Aimé Michel

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Aimé Michel
Illustration of an open book about flying saucers
Illustration: an open book about flying saucers. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.
TypePerson
Also known asAime Michel

Aimé Michel (12 May 1919 – 28 December 1992) was a French writer on science, spirituality and UFOs. His 1958 book on the French UFO wave of 1954 introduced "orthoteny", the idea that UFO sightings on a given day fall along straight lines.[1]

Life

Illustration of official papers and files
Illustration: official papers and files. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

Michel was born in Saint-Vincent-les-Forts in the French Alps. He studied psychology and philosophy and joined French national radio in 1944, working in its research department, where he met Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of electronic music.[1]

Orthoteny

Illustration of a jet meeting an unknown object
Illustration: a jet meeting an unknown object. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

In Mystérieux Objets Célestes (1958), Michel examined the great French wave of UFO reports in 1954. With help from the writer Jacques Bergier, he proposed that sightings reported on the same day lined up along great-circle lines across the Earth. His best-known example was the "BaVic" line from Bayonne to Vichy, along which he said six of nine sightings reported in the press on 24 September 1954 fell.[1]

Other work

Illustration of a screen showing a flying saucer
Illustration: a screen showing a flying saucer. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

From 1969 Michel sat on the editorial board of the French UFO magazine Lumières dans la nuit, and he wrote widely on UFOs, mysticism and animal behaviour, including a long-running column on the mysteries of the animal world. He was a friend of Bergier and Louis Pauwels, founders of the magazine Planète, and wrote a television script that aired in 1972.[1]

References

This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.

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