Flying Cigars and Great Wine

In 1954 the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in France's Rhone valley passed a decree that must rank as one of the world's greatest all-time absurdist legislative efforts and, when you think about it, the competition is pretty tough. It forbade ""— literally flying cigars but more accurately flying saucers—from landing anywhere within the village precincts.

One hesitates to speculate on what might have provoked the honest peasants—and vignerons too, for it is a famous wine village—to enact this wonderfully bizarre government initiative, but one only hopes it wasn't a surfeit of their excellent wine. Whatever the motivation though, the decree—unlike many such well-intentioned government initiatives—seems to have had its desired affect: CNP has mercifully remained a flying-saucer-free zone ever since.