The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this site is here.
Reference number for this case: 18-oct-54-StCirgues. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
[Ref. 205:] AIME MICHEL:
The French ufologist indicates in his book that according to the newspapers of October 20, and the details which he received later on, on October 18, 1954, in the end of the afternoon, in Saint-Cirgues in Haute-Loire, the peasants had observed a flying object at high altitude in the sky, composed of two luminous balls connected by an also luminous "stem," which had remained in the sky during a quarter of an hour during which the center of the stem seemed to remain in fixed position whereas the two balls and the stem oscillated as the plates of a balance.
After a quarter of an hour of this sort of maneuver, the entire object flew away fast and disappeared at the horizon.
While the peasants on the main location of observation had said that the object reminded of a balance, the object was seen by another group of peasants in the same area who evoked heavyweights. Michel indicates that the newspapers of the following day made fun of the case with headlines such as "New Look for the saucers: heavyweights take the air" or "balances fly away." He also said that the case was reported in the newspapers of October 20.
[Ref. 1133:] CORAL AND JIM LORENZEN:
The authors indicate that on October 18, 1954, farmers in the vicinity of St. Cirgues in the Haute-Loire, France, saw two luminous balls connected by a luminous rod. The middle of the "rod" seemed to be fixed, whereas the "balls" swayed like the pans on a balance, and the whole resembled a set of flying scales. After an estimated 15 minutes, the whole shot off at high speed and disappeared over the horizon.
Other farmers in the same region who observed the phenomenon described the object as a "dumbbell." The incident was widely mentioned in the newspapers, and Aimé Michel mentioned it to Commandant Morin, the manager of the Ouest-France new paper. Morin remembered the incident, but said he thought it occurred in the Vendee, and thus, Aimé Michel searched through the newspapers in vendee and found that another very similar case had indeed occurred in the very south of Vendee or more exactly the Charente-Maritime on the same date.
[Ref. 187:] CHARLES GARREAU, HISTORIA:
Charles Garreau recalls that the "balance" observed by Mr. and Mrs. Labussière had been seen a few hours earlier this same day, at Saint-Cirgues, in Haute-Loire. Farmers had noticed, at high altitude, the presence of a "luminous balance in all points identical." At the end of a quarter of hour, the " balance " had moved away at very high speed towards the west.
[Ref. 312] GERARD BARTHEL ET JACQUES BRUCKER:
The two authors briefly write that in Saint-Cirgue-en-Montagne on October 15, 1954, what was observed was a weather balloon.
Not looked for yet.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Saint-Cirgues, Haute-Loire, balance, balls, rod, luminous, multiple, still, hovering, duration, fast, high, mountain, peasants
[-] indicates sources which I have not yet checked.
