Recovering from his initial shock, he ran to cut them off and got to within six feet of them. At that point, a powerful orange light came from a square opening in the dark mass, blinding him. Dewilde felt paralyzed; his legs would not move. He saw the creatures continue toward the tracks, the dark object rise and hover, and a door close. The object rose to about one hundred feet, turned east, and disappeared.
After recovering use of his legs, Dewilde woke his wife and a neighbor, and told the police, who thought he was crazy. Dewilde would not be put off. He spoke to the police commissioner, who was impressed by his determination and sent investigators to the area, which included local police and the French air police from Paris. They found five places on three wooden railroad ties with identical impressions, each about one and one-half inches square. The marks were fresh and deep. Engineers later calculated the weight needed to produce these cuts to have been about thirty tons. The Dewilde case received some international press notice. Naturally, the local police had no explanation and were shut out of the air police investigation.86
Throughout France, UFO activity was heavy. A few days after the Dewilde case, on September 14, a daytime UFO sighting occurred before “hundreds of witnesses,” about 250 miles southwest of Paris. Another sighting on the nineteenth involved a flat, gray, circular object which slowed, stopped, hovered motionless for thirty seconds, swayed, and took off.87
Then, on the afternoon of September 26, in the town of Valence, a woman also claimed to see a humanoid being while she was gathering mushrooms in the woods. Her dog barked, and she saw a short being wearing a translucent helmet and suit; she saw large eyes looking at her through the helmet. The being approached her, moving awkwardly; she screamed and ran. When she turned around, she saw a large circular and flattened metallic object rise from behind the trees and depart rapidly, gaining altitude all the time. Other people, including her husband, were nearby, and they soon arrived to see a circular area about ten feet in diameter. Inside the circle, shrubs and bushes were crushed; tree branches were broken as if from above. Some of the people claimed to hear a whistling sound when the craft departed, and the police were struck by her state of nervous shock.88
Yet another humanoid encounter took place two nights later in the town of Bouzais. A man had noticed that someone had stolen grapes from his vineyard and decided to stay up late and catch the thief. At about 10:30 P.M., he saw a luminous object descend and three figures emerge. He was then paralyzed and lost consciousness. There was no sign of anything when he regained consciousness. On the thirtieth, eight construction workers near Marcilly-sur-Vienne saw a disc-shaped object on the ground, and a small helmeted being standing nearby.89
THE “INVASION” OF FRANCE: OCTOBER 1954
By the end of September, about 250 people throughout France had recently claimed to have seen flying saucers and humanoids.90 October was just as surreal, and even busier. Keyhoe was probably right when he believed hysteria to be behind some of them. Still, it is not so easy to dismiss all of these supposed encounters with aliens. Here is a brief synopsis of some of the more remarkable accounts from the first half of that month.
In the town of Bry, a man and his dog were paralyzed as a bright white object dove toward them and climbed again. Later that evening in Bergerac, a fireman returning home saw a light in the sky similar to a shooting star. Later, he saw an intense light in his yard and rushed out to see a disc rise from the ground with a whistling sound. It became luminous and flew off. A neighbor also saw the object and estimated it to be ten feet wide.91
At 8 P.M., in Croix d’Epine, a man on his motor scooter saw a bright, oval object land off the road fifty feet from him. He saw short, dark shapes “like potato bags” moving around the object, which was the size of a small bus. It quickly took off, changing from orange to blue, then grayish-blue. The man fainted while telling his story. Two people in nearby villages independently reported seeing the object.92
