An orange orb in C�te-d'Or, France

On October 2 and 4, 1954, several people in the municipality of Poncey-sur-l'Ignon (21) witnessed phenomena that intrigued them. The official report covers two series of distinct events in the same area, treated here in chronological order. The first event took place on October 2, 1954, in Poncey-sur-l'Ignon. At 7:40 p.m., a farm woman (T6) who had just milked the cows first noticed in the sky "a luminous device" "relating to everything one sees in the press these days." The witness reports that she saw "something like a moonbeam" that "lit up the yard." She thinks it is the Moon but discovers that it has a bizarre shape. Fixing her attention, the witness then observes a vertical cylinder whose height she estimates at 1.5 m and diameter at 80 cm. It is luminous over its entire surface, orange in color with a green reflection around it, and moves upright at low altitude and rather close to the buildings. Convinced that it is not the Moon but an unknown "device," she alerts her husband, her son, and a neighbor (T7). These people have time to see the light coming from the North disappear toward the South. The neighbor (T7) describes a luminous ball like a soccer ball, more orange than an electric light bulb, moving silently. Confusion with the Moon, perhaps partially hidden by moving clouds, cannot be excluded despite the witness's denials. The Moon is indeed very low on the horizon (6°) to the Southwest (azimuth 220°). In her testimony, witness T6 does not specify exactly her location and direction of observation ("in the sky"); moreover, she does not indicate having seen both the Moon and the "device" at the same time. The witnesses describe a movement of moving away "at low speed" "toward the South," but the description of the disappearance is too imprecise. However, the phenomenon shows similarities with other accounts two days later in the same municipality (see below). This first case is classified C for lack of information. The second series of events took place on October 4, 1954, at Val d'Ignon at the place called "l'usine d'amiante" (the asbestos factory), 1 km south of the village of Poncey-sur-l'Ignon (21). This place consists of a group of buildings, part of which serves as housing for three families of workers. It is surrounded to the North, East, and West by meadows and to the South by a pond. Around 7:30 p.m., while closing the shutters of her bedroom, a young woman (T1) sees toward the North, above a plum tree located in the yard, a fairly strong light of yellowish color, mushroom-shaped, it seems, oval at the upper part and round at the lower part, presenting itself as a transparent globe lit from the inside. She estimates its height at about fifteen meters, its distance at 50 m, and compares its size to that of a stove. No particular noise is heard. She only looks at it for a few moments and cannot specify its state of motion. Panicking, she takes her child and seeks refuge at a neighbor's house (T2), who is alone with her daughter (T3). No other witness will observe this phenomenon. Around 8:30 p.m., the neighbor's son-in-law (T4) and son (T8) arrive and find the three women frightened. Together they go into the meadow adjacent to the yard, to the spot in the direction where T1 observed the phenomenon. They note the presence of an approximately rectangular area (1.50 x 0.50-0.70 m) dug into the ground (to a depth of 5 cm) with broken soil at both ends and clumps of earth and grass scattered around within a circle of about 4 m radius. The clumps, of unequal sizes (generally 30 x 20 cm except two of 60 cm), are turned over grass-side down. Two witnesses (T2 and T4) report the presence of numerous live white worms in the middle of the traces. Around 8:45 p.m., the neighbor's second son (18 years old) (T5), returning from work at the neighboring village 1.5 km away, briefly spots in the sky a "device" cigar-shaped without wings, entirely luminous, of "transparent" color with green and orange reflections, crossing the sky very quickly in a North-South direction. Frightened by this vision, he quickly returns to his parents' home. No other witness will observe this phenomenon. The police were notified on October 5 at 7:30 p.m. and observed the ground traces that same evening. They conducted the investigation and compiled the photographic file on October 6, 1954. They examined the possibility of a prank by the son-in-law and the neighbor's son (especially since, when returning on the evening of the 4th, they had intended to play a prank about a flying saucer!), but after checking their schedules, the police rejected this hypothesis. According to T4, who lives in the area, no livestock grazes in the meadow, and he saw no one lurking in that spot the day before. A quick examination of the facts suggests four hypotheses for this second observation: for the luminous phenomenon, the Moon or a vehicle headlight on the neighboring hill, and for the ground traces, rooting by wild boars searching for worms, or a hoax. The Moon is indeed fairly low on the horizon (elevation 16°). However, it is to the South (azimuth 197°). Yet the official report specifies that the observation was made toward the North. A precise reconstruction of the location based on photographs (see reconstruction map) confirms that this is not an error and that the window from which the witness made her brief observation indeed faces North. The Moon hypothesis falls. A vehicle headlight on road D26 or in the curve of D103 could have been visible from the witness's location toward the North (see IGN 1963 map, where one can see that the vegetation cover is sparse). But this hypothesis cannot be confirmed due to lack of knowledge of the exact observation location and the precise direction of the phenomenon. A private investigator went to the site in August 2015 to try to clarify the topography of the observation: the place has changed little, but the 1954 residents no longer live there or have died. GEIPAN attempted to contact one of the witnesses by phone and mail without success. Regarding the ground traces, the wild boar hypothesis does not seem consistent with the descriptions of the excavation: relatively clean edges, clumps placed outside the excavation and fairly regular in size and position (turned over), white worms not consumed (the boars may have been disturbed). The photographs of the traces taken by the police were taken two days after the observation. Moreover, these traces were trampled by the witnesses. This hypothesis remains acceptable but unconfirmed. The hypothesis of a hoax staged by other people cannot be entirely excluded. Can the luminous phenomenon be considered the cause of the trace? The available data provide no direct evidence of a cause-and-effect link. One must settle for the correlation of observation direction of the two phenomena (light and ground traces) and the relative correlation of time within a one-hour interval. A similar question applies to the observations at 7:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. (T5), but with a weaker association: distance of about 1-1.5 km between the witnesses (the exact location of the 8:45 p.m. observation is not specified) and separation of about 1 hour. The concordance of descriptions (yellowish or orange light, impression of transparency) remains limited. There is also a certain resemblance between the observations of October 2 and 4: same municipality, same time of day, same light ("orange with green reflections," "green and orange reflections"), same apparent size ("stove," 1.8 x 0.8 m, trace 1.50 x 0.60 m). In summary, the observation case of October 4, 1954 reports three events: two distinct, brief observations, each by a single witness, of a distant luminous phenomenon. Then, ground traces. These three events are not necessarily associated with each other. For each of these events there are fragile hypotheses that cannot be confirmed. Overall, the consistency of this case is average because it contains no verifiable elements. Its strangeness would be high if one could reliably correlate the ground traces with the luminous phenomena. GEIPAN therefore classifies this case C for lack of information: the verifiable elements are too weak relative to the presumed strangeness of the case. Remarks: it should be noted that during the year 1954 and particularly in October, the national and local press published a large number of articles reporting supposed UFO observation cases. This large-scale phenomenon marked the population and prompted numerous reports of observations of phenomena that ultimately turned out to be very ordinary (stars, planets, airplanes, fireballs). In this police report, the various witnesses very often refer to what they recently read in the press, particularly to describe the phenomenon.