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The 1954 French flap:

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OCTOBER 31, 1954, COLMAR, HAUT-RHIN:

Reference number for this case: 31-Oct-54-Colmar. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. dn1:] "DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE" NEWSPAPER:

Paralyzing celestial balls?

A flying cigar
above Colmar

"I felt a light hit on the left shoulder and I could not move away from the place", a young girl of 12 years old explained to us.

The enigma surrounding the mysterious saucers and the cigars continuous. Last Sunday, at approximately 06:45 p.m., several people observed a cigar flying in the sky of Colmar. At that time, a group of five children of ages rangeing from 10 to 12 were on the place of the Koïfhus, beside the Schwendi monument.

All of a sudden, one of the children shouted and looked at in the direction of the east, above the houses of the street of the Tanners [rue des Tanneurs]. There, one could see an apparition about which much has been written already. A shining object, of elongated shape, yellow-red color at the front and white-yellow at the back, moved slowly and descended more and more towards the Koïfhus. The children, seized with panic, fled while shouting, except one, the little Christiane R..., aged 12 years, whose parents live the Main street [Grand-Rue]. As glued on the spot and hypnotized, she stared at the luminous disc which went down more and more.

A luminous disc

Suddenly the young girl felt a light schock in her left shoulder. At the same time, a luminous ball was visible close to the disc. The young girl could not move any more and it is only when the disc went up above the Decker house, that she had control of her members again.

Mrs. A. and Mrs. H., both resident of the place of the Koïfhus, having heard the cries of the children also saw the luminous disc, which moved at this time in the direction of the west. They dealt with little Christiane, who besides was not at all a nervous child and they took her along to her parents. Deeply impressed and trembling of all her body, she could not eat and it is only in the morning of the next day, when she was calmed a little, that she could tell to her father the event as it had happened the day before.

We had the opportunity to talk with the other children and their accounts agreed with that of little Christiane. We also spoke with Mrs. A. from the place of the Koïfhus.

Alerted by the shouting of the children, she saw, as well as Mrs. H. who was in her housing, the luminous disc of yellowish color and chaging to red afterwards, to rise above the Decker house and to move away in the direction of the west. According to her, the disc had rather the shape of a barrel and was moving without noise, while other witnesses are said to have heard a whistling sound, as the air escaping slowly from a tire.

[Ref. dn2:] "DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE" NEWSPAPER'S WEBSITE:

On the site newspaper's website, an article was headlined "Who remembers a cigar flying in the sky of Colmar?"

The article sicusses the case that occurred in the town center, it gives the circumstances and descriptions and calls for additional witnesses, the newspaper however having already found two of the five children who had been witnesses, Christiane Hofmuller - Christiane R. in the newspaper at the time - and her sister Danièle Binder.

Both agreed to tell their memories of the event, seeing themselves again on Koïfhus square with the group of the children of the district, at one hour when they should have been back home.

Christiane Hofmüller specifies that the object had appeared above the market hall, and had moved towards the children while engaging along the street of the Tanners - rue des Tanneurs - at the level of the rooftops. She was paralysed by fear, and is still unable to explain what had occurred.

She was thereafter nicknamed "the saucer" by the children of the district, but the mockery just like the flying saucers were forgotten with the passage of time, and she admits that the matter never worried her.

She spoke about it much later to her husband, but her children and grandchildren did not know anything about it until these last months. She did not think that it could matter to them.

Nowadays she finds that her, her sister, their comrades, had lived something extraordinary, without being able to define it, and she expresses the wish that one day her grand-daughters would know what had been seen.

[Ref. cv1:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

The magazine article by Christian Valentin offers the same information as the newspaper Dernière Nouvelles d'Alsace's website and those of the article of that time in the same newspaper, with in addition a current photograph of the witnesses on the square of Colmar where the observation took place, as well as the following elements:

The witnesses were five children from ten to twelve years old at the time of the facts, Sunday, October 31, 1954, among those Christiane Hofmuller and Danièle Binder (current names) who are still residents of Colmar. Christiane Hofmuller was twelve years old, her parents lived on Grand-Rue.

EXPLANATIONS:

Not looked for yet.

KEYWORDS:

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

Colmar, Haut-Rhin, children, multiple, place, city, Koifhus, Christiane Hofmuller, Daniele Binder, hit, fear, paralysis, cigar, swell, effect, yellow, red, white, slow, descent, disc, luminous, ascending

REFERENCES:

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

[dn1] Article in the regional newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France, November 3, 1954.
[cv1] "1954, l'année des OVNIS - Des observations par dizaines, des témoins par centaines", article by Christian Valentin in "Saisons d'Alsace", quarterly magazine, Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace publishers, Strasbourg, pp 90-91, summer 2004.
[dn22] Article on the website of the regional newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France, November 13, 2004.

Document history:

Version:	Created/Changed by:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	December 3, 2005	First published.
1.0	Patrick Gross	April 14, 2009	Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version.

This page was last updated on April 14, 2009