This page in English
The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this site is here.
Reference number for this case: 7-Jan-54-Orchies. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.
[Ref. re1:] REUTER PRESS RELEASE:
|
|
DIEPPE, FRANCE, Jan, 7, 1954 (Reuters) -- A powerful explosion rocked this port early today, shattering windows, blasting open doors and waking most of the inhabitants. The explosion was preceded by a blinding flash in the sky. Some people said the explosion came four minutes after the flash. Some said eight minutes. They also differed on the direction. It was seen 50 miles away. A railwayman at Orchies, near the belgian border, said he saw a fiery disc in the sky at great speed about the time of the Dieppe explosion. |
[Ref. jg1:] JIMMY GUIEU:
Science Fiction writer and ufologist Jimmy Guieu reports that on January 7, 1954, at 04:30 a.m., a discoïdal craft seemed to explode after having followed a nonrectilinear trajectory, seen by several inhabitants of Dieppe, Orchies and Arras, with a three minutes variation between these cities which - according to him - excludes a meteor.
The author says that windows panes exploded, doors and of the windows were brutally slammed, walls vibrated as with a sonic boom from a supersonic plane. He says that the "ball of fire" had stopped and set out again at one time, and thus no astronomer in the world will be able to baptize it a "meteorite".
[Ref. am1:] AIME MICHEL:
Aimé Michel indicates that on January 7, 1954, to 04:27 a.m., a railroad worker who took his service in Orchies, within 40 kilometers north-east of Arras in straight line, saw, disappearing towards the south-west, a luminous disc moving horizontally at an extraordinary speed, trailing in its trajectory an intense orange light.
A few seconds later, all the department of Seine-Inférieur, from Fécamp in the west up to Dieppe in the north, from Mailleraye in the south to Gournay in the East, was illuminated by a general flashover of the sky. During one half-minute, the light was so intense that the railwamen of Serqueux could read the serial numbers of the coaches.
A few minutes later, Dieppe was shaken by a gigantic explosion which broke many windows and woke up from their sleep three quarters of the city.
Aimé Michel notes that after the observations of that day, in the evening, a spokesman of the Institute of astrophysics of Paris stated:
"It is very likely that the phenomenon observed this morning in the area of Dieppe was nothing else than a fireball."
[Ref. lc1:] LUC CHASTAN:
Luc Chastan indicates that in North in Orchies on January 7, 1954, at 04:30 hours "a railwayman observed a luminous object crossing the sky at high speed."
The source is said to be my website, "Les OVNI vus de près par Gross Patrick ** http://ufologie.net".
[Ref. ud1:] "UFODNA" WEBSITE:
The website indicates that on 7 January 1954 at 04:27 in "Orchies Gare, France", "An unidentified object was sighted, but with appearance and behavior that most likely would have a conventional explanation. One object, the size of the moon, was observed by one witness for a few seconds."
The sources are indicated as "Michel, Aime, The Truth About Flying Saucers, Pyramid T1647, New York, 1967" and "Vallee, Jacques, Computerized Catalog (N = 3073)."
Not looked for yet. Probably meteor.
(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)
Orchies, Nord, railwayman, disc, fiery, luminous
[---] indicates sources which I have not yet checked.
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | December 4, 2005 | First published. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | December 17, 2009 | Conversion from HTML to XHTML Strict. First formal version. Additions [jg1], [lc1], [ud1]. |
