Flaming Orb at Alencon |
At 5am on June the 12th, 1790, near Alecon in France some farmers saw an enormous flaming orb, or globe. At first they thought it was a balloon that had caught fire, but they were puzzled by certain aspects of it. It moved at very fast speeds, changing direction quickly and emitted a curious whistling noise. The orb slowed down eventually and landed on top of a hill, uprooting plants along the slope. It gave out such intense heat that soon the surrounding grass and some small trees began burning. Police Inspector Liabeuf was sent to the knoll to investigate. By evening the still warm globe had attracted quite a crowd at the site, including two mayors, a doctor and three other local authorities, all of whom vouched for Liabeuf's report. "All of a sudden a kind of door opened" the inspector wrote "and there is the interesting thing, a person like us came out of it, but this person was dressed in a strange way, wearing a tight fitting suit and, seeing all that crowd said some words that were not understood and fled into the woods". Almost immediately afterwards the orb silently exploded and the pieces burnt into powder. "Searches were conducted to find the mysterious man" the inspector concluded "but he seemed to have dissolved". |
