An account in Loir-et-Cher, France

GEIPAN continues to publish all of its archives on its public website www.geipan.fr. Among its publications are old cases classified at the time (A, B, C or D) which are now being re-examined, for the sole purpose of being more relevant in their conclusions. Thanks to new technical means (software) and the investigation experience acquired over all these recent years, this re-examination sometimes leads to new remarks or even a change of classification. This observation case, previously classified D and named TERNAY (41) 22.05.1981, is part of a set of cases recently re-examined (the case is also known as MONTOIRE (41) 1980). On 23 May 1981 at around 11:40 pm, four members of a family are in a car on the CD4 (commune of TERNAY (41)). They notice (with difficulty because of the very cloudy weather) a strongly luminous phenomenon at low altitude. The driver stops, intrigued by the UAP now located near a small wood. The observation, which lasts about fifteen minutes, allows the witnesses to see an object of oval shape, with lights of several colours (white and blue-green) and at times red-orange lights at the ends. The object, which seems to emit beams of light, remains motionless. No noise is heard. The UAP disappears behind the small wood. The driver resumes his route to take the departmental road 116 towards SAINT-MARTIN-DES-BOIS (41) and drop off two family members. Two of the four witnesses then return to the scene by another route. Upon reaching the small wood, a thick fog suddenly envelops the wood. The witnesses turn around. A last glance towards the small wood allows them to note small red-orange lights near the ground. The witnesses leave the scene to go home. The investigation, which takes place the next morning, finds no trace on the ground or in the surrounding vegetation. We have shown over the course of the analysis (see the investigation report) that the witnesses, placed in unfavourable observation conditions (very dark night environment), could not identify an agricultural machine, or more probably a forestry machine, working at night in a field or in a small wood located about 2 km from their position. This observation distance, combined with the impossibility of distinguishing the sky/ground separation in these unfavourable conditions, made the witnesses think that the unidentified phenomenon was in the sky, at low altitude, whereas we were able to demonstrate that it could in fact be on the ground, in a sloping area with an elevation higher than that where the witnesses were. We therefore explored two hypotheses: that of an agricultural machine carrying out work in the fields, and that of a forestry machine carrying out cutting or wood maintenance work at night. Although both hypotheses can account for the appearance of the UAP (strong lights in particular), the second is favoured because it accounts for it better, especially because in the axis of observation there was a small wood for which a comparison of aerial photos taken in May 1978 and July 1981 shows that the wood was cut between these two dates. There is therefore every reason to think that the exploitation of this wood had already begun at the date of the observation. The various manoeuvres of the machine at the origin of the confusion were observed in particular by T1, who specifies: "at times, a light came off each end, red-orange in colour. From time to time, this bright light seemed to me to blink, and this remark was probably due to the different positions taken by this object." Regarding the "blinking" noted by several witnesses, it is probable that this is an effect caused by the machine's lights being temporarily behind trees or tree branches during its movements. The key landmark of the witnesses' observation is a small wood; the UAP can appear mobile relative to this wood and ultimately disappear behind it. We have shown that this is a parallax illusion: the wood is much closer to the witnesses than the UAP, the witnesses' vehicle changes position, so the UAP appears to move relative to the wood, until it disappears behind it. The last point of apparent strangeness, related to the non-observation of the UAP when T1 and T2 came to position themselves on the CD 116 behind the wood and searched for the UAP, is explained above all by the fact that the witnesses logically looked behind the wood on their right and did not think to look in the opposite direction, to the left, towards the south. GEIPAN classifies the case as "B": probable observation of a forestry machine carrying out night-time maintenance work in a small wood located about 2 km south of the witnesses.