USAF Historical ASI(ASHAF-A) Archives Maxwell AFB AI , a 36112 stacks of nawspaper clippings, which he had purchased a t his own expense, and his maps, and I, at least, am con- vinced that the repo~ts are real; that ls, that the reports d o exist a s such in various French newspapers on those dates. I firmly believe that hoax and a deliberate attempt to concoct a cock and bull story must be ruled out. It would save us much bother and wot~if we could take this way out, namely to say that Michel manufactured the reports out of thin air and wrote the book just to make money. From the returns he has had, I might say in passing that his labors must have been done at coolie wages. In any event I reel reasonably certain tha t some stimulus ex~sted 1c France--whether political, scientific, extra- terrestrial, meteorological, or psychological--that in the apace of two months generated several hundreds of reports, reports which show a definite thread of pattern. So, with this preamble, let us travel to France, in the late summer, 1954. The cu r tain apparently went up on this fantastic show on August 23, at 1:00 a .m., 40 miles north- west of Paris. A businessman had just put his car away, and a s he came out of the gli\.rca.ge he was surprised to see a pale light illuminating the town which had been in com- plete darkness a l ittle while before. The night was com- pletely clear and the moon \'Taa a t l ast quarter, and hence was rising at about that time. Looking at the sky, he saw a huge, silent, motionless luminous mass, a pparently suspended above the north bank of the river some 300 yards away. It looked," he said, "like a gigantic cigar standing on end. I had been watching this amazing spectacle f or . a coupl e of' minutes when suddenly from the bottom or the cigar came an object like a horizontal disk, whioh dropped at first in free fall, then slowed, and suddenly swayed and dived horizon- tall y across the r iver toward me, becoming very luminous. For a very short time I could see the disk full-face; it was surrounde d by a halo of brilliant light." A few minutes after it had disappeared behind him, going southwest at prodigious speed, a similar object came from the oigar and went through the same maneuvers. A third object, and then a fourth--and finally a fifth detached itself from the ciga r which l'Tas still motionless. This last disk dropped lower than the earlier ones, t o the level of the new bridge, where it remained still for an instant, swaying slightly . At that time he c ould see very clearly its circular form and its red l uminosity--more intense a t the enter, fading out at the edges--and the glowing halo surrounding it. After a few seoond s pause, it wobbled like the firs t f our, and took off like a flash toward the north, where it was lost in the distance as it gained alti- tude. During this time the luminw ity of the cigar had faded, and the gigantic object, ~1hich may h.J.ve been 300 feet long, had sunk into darkness. The spectacle had lasted about 3/4 o f an hour. Unbeknown to him, this observer reportedly had witnesses. Two policemen making their rounds at 1:00 a.m. also observed the phenomenon, as had an army e n g ineer southvmst of the town o.f Vernon. The case waa briefly described in the Paris neHspc.por LmERATION. Nothing ore ~ttas done about it, except that Michel conducted his o~;n investigation. Spe~lking of policemen: if those same t.o policemen had reported that they had seen t\>~O thugs beat up o. victim and take to the \toods, their testimon.y might be sufficient to send someone to the ch1i~; but when something violently unusual comes up, like this or if they had soen the angel Gabriel riding ~long on u nine-legged octupus, no one would, of course, believe them. Oddly enough, policemen have figured in many a1ght1nga. I remember back 1n 1947, a policeman in Oregon who was feeding pigeonu in back of the stltion house, observed some flying disks. It t1as 1:00 p .m. on the Fourth of ,TUly, just t.Jo weeks after Kenneth Arnold had reported the f.lrst real newBpaper c'lse in the U. s., on June 24, 1947-thc class:tc case from whence sprang the name flying saucer. He reported having seen "saucer-like objects' flying over :r.tt. Rainier. To get back to France: How does one even beg i n to explain the first of tho remarkable series of French reports? ell, if this case stood alone it \Tould have little signi- ficance. Science cannot deal with an individual case. There must be repetition, and pattern. Three weeks later, September 14, there was a repetition - in broad daylight, a nd observed by hundreds of witnesses in a half dozen villages in the general area 250 miles s .w. of Paris. Only one neNspaper mentioned it, and only by chance did 'it ge t investigated. ~'f'i tneases \'fere mostly famers a nd u few priests and schoolteachers. One Hitneas reported: "It was about five in the a.rternoon. Emerging from the thick lc..~.yer of clouds that looked like a storm coming up , we saw a sort or luminous blue violet mist, of a regular sha pe something like a cigar or a carrot. Actually t he object cnme out of the 1uyer of clouds in an almost horizontal position, slightly tilted to~ard the ground and pointing rorward, l~e a submerging submarine is luminous cloud appeared rigid. \Vhenever it r.:1oved, its movements had no connection with the movement or the clouds, and it moved all of a piece, a s if it were actually some gigantic machir~ surrounded by mists. It came down rather f ast from the ~eiling or clouds to an altitude \rlhich we thought was perhaps a half a mile above us. Then it stopped, and the point rose quickly until the object was in a vertical position, \ihere it became motionless. 11Dur1ng this time the dark clouds went on scudding across the sky, dimly lighted from underneath by t he violet luminosity of the object. It was an extraordinary sight, and we watched it intently. All over the c ountry- side other f'armers had also dropped their tools a nd were staring up at the sky like us. "All at onoe white smoke exactly like a vapor trail came from the lower end of the cloud. At first it pointed to the ground but finally rose up t o describe around the vertica l object an asce nding spiral. \/hile the rear of the trail was dissolving i n the air and being carried off by the wi nd , the source of the trail went up to the very top of the vertical object and then started to come do\lm again, turning in the other direction . Only then, after the s moke trail had vanished entirely, could "e see the object that was sowing it- a littl e metallic disk, reflecting in its rapid movements flashes of light from the huge vertical object. The lit tle dis k then stopped turning around the luminous cloud and went down t oward the ground again, this time moving l.'.'v':l.y. For quite n few mi nut e s we c ould see it flying low over the valley, darting here and there at great speed, sometimes speeding up, then stopping for a few seconds, then going on again, flying in every direction between the villages that were f our miles apart. Finally, when i t was almost a mile from the vertical object it made a f inal dash toward it at headlong speed and disappeared like a shooting star into the lower part where it had first come out. Perhaps a minute later the carrot leaned ove r a s it began to move, accelerated and disappeared into the clouds in the distance. The whole thing lasted about a half an hour." It would take us too long to quote from the other wit- nesses--about a hundred in all--but their stories were about this point are you probably saying to yourselves, "Is this a serious scientist i n front of us telling us a tall tale Just t o be entertaining? Could it be that he possible believes this stuff?" Well, certainly, if it ie a tall tale, it is not consciously tuld as such. It is told, remember, as far as we are concerned, as a report. we are all somewhat in the fix, perhaps, of members of an aboriginal tribe attempting to evaluate the report or a fellow member who had, in some unaccountable way, an encounter with a helicopter, a device totally unknown to his fellow tribesmen. A t all tale, or did he really see something? OUr only basis of judgment would be his past record of credibility, or the recorde of all those who reported having seen the helicopter. There would certainly be no scientific way of Judging their story. The easy way out, or course, would be simply to regard it as just that--a story. I t would absolve his fellow tribesmen from the necessity of doing any serious thinking about it. In our own case, and 1n the cases shortly to be before us, we can vouch only for the fact that the reports do exist, and that whatever stimulus generated them, it generated them for a number of observers rather than a single individual. Let us go on with a few more French saucers and then sample a few from this country and elsewhere. Let me capsulate a few: ptember 7 at Amiens, 7:15 a.m.: " my eyes were caught by a s ort or mound, two hundred yards away in a field. It looked something like an unfinished haystack, with an upside down plate on top. "That's a queer color for a haystack," I said to Yves,"look at it." All or a sudden I noticed that the haystack was ving a little, with a slight S\'ling back and f orth, like an oscillation. We both rushed toward the mysterious object. When we got close the object took orr on a slant, traveled diagonally upward for about fifty feet, and then began to go straight up. lie watched it for three minutes. 'lbe object was about 30 feet in diameter. " September 18: " an object arrived at high speed over the horizon, stood still several minutes over the town, and then disappeared into the zenith." September 19: "A circular object appeared suddenly in the north. It was flat gray and appeared to be metallic; it slowed, stopped, and remained motionless f or about 30 seconds, during which time it swayed back and f orth slightly. After a half minute it went off again in a northwest direction." Same day, n ight: "A bright light crossed the sky, slowed down and landed. I t seemed to be the size of a small bus. After stay ing on the ground f or about 40 seconds, the light became reddish and r ose vertically, and like a red ball, \'rent rr toward the s outheast. " September 22: Under the clouds a huge, luminous ball hu ng motionless. Reddish and surrounded by a sort of moving smoke, als o luminous . watched f or half an hour. Then suddenly from the l ower par t or the ball there emerged another, much smaller l uminous ball; after a few seconds of free fall it slowed, turned obliquely and disappeared at high speed. A moment later dropped and went off--and then a third, and a four t h . Just then an airplane appeared in another pa r t of he sky; it seemed on a collision course with the ball. The ball abruptly changed position and rose into the clouds and disappeared. The show was over. Septembe~ 26: The little dog began to bark and h owl serabl y . She saw it standing 1n front of something that l ooke d like a scarecrow. But g oing closer she saw that the scarecrow was some sort of a small d iving suit, made of translucent plasti c material. Behind t he blurred transparency of the helmet, two large eyes were staring out at her; the suit began moving toward her tT1th a kind of quick, \'/addling She u t t ered a cry of terror and took to tho fields. Looking back she saw a big metallic object, circular and rather flat, rise up behind nearby trees. move orr nearly level \olith the ttheat field~ and then took orr tO\:ard the northeast '<tith considerable speed, gaining altitude as it Neighbors gathered quickly and at the spot where the aircraft had risen, they found a circle, ten or so feet in diameter where the shrubs had been crushed. Trees at the edge or this imprint had some brunches broken and the bark rubbed orr, and the wheat in the direction of take-orr wan flattened out in radiating lines. In this last cited report, the original witness was round in a state or nervous collapse. She ~1aa put to bed 1<1here she remained for tllro days \tith a high fever Likewise: September 28: A trump locomotive was running on a railtiay line from Nantes to Vannes . In the marsh close to the tracks a ci "':"oulal', flat machine uas in rapid flight just above the ground. Luminous, dark red, tinged with violet. I t soon reached the locomotive, flying only a feu yards above it, and then followed 1t. Then it accelerdted and disappeared tottard the \'ICSt at a terr11'1c speed. For a few seconds the clou ds c ontinued to be illuminated by a violet light. The :fireman, beuildered, \'las trembling so much th.J.t his place had to be taken until they reached the station. He had to be helped to his bed and for several days he suffered from nervous shock. climax or the French wave came on September 30 and October 1, 195L~, a uave \'lhich 111as over by October 18. But on those t~1o days, hundreds of reports flooded in. But there \'las no mechanism \"lha.tever to handle them. No scientist would touch this tricky subject, and their official Air Force team began sorting reports by tossing out the '' obvioos ly incredible reports." They latched onto those cases in which they could f"oresee a natural explanation, a most human and understandable reaction. This French \'Jave of stories is reminiscent of another wave of strange stories that flooded France a century and a half ago--stories of stones that fell from heaven. Persis- tent stories came in, in waves, from time to time, of stones that fell from the sky. Nmr, hot credulous can one get- stones fulling from the sky, indeed! But in due course the French Acudomy or Sciences appointed a committee to study the subject, and ufter a full examination of the stories, reported back to the Academy that there was nothing to it--the stones in question had not f allen from the sky but had been hit by lightning! This despite their much great e r density and obvious difference from surrounding atones. vihen a group of people don't want to admit something, there's nothing quite as hard headed as a scientific committee, on ,.1hich each man haa his scientific reputation to protect and going out on a 11mb is certainly not the way to do it. The great irony of it--and I choooe the word irony with care-came just a rew years later \then the little to'.m of L' Aiglc France was literally peppered with iron meteorites . (A written version or t he talk p aente to the Hyperveloc1ty Impaot Conference Eglin Ai r Force Base, Ap ril 27, 1960 ) I f i nd it intriguing t hat at such gathe ring aa t his I, an astronotner , shoul listinguishe you, not on t he subject or satel l i t e tracking-- my work for t he past ~our years nor on stella r spectro- scopy, stellar evolution, nor on the expanding universe- all t opics t o which I could do s ome manner or jus tice- but on unidentified Flying Objects. Not that I am not qualified t o spea k on t his topic. Perhaps~ i f I may be permitted to s a y so wit h out incurring t h e c ha r e of immodeet y , I am u n i quely qualified 1n all e xcept one way t o speak to you and t ha t exception is s~mply that have never seen a UFO. But I have had a s much experience, I daresay, aa perhaps almost anyone with UFO' S on t heir own plane of existence. And on that plane they are a s real as rain. That plane 1s that of reports f or a s f a r as any ot us here are concerned unless some or you in th e audience have ha d per s onal exper ience --they exist f or you and me simp l y as reports. This time the French scientist Blot alone undertook the investigation~ and in the face or incontrovertible evidence he and his colleagues finally were convinced. Since the year 1803 a meteor! te oan land in France \'11th the full per- mission of the French Academy of Sciences. Lest you think that all the cases I have are French, I will pass on to othera, after just one more which bears some resemblance to a case tlh1ch was reported from Louisiana, which, of course, was originally French territory. It is October l~ and we are at Poncey. "It has about 8: 00 p .m. , " l>1rs k'ourneret said~ ''and 1 t had already been dark for some time. About 20 yards from the house, in the meadow~ a luminous body was balancing itself lightly 1n the a1r, to the right of the plum tree, as 1f preparing to land. As \'le 11 as I \1as able to judge, the object \'laS about three yards in diameter and seemed elongated, horizontal, and orange colored. I was beside myself with fright and seized the boy, running \Tith him to r-tne Boullier' s house where we closed tho door tight." The neighbors armed themselves, the report continues, and went out to investigate. Nothing t:a.s there, but they said they found un urea over a yard and a half long, 27-inches wide at one end, 20 at the other, where the ground appeared to have been sucked up. On the fresh soil or this hole they said white tTorms \'lriggled, and the earth that had been torn out \'las ecattered 11 round the hole 1n clods ten or t w lve inch s across over radiu3 or about four yar d On the inner edge or the hole similar cloda hung d o m ; thee r t h had bee n pulled out i n such a way tha t about half way do~m the hole was wider than a t ground level. '!bey repor ted furt he r that the little roots and rootlets in this rertlle s o i l were intact e verywhere on the inner sur race of tho hole and t ha t not one had been cu t , as would h ve been the case if the exo vation ha d been made in the nonnal my. At the center of the hole, they s a id, 1 y a plant with long root, still. atta che d by the end or the root to the soil ut the bottom or the hole, wit h all its r ootlet s exposed to the a ir, completely undamage d . In shor t , i f we are to a c cept this repor t made i n concert by small crowd and 1nveat!gatel by Miche l , it l ooked jus t a if the mass or earth spreud over the surr ounding grass had been s ucked out by a gigant i c vacuum The repor t st ted further that ~h1le the village~s at111 cr owde d around the e dge of the h ole, a lad arrived on his bicycle, not knowing anything of ~hat had been going on. " \ill t fright I just had,'' he said, I saw some kind of a luminous object tha t tas going tow rd the southeast and cli mbing. I t was like a n airplane without any wings, n othing but the fuselage. d the r aster i t went , the greener it 1 s . " Same day, night: "A bright light crossed the sky, slowed do~m and landed. It seemed to be the size of a small bus. Afte r staying on the ground f or about 40 seconds, the light became reddish and rose vertically, and like a red ball, \'Tent off toward the s outheast." ptember 22: Under the clouds a huge, luminous ball hung motionless. Reddish and surrounded by a sort of moving sm~ke, also luminous. Watched f or half an hour. Then suddenly from the l ower part of the ball there emerged another, muoh smaller luminous ball; after a few seconds of free fall it slowed, turned obliquely and disappeared at high speed. A moment later dropped and went off--and then a third, and a fourth . JUst then an airplane appeared in another part or the sky; it seemed on a collision c ourse