Case description
Contemporary newspapers describe three boys roller-skating near the Pournoy-la-Chétive cemetery in October 1954: Gilbert Calba, twelve, Daniel Hirsch, nine, and Jean-Pierre Hirsch, five. They claimed a round, luminous object about 2.5 meters across landed nearby on three supports, marked with yellow and white stripes.
A short figure allegedly emerged carrying a flashlight. They described large eyes, a hairy face and a dark sacklike garment resembling a priest’s cassock. Its words were incomprehensible to them. Frightened, they ran away and said they later saw the bright object rising. A sixteen-year-old, Robert Maguin, was reported to have seen a distant light without the same close details. The children repeated their account to adults, their teacher and the mayor.
A follow-up in Le Républicain Lorrain on October 15 identified the supposed visitor as a local man collecting grass for rabbits after work. His flashlight and unsuccessful attempts to reassure the children reportedly produced the confusion; the paper dismissed the saucer as imagination. Later catalogues continued the encounter narrative, often dating it October 9, while contemporary wording supports October 8. The four close witnesses and paralysis suggested by compressed catalogue wording are not consistently supported by the earlier reports.
