Departures of note

On the night of 10 September 1954, Marius Dewilde, a railway worker living beside the tracks at Quarouble in northern France, stepped outside with a flashlight after his dog began barking frantically. He claimed he saw a dark object about six or seven metres away and, when he shone the light, two small humanoid figures roughly 80 to 100 centimetres tall, wearing what looked like mirrored helmets. As he aimed the beam at their heads, the object reportedly emitted a light that paralysed him, and he watched the beings climb back aboard before the craft rose into the sky, changing colours as it departed.

When Dewilde recovered, he told his wife and a neighbour, but neither had seen or heard anything. He then contacted the local police, who sent officers to his home. Dewilde said he could not approach the landing spot because it made him feel ill, which the officers took as supporting his account. His flashlight and telephone, both battery-powered, had also stopped working. Investigators arrived before sunrise and found a six-metre depression at the reported landing point, with small rocks under the train tracks carbonised and symmetric marks on the sleepers. A loud anomalous noise was heard as a train passed, and the depression was immediately linked to it.

The encounter was publicised by the local magazine RADAR and became one of the most famous UFO cases in France. In the days that followed, Dewilde suffered respiratory problems, his dog died three days after the incident, and three cows on nearby farms were found dead, with autopsies reportedly showing their blood had been completely removed. Several local people also claimed to have seen objects and beings similar to those Dewilde described. He later wrote a book about his experience, Ne résistez pas aux extra-terrestres, and remained a noted figure in UFO literature until his death in 1996.