North of Paris, between the towns of Villepinte and Maisons-Laffitte, workers and artists spent several months building streets, stations, and factories—though these structures would never be inhabited. This full-scale construction project had a specific goal: to trick German pilots into believing they were flying over the real Paris, when in fact they were heading toward open fields. The idea was born in late 1917, when French authorities decided to create a replica of Paris to mislead enemy bombers and direct them toward uninhabited areas. The project was designed with a focus on deception, using carefully crafted illusions to divert attacks away from the actual city. The engineer Fernand Jacopozzi, known later for illuminating the Eiffel Tower, was responsible for designing a lighting system that mimicked Parisian streetlamps, creating an illusion visible from the air. A team of artists and workers built a wooden city, complete with structures made of wood and canvas, under Jacopozzi’s direction. The goal was to create a city that looked sufficiently real to fool pilots during nighttime air raids. The army considered several locations around Paris for these decoys, with the most progress made in the northeastern area, near Villepinte. This site included a replica of the Seine River and a fake East Station, designed to mirror the real city’s layout and lighting. The project was meticulously planned, with every detail intended to create a believable illusion. Translucent canvases painted to resemble the grime on station windows were used, and the lighting system was adjustable to mimic the dim glow of streetlamps during air raids. The French engineers aimed for a city that appeared poorly concealed, one that a pilot might mistakenly identify during the night. A photograph preserved in archives shows part of this false city, with luminous canvases meant to represent the East Station near Beauchamp. Only two photographs from the time exist, both published in L'Illustration, showing the stretched canvases and wooden huts scattered across open fields—one depicting the false East Station, the other an installation meant to simulate a moving train at night. The project was abruptly halted in September 1918, just two months before the armistice that ended World War I. By that time, the first replicas had been completed, but the war had already ended, making the strategy unnecessary. The decoy city was never bombed, and its effectiveness was never tested. An historian noted in the archives that the war ended before the strategy could prove itself, and the camouflage project was incomplete when the November 1918 armistice put an end to it. While the false Paris never materialized beyond its plans, the principles of illusion and deception it employed would influence military strategies in later conflicts, particularly during World War II. Today, only hand-drawn plans, two grainy photographs, and the memory of this technical gamble remain, preserved in French documentary archives.