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The 1954 French flap:

The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this site is here.

OCTOBER 24, 1954, BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, PAS-DE-CALAIS:

Reference number for this case: 24-Oct-54-Boulogne-sur-Mer. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. jb1:] JEAN-MARIE BIGORNE:

On October 24, 1954, at about 5 P.M., Emile Turpin, aged 34, inspector with the SNCF, France's national railway service, had gone to the location of La Pointe aux Oies, by the sea, within 7 kilometers of Boulogne-sur-Mer, close to Ambleteuse, to photograph a tomb dating from the Neolithic era.

He had prepared his camera to photograph the tomb when he saw a machine in the shape of disc in the sky. He thus was ready to shoot pictures of it, although the camera was set to take pictures of the tomb a few meters off. He reported:

"It is when taking a photograph of this tomb that I saw the machine. Without modifying settings, which were to be on 5 or 7 meters, I took a photograph, I rearmed and I took a second photograph. For the third one, I wanted to change my settings, but I was unable to find the object."

"The machine had the shape of a disc, with a bulge on the central part. It was of bright metal color, which one may describe as close to a reflection on bronzes."

"It passed in front of me on a quite closed parabola. One may have approximately locate it at an angular height of 50 degrees. It came from my left, going down under an angle of 30 degrees, then carried out what one could call an inversion and went up under an angle close to the vertical while moving away from me."

"It did not have an intrinsec movement on its trajectory. Its apparent diameter was that of the Moon. I did not perceive any noise, although the sea could have prevented it. As for speed, it was close to the speed of a jet airplane."

The duration of the passing of the object was very short. If Mr. Turpin had delayed the use of his camera of of three or four seconds, it would have been too late.

The gendarmes carried out an investogation at the time of the observation. The gendarmerie sought any flight plan of planes, balloons, in France, in England and Belgium, and sought the existence of what they thought may have been some new English or French prototype. Nothing was found and the case remained "without explanation."

The camera was a standard Foca 24*36 with 5.6 or 6.3 aperture and 1/100th of a second exposure. The camera had an Oplarf objective, 3.5 of 35 mm and the film was Tri-X.

It was established by timing the duration of rearmament of the camera that between two to three seconds had run out between the first and the second photography.

THE PICTURES:

The first picture.

The second picture.

[Ref. cp1:] 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. jp1:] JEAN-PHILIPPE DAIN:

[Ref. jd1:] JEAN-PIERRE D'HONDT:

Cet ufologue indique que le 24 octobre 1954, aux environs de Boulogne sur Mer, dans le Pas-de-Calais a eu lieu le cas suivant:

[Ref. bo1:] VICENTE-JUAN BALLESTER-OLMOS, "FOTOCAT 1954":

[Ref. lc1:] LUC CHASTAN:

Luc Chastan indicates in his database that in the Pas-de-Calais in Wimereux on October 2, 1954 at 16:00 hours, "a pilot witness observed by beautiful weather a white ovoid object which moved in straight line. A photograph was taken by the witness, it was attached to the gendarmerie report."

La source est indiquée comme "Les Universons par Poher Claude ** http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/universons/"

[Ref. lc2:] LUC CHASTAN:

Luc Chastan indicates that in the Pas-de-Calais with Ambleteuse on October 24, 1954 at 17:00 hours, "the witness had gone to the location called La Pointe de l'Oie, at the edge of sea, to photograph a tomb dating from the Neolithic era. He prepared to photograph it when he saw a craft in the shape of disc in the sky. He thus had his apparatus very ready to photograph, although set to photograph the tomb at a few meters. He says: "It is by taking a photograph of this tomb that I saw the machine. Without modifying the settings, which were to be on 5 or 7 m, I took a photograph, I rearmed and I took a second photograph. For the third, I wanted to change my settings, but I was unable to find the object. The machine had the shape of a disc, with a bulge on the central part. It was of clear metal color, you would say it was similar to a bronze reflections. It passed in front of me following a quite closed parabola. One could approximately locate it at an angular height of 50 degrees. It came from my left, going down at an angle of 30 degrees, then carried out what one could call an inversion and went up under an angle close to the vertical while moving away from me. It did move otherwise on its trajectory. Its apparent diameter was that of the Moon. I did not perceive any noise, although the sea could obstruct it. As for speed, it was in the order of that of a jet fighter." The duration of the passage of the object was very short. If the witness had delayed of three or four seconds to use his camera, it would have been too late. The gendarmes carried out an investigation at the time of the observation. The gendarmerie sought any flight plan of planes, balloons, France in England to Belgium, and sought the existence of what they thought could be some new English or French prototype. Nothing was found and the affair remained "without explanation." The camera was a standard Foca 24*36 with 5.6 or 6.3 aperture at 1/100th of second. The apparatus had a Oplarf lens. 3.5 of 35 mm and the film was Tri-X. It was established by timing the delay of rearmament of the camera that from two to three seconds had run out between the first and the second photographic shot."

The source is indicated as being my website at http://ufologie.net.

[Ref. ud1:] "UFODNA" WEBSITE:

The website indicates that on 1 October 1954 at 19:00 in Ambleteuse, France, an "object was observed and photographed. One object, about 10 feet across, was observed by one witness."

The sources are indicated as Vallee, Jacques, Computerized Catalog (N = 3073); Vallee, Jacques, Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma, Henry Regnery, Chicago, 1966.

[Ref. ud2:] "UFODNA" WEBSITE:

The website indicates that on 2 October 1954 at 16:00 in Wimereux, France, "an object was observed and photographed. One object was observed by one witness (Turpin)."

The sources are indicated as "Poher, Claude, Etudes Statistiques Portant sur 1000 Temoignag, Author, undated; Vallee, Jacques, Computerized Catalog (N = 3073)".

EDITED PICTURES:

Detail, no modifications, of the object on the first photograph.

Detail, no modification, of the object on the second photograph.

Object on the second photograph, blur filter to cancel the grain of the photograph, slight contrast and luminosity enhancement.

Object on the second photograph, I surimposed an interpretation drawing by ufologist François Lagarde with the object.

EXPLANATIONS:

Not looked for yet.

KEYWORDS:

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

Boulognes-sur-Mer, Ambleteuse, La Pointe aux Oies, Pas-de-Calais, Emile Turpin, object, craft, disc, reflection, fast, saucer, gendarmes, Wimereux

REFERENCES:

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

• [jb1] Personal files, re-investigation of ufologist Jean-Marie Bigorne in 1973.
• [jb1] Article in the ufology magazine Lumières dans la Nuit (LDLN), France, N.129, pp 16-17, November 1973.
• [cp1] "Statistics from 735 UFO Observations", paper by Dr Claude Poher, GEPA, France.
• [---] Larry Robinson's database.
• [---] Book by Stevens and Roberts, 1986.
• [jp1] Listing UFOTO, by Jean-Philippe Dain, France, circa 2002, on the web, disappeared.
• [jd1] "Catalogue Région - Rapports d'Observations", catalogue by Jean-Pierre D'Hondt, Groupement Nordiste d'Etudes des Observations Visuelles Non Identifiées, circa 2004, at geru59.free.fr/documents/jp_dhont/catalog_vague1954.html
• [bo1] "The Year 1954 in Photos", paper by Vicente-Juan Ballester-Olmos, Anomalia foundation, www.anomalia.org, Spain, 2004.
• [lc1] Base OVNI France, website by Luc Chastan, France, circa 2005, at baseovnifrance.free.fr/detobs.php?numobs=748
• [lc2] Base OVNI France, website by Luc Chastan, France, circa 2005, at baseovnifrance.free.fr/detobs.php?numobs=1184
• [ud1] "1 Oct 1954 - Ambleteuse, France", web page by the website UFOdna, circa 2008, at www.ufodna.com/uf02/uf1/021524.htm
• [ud2] "2 Oct 1954 - Wimereux, France", web page by the website UFOdna, circa 2008, at www.ufodna.com/uf05/uf4/054303.htm

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This page was last updated on January 17, 2010