Eupen has a special place in Belgian history. It was here, on 29 November 1989, a sighting of a UFO was made that would spark a wave of UFO madness across Belgium. It culminated in March 1990, when two F-16 fighter planes were scrambled to investigate objects that appeared on Belgian military radar. This led to reports of further ‘sightings’ and hoax photos being published.
Known as the Belgian UFO Wave, and likely a bout of collective hysteria driven by mass media coverage, the first sighting in Eupen is viewed with a degree of credibility because the person who reported it was a local policeman. Not that the police have ever faked evidence. To those who believe in such things, what happened in Belgium over those months is proof aliens visited Earth.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that this event is not commemorated in the town where it all began. Eupen could be Belgium’s Area 51, but local authorities seem reluctant to celebrate the town’s alien connections. Some people might consider this ‘suspicious’. Or maybe Eupen’s history as the capital of the German-speaking Community in Belgium is already strange enough.
Belgium famously has a ‘language border’ separating Flanders and Wallonia, two of three official Belgian regions. Brussels is the third. It also has three communities, Flanders (Dutch), Wallonia (French) and an eastern region of German speakers. There are also four language areas. The three above and Brussels, which is officially Dutch/French bilingual, but predominantly French-speaking with a lot of English thrown in.
Belgium became a country in 1830, after its independence from The Netherlands. Its 1830 borders did not include the German-speaking region around Eupen. At that time it was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, which had gained the region only in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. When German unification happened in 1870, it became part of Germany.
So it stayed until Germany’s defeat in the First World War. The subsequent Treaty of Versailles gifted the region to Belgium to compensate for the destruction and suffering experienced during the war. This was reversed in the Second World War and then reinstated after 1945. Leaving Belgium with a German-speaking region and Eupen as its capital. It’s a history that has created strange anomalies.
Eupen is a prosperous place, and in the centre of town is a building that encompasses its complicated modern history: Grand Ry House. When Eupen was still part of the Habsburg Empire in the 18th century, the house was built for a wealthy clothmaker – Eupen’s major industry – Nikolaus Joseph von Grand Ry. It remained a family home until it became a German Imperial Post Office in 1893.
It was a Belgian post office after 1920, until chosen as the seat of government of the German-speaking community in 1984. Nearby, the town museum recounts a history that dates back to 1213, the first written record of Eupen. As I strolled around town on a sunny Saturday, there was a cheerful vibe. Outdoor tables of cafes were full, including in the Marktplatz next to the towers of St. Nikolaus Church.
A collection of attractive 17th and 18th century town houses hint at the former wealth of the town, generated by the cloth making industry. Eupen was renowned for cloth thanks to the purity of the water flowing from the High Fens, or Hautes-Fagnes, to the south of the town. Today, it is one of the gateways to the Hautes-Fagnes National Park, which has excellent hiking and cycling trails.
There were plenty of cyclists passing through town or having a refreshing beer in one of the many cafes. It’s not surprising, the Hautes-Fagnes is one of the only wilderness areas in the country, and it has an austere beauty. As I cycled across the area, I saw few other people, accentuating the sense of isolation. In fact, on a dark winter night, you could imagine that this is just the sort of place aliens might choose to land.
