((NUFORC Note: We received this hand-written report from France, and we copy it here. We express our sincere gratitude to the person who submitted. We compliment her on her ability to write well in English, and on her penmanship! U. S. Forces landed in northwest Africa in November 08, 1942. PD))Dear Sir, I have always heard that UFO sightings date back to the end of WWII, but I know about one that was witnessed by my own grandfather and 9-year-old uncle in 1942.The place was Montagny, a small village in the centre of France. Time of the year: Autumn, the day before the Allies landed in North Africa.It happened at night. My grandfather and uncle had gone out to a farm to buy potatoes, in spite of the curfew, imposed by occupying Germany.They were in a hollow ((empty??)) lane, in the dark, when suddenly a thing, saucer-shaped, with a "window-like in a train compartment, started next to them from behind a hedge.The thing hovered there for a moment, then went away at a tremendous speed, without making any noise. Planes were so noisy then that they made the ground shake, when there were a lot of them at a time.You can imagine their fright! My grandfather died in 1975, but he still trembled and shook when he told that story. My uncle died a year ago, and he hated talking about it.It is absolutely out of the question that my grandfather invented that story. Also, he told the family immediately, well before people started talking of U.F.O.’s.He told the story to a distant cousin, who had been a colonel in the French army, but apart from that, the story has never been outside the family. My grandfather would not have like any publicity about it.As he said, it could not be something immaterial because it made some dead leaves swirl on the ground.It could not be a hallucination because they both saw the same thing.Was it something human-made?... a German spy plane, or something like that? Maybe, but I have yet to see a saucer-like plane that moves without making a noise.So, what was it? If you know, I’d be glad to know, too.I don’t think many people saw that thing, because there weren’t many people wandering outside at night in Nazi-occupied France in 1942! (But if you heard about similar sightings, I’d like to know, too) Yours Sincerely, ((name deleted))