What happened
On the evening of September 10, 1954, at about 10:30 p.m., Marius Dewilde, a laborer who lived beside the railroad line in Quarouble, went outside, alarmed by his dog’s barking. On the tracks he made out a dark mass, and next to it two short figures in suits resembling diving gear, with large helmets. When he started toward them, a beam of light shot out of the object, blinding and paralyzing him. The figures returned to the object, which rose with a soft whistling sound and flew away. Dewilde reported the incident to the gendarmerie, and investigators from the air police found pressure marks on the railroad ties that, according to calculations, would have required a weight of several tons. The case became one of the most famous episodes of the fall 1954 wave – the largest wave of UFO sightings in French history.
Witnesses
Marius Dewilde, the only direct witness.
Explanations and hypotheses
The gendarmerie and air police considered Dewilde credible, but it was never established what left the marks on the tracks. Skeptics point out that the account emerged amid a press frenzy over flying saucers and that the marks may have had an ordinary origin. For ufologists, it is a classic example of a close encounter of the third kind with physical traces.
Unexplained There is no convincing explanation.
More: Wikipedia (en)