearance on the Côte d'Azur." France Soir announced that "a daily flying-saucer service seems to have been established between Marais-Poitevin and La Rochelle." A man from space even made the social columns of Paris-France: "Mustached Martian spends weekend at Vienna." Angry deputies asked questions in Parliament. Air Force Authorities (even as in the US) were badgered for explanations. Before the many-colored Martians rained down on France, fames Swiss Psychiatrist C. G. Jung was asked what he thought about the saucer epidemic. "Something is being seen," said Jung. "What is seen may be, in the case of a single observer, a subjective vision (hallucination). In the case of many observers, it may be a collective vision. such a psychic phenomenon... could be a spontaneous reaction of the subconscious to the present conscious situation; the fear of an apparently insoluble political situation in the world... At such times eyes turn heavenwards ... and miraculous forebodings of a threatening or consoling nature appear from on high." No More Dreams. Dr. Jung blames the U.S. air Force for mishandling the saucer epidemic and for permitting irresponsible journalists to pump it for bits of sensational-sounding information. He does not believe that the saucers are space ships. Those that are not hallucinations, he thinks, are probably misinterpretations of physical objects or effects. But he was willing to speculate about the effect on the human race of an invasion by beings from another world. "Should the origin of the phenomenon turn out to be an extraterrestrial one," said Dr. Jung, "it would prove an intelligent interplanetary link. The impact of such a fact on humanity is unforeseable. But, without doubt, we would be placed in the very questionable position of today's primitive societies that clash with the superior culture of the white race. All initiative would be wrested from us. As an old witch doctor once said to me, with tears in his eyes: We would 'have no more dreams.' Our sciences and technology would go to the junk pile. What such a catastrophe would mean morally we can gauge by the pitiful decline of the primitive cultures that takes place before our eyes. The capacity to manufacture (interplanetary space ships) points to a technology towering sky sky high over ours." "Just as the Pax Britannica made an end to the tribal warfare in Africa, so our world could roll up its Iron Curtain and use it for scrap ... This might not be so bad. But we would have been 'discovered' and colonized." |
[Ref. 1652:] "LE QUOTIDIEN DE LA HAUTE-LOIRE" NEWSPAPER:
THE "MARTIAN" OF THE BAKER'S BOY WAS A CIRCUS GOAT!The mystery of the hairy Martian of Loctudy (Finistère) is finally over. And the workman baker who, in middle of the night was followed from the bakery's courtyard to the bakehouse by a being with a face covered of hair and enormous eyes, recovered from his emotions, as well besides as inhabitants of the commune. The Martian was only a savant goat belonging to a circus of passage and which had ventured in the court of the baker. |
[Ref. 415:] MICHEL CARROUGES:
Michel Carrouges indicates that in October 1954 in Loctudy, Finistère, one of the 5 cases he knows of "hairy martian" of the 1954 french flap occurred.
In the event, he indicates, the testimony of Mr. Lucas was highly attacked for the reason that there is said to have been "a confusion with a erudite goat escaped from a circus, according to a newspaper of Brest of October 24 (?)"
Carrouges says that the height indicated by Mr. Lucas for the being was 1 m 20, and that Mr. Lucas did not see only the pilot from close distance but also the saucer, in the yard of the bakery where he worked, which makes it the only case among the five bearded Martians from the 1954 french flap in which a saucer is also reported by the witness.
According to a news release by Agence France Presse (AFP) for October 6, 1954, Mr. Lucas had described the eyes of the being to be as large as "a corbel egg."
[Ref. 19:] JACQUES VALLEE:
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196 Oct. 05, 1954, 04:00 Loctudy (France). A baker, P. Lucas, was draining water from a well when he noticed an object some distance away. It was circular, about 3 m diameter. From it emerged a dwarf with an oval face covered with hair and eyes "as large as raven eggs" who touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him in an unknown language. The dwarf went away, and the object took off. (Franc Tireur, La Croix, France-Soir, Le Figaro, 7 oct. 1954) |
[Ref. 152:] JACQUES VALLEE:
The author indicates that on October 5, 1954, in Loctudy in Finistère, a baker was getting water from his well in the middle of the night when he noticed, at some distance from there, an object of approximately 3 meters in diameter, of which emerged a dwarf which had an oval face covered with hairs and eyes which were "as large as corbels' eggs". The unknown individual touched the witness on the shoulder and spoke to him in a language which he did not understand. When the young man called his boos, the dwarf went back into his apparatus and it moved away.
[Ref. 312] GERARD BARTHEL AND JACQUES BRUCKER:
The two authors indicate that completely by chance, a travel led them the bigoudin country and that a fast glance at their file let them find a "Brittany Martian... and covered of hairs" in Loctudy, which is a classic case that all sources report about.
They give its summary from Jimmy Guieu's book "Black out sur les soucoupes volantes":
"On October 5, around 4 hours of the morning, Mr. Pierre Lucas, bakery worker in Loctudy (the Finistère), who was busy drawing water in the bakery's courtyard, suddenly saw, at a few meters of him, a circular machine of 2,50 m to 3 meters in diameter posed on the ground. Flabbergasted, he saw a "being" of approximately 1,20 m height come out and approach and touche him on the shoulder while utteringincomprehensible words."
"The bakery worker manages to keep his cold blood and returned in the bakehouse where "the unknown" followed him. In the light, Mr. Lucas could figure out the strange visitor. He had an oval face, covered of dark hair and, a detail which struck the witness, enormous eyes, "of the size of a corbel's egg." The young man called up his owner, but at once, the dwarf "Uranian" beat a retreat and reinstated his spacecraft which took off without delay. When Mr. Lucas' owner, attracted by his calls, arrived, the machine had fled."
The authors indicate that they easily found this bakery worker in the small village, the first indication which they could obtain being "Oh yeah, what he saw is not serious, you'd rather check in the red wine and the whisky...!"
They thus went in a bar in Quimper, where they say to have found their man, to have had a very difficult dialogue with him as he was obviously used to the place, he strongly showed his age, his state "certainly not due to an occupational disease."
It did not want anything to say of his sighting and claimed to be unaware of the story. The next day in the morning, they found him at the same place, discussed, explained their "work, the studies which we undertake", and the witness "admits that his sighting is nothing to be taken seriously: "I was young... It was not serious, one showed me what was not there."
The authors ask whether it wa a prank, he answers: "Yes, a story, it wasn't serious."
They conclude from it that the "hairy insects" Martians of 1954 are due to the effects of alcohol, or jokes of bar countera.
[Ref. 178:] MICHEL FIGUET:
In his listing of close encounters in france, FRANCAT, Michel Figuet noted en 1982:
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10/05/1954 Loctudy Joke by M. Lucas, considered to be a known alcoholic |
(*) Barthel and Brucker, see above.
[Ref. 543:] JEAN-FRANCOIS BOEDEC:
The ufologist of Brittany reports in his book that Pierre Lucas, workman baker, was budy getting water in the yard of the bakery when he suddenly noticed a flying saucer a few meters away from him, of 3 meters in diameter and landed on the ground. Flabbergasted, he witnessed a being coming out of it, of 1 meter 20 height which approached him and touched his shoulder while uttering incomprehensible words. Mr. Lucas kept his cold blood and moved towards the bakehouse, followed by the unknown being. With the light, the witness could distinguish the strange visitor's feature: he had an oval face, covered with dark hairs, and, striking detail, enormous eyes. The young man called his boos for urgent assistance, but "the creature reinstated its machine which took off at once, letting believe that it was not only more advanced than us in the field of the technique, but also on that of prudence."
The author indicates that it was on Sunday October 8, 1954 in a restaurant of Loctudy at a table of merry sailors-fishermen, that one of the merry chaps of the restaurant claimed that Pierre Lucas had seen a goat escaped from an unspecified circus. The story of the goat then circulated from newspaper to newspaper and was told on the radio. It was told that Brittany cruelly lacked flying saucers and that the case of Loctudy with its cosmonaut filled the gap.
[Ref. 1406:] FRANCIS GATTI:
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WITNESS N°36 October 5, 1954 at 4 hours of the morning. Loctudy (Finistere) the baker P. Lucas notices close to his well a round object three meters in diameter approximately from which emerged a dwarf with an oval face, covered of hairs, with eyes as large as a corbel's egg. The dwarf touched his shoulder and spoke in an unknown language. Article published in four French newspapers 7/10/54 (La Croix, Le Figaro, France Soir and Le Franc-Tireur). |
[Ref. 331:] RR0 WEBSITE:
The Loctudy Encounter (1954)Tuesday October 5, 1954 at 4:30, in Loctudy (Finistere), Pierre Lucas, working baker, sees a "Martian", of which he sees only one eye, with the face covered of hairs, except the chin. At the time when the owner came running, alerted by the shouting of his workman, the being to disappear with his saucer. Lucas wins from his adventure - his mishap - the headlines in the Press. It was high as that the guy that I saw the other night. I went outside for a moment to go get water at the fountain. Suddenly, I see a ball of fire which coms down from the sky. No noise at all. In the wink of an eye, it lands in a meadow on the other side of the road. I distinctly saw the 3 feet which retained it on the ground. A yellow light lighted the higher part. And here is goes that an individual taps on my shoulder. I saw it as I see you. It had a bearded face and only one eye, but perhaps it had a mask. On its head, a helmet which resembled that of the motorcyclists. sorts of wire like those of the antennas of TSF came out of it. Frankly, I was afraid. I dropped my bucket. I returned inside. My boss came out. There was nothing any more. It was a round object of approximately 3 m in diameter from where a dwarf with an oval face, covered of hairs emerged, with eyes as large as eggs of a corbel, which tapped his shoulder and addressed to him of an unknown language. The dwarf goes away and the object flies away [Fran Tireur, La Croix, France-Soir, Le Figaro, October 7]. Figuet will regard the case as a joke by a notorious alcoholic [Barthel & Brucker. p. 73]. |
[Ref. 134:] ALBERT ROSALES, HUMCAT:
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125. Location. Loctudy France Date: October 5 1954 Time: 0400A Baker's assistant Pierre Lucas was drawing water from a well when he saw a ball of fire descend, resting on 3 feet, across the road. There emerged a 4-foot tall being with a hairy face and eyes the size of crow’s eggs, wearing a helmet from which antenna like wires protruded. This being tapped Lucas on the shoulder and uttered incomprehensible words. Lucas ran for his boss, but when the baker came out there was nothing. Humcat 1954-75 Source: Jacques Vallee Type: B |
[Ref. 1358:] JEAN-PAUL RONECKER:
The author indicates that in Loctudy in Finistère in France, in the night of October 5, 1954, P. Lucas, a baker of this village, drew water from the well when he noticed an object of approximately three meters in diameter posed at some distance. A small being came out of the machine, it had an oval head covered with hairs and eyes that were "as large as a corbel's eggs." This being touched the shoulder of the witness and spoke to him in an incomprehensible language. When this young man called his boss, the being moved away and returned in its apparatus which took off to disappear in the night.
Not looked for yet.
The newspaper France-Soir of October 24,and other newspapers later, had an article in which it is claimed without further information that the witness had mistaken the flying saucer and its hairy occupant, which was really a goat which escaped from a circus.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Loctudy, Finistère, P. Lucas, object, circular, occupant, dwarf, hair, large eyes, contact, talk, communication, landing, well, water, face, ridicule, ridiculisation, alcohol, alcoholic
[-] indicates sources that I have not yet checked in person.
