Case description
Between 18:40 and 19:00 on 4 October 1954, a ten-year-old girl cycling home after tending cattle near Villers-le-Tilleul reported an object in a small clearing about 20 metres from her path. She initially took it for a camping tent. The 1954 gendarmerie report describes her estimate of an oval body about 2 metres wide and 2.5–3 metres high, capped by a rounded conical form and resting on a rectangular base.
A hatch reportedly lifted and a man stepped down, closed it and stood still. He appeared normal in height, with a square outline around his head, piercing eyes, a long reddish-brown shaggy garment and hands whose fingers seemed joined. When he advanced, she rode away without looking back; she did not see a departure. Separate witnesses described a bright red aerial light and a sustained cream-separator-like noise. Her father and a neighbour later thought the grass slightly flattened in a swirling pattern.
Gendarmes visited on 6 October but could establish no physical findings. GEIPAN stresses that the separate light, sound, grass and child's observation were not conclusively linked. A helicopter, perhaps a Bell 47 viewed frontally, could explain some features, but others fit less well. This remains a hypothesis, not an identified helicopter case. GEIPAN classifies the evidence C for insufficient information and corroboration. The plate depicts the child's reported scene before the approach, keeping the separate reports distinct.
