Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency compilation of foreign press and radio reports, distributed 29 October 1954, gathers unevaluated sightings of unidentified flying objects published between 31 July and 20 September 1954. It covers reports from Austria, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Uganda and Singapore. Items include a hovering object near Acheux-en-Vimeu, a red-orange disk near Hirson, and an object tracked by the Ciampino control tower and Pratica di Mare radar near Rome. French air police are quoted as attributing two alleged landings to smuggling planes.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
seemed to have on its upper side a small luminous tail forming an integral part of the object. When the travelers reached the bridge at Buire, they saw what the, believed to be a "flying saucer" increasing its altitude; as soon as the car lights beamed on it, the object started flying at great speed toward La Herie, 3-4 kilometers away, and disappeared. UNUSUAL OBJECTS SIGHTED OVER NORMANDY Paris, Franc-Tireur, 16 Sep 54 At 0800 hours on 15 September, according to the report of Lecliere, a newspaper agent in Carpiquet, Calvados Department, a white point of light appeared in the sky and grew rapidly in size. It was oval-shaped and had unusual brilliance. The phenomenon lasted 2 minutes. The witness stated that he was not subject to hallucinations. A similar phenomenon was reportedly seen by a farmer in Thaon, also in Calvados Department. RELIEVE "FLYING SAUCER" PILOTS WERE SMUCGLERS -- Paris, Franc-Tireur, 16 Sep 54 [The following is additional information on reports of two cases cited in the 1915 roundup of 14 September 1954.] Two of the alleged recent landings [on 10 September] in France of "flying saucers" are considered by the local air police to have been nothing more than the landing of planes used in smuggling. Furthermore, in one case, the farmer in Correze Department stated that the pilot uttered unintelligible words; yet the farmer was certainly no polyglot and could easily have been fooled. In the other case, in Valenciennes Department, the witness may have been sincere, but it should be noted that he had a cranial trauma one year ago and several nervous disturbances since. It is true, however, that in the latter case, the air police found four unusual marks on the railroad ties near the spot indicated by the witness, marks that could not have been made by the tools of railroad workers. ## Ital. STRANGE FLYING OBJECT SEEN IN TUSCANY -- Paris, Franc-Tireur, 1, Sep 94 Grosseto, 16 September -- Two inhabitants of Pitigliano report the sighting of a round, white object making a strange, loud noise, flying near Grosseto in Tuscany, on 14 September. The object case to a standstill and then disappeared at high speed. MYSTERIOUS OBJECT OBSERVED OVER ROMS -- Dakar, Paris-Dakar, 20 Sep 54 Rome, 18 September (APP) On the afternoon of 17 September, the control tower at the Ciampino air base observed a mysterious object shaped like half a cigar flying slowly at an altitude of about 1,200 meters. The object, leaving a trail of luminous smoke, was visible for about 40 minutes. Those manning the tower watched the object make a 400-meter dive and then regain its former altitude, moving from a horizontal to a vertical position. As the object took off toward the sea, the Ciampino tower notified the Pratica di Hare control tower,
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.