An account in Morbihan, 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 as type "D" cases, which are now being re-examined. The purpose of this re-examination is not to reduce or increase any particular classification category but to be more relevant in the 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 explained in an investigation note. This observation case formerly named GROIX (56) 13.04.1982 is one of the cases classified as "D" by GEPAN and recently taken up again. On the island of Groix (Morbihan), during the night of April 13 to 14, 1982 at 2:45 a.m. (the most probable date of the observation, according to the gendarmerie), 3 people observe a luminous phenomenon in the sky. Moving in a vehicle to different places on the island, the witnesses have the impression that the UAP follows them or stops like them during their travels. One of the witnesses goes home and wakes up a fourth witness who confirms the presence in the sky around 3 a.m. of a strongly luminous and fixed object that he does not recognize. The observation continues in different places on the island until 5 a.m. for some witnesses. The fourth witness will make a similar observation the next day. The gendarmerie, notified fortuitously on April 20, 1982, will conduct an investigation on site a few days later, finding no other witnesses. The investigation will determine no EDF disruption, no particular observation from the Lann-Bihoué naval air base. The credibility of the witnesses is not called into question. The gendarmes indicate the phase of the Moon as last quarter. No trace on the ground or on the environment is found in the sectors indicated by the witnesses. This case is moderately consistent: there are 4 witnesses, but with contradictions and imprecisions (particularly on the date and on the speeds or directions of movement of the UAP). The described phenomenon presents many common characteristics (observation duration, shape, size, color...) with observations of a well-known astronomical object: the Moon (see investigation notes). The appearance of the UAP generally includes a semicircle, and the gendarmerie indicates in its investigation report that the Moon was in last quarter. T1 compares the UAP to "a small planet that had approached the Earth." The UAP was observed over several hours (3 hours) and evolved slowly in the sky and according to a movement rather described as West to East (despite some contradictions between witnesses)... like that of the Moon. Furthermore, T4 indicates having seen the following night in the same sector of the sky an "object presenting forms identical to the previous one": the Moon was indeed there again. The Moon was big (phase 0.7), well present in the fairly narrow zone of the sky (East, Southeast) described as the zone where the UAP was, while the witnesses clearly affirm not having recognized the Moon: - if they affirm not having recognized it, it is because they did not see it either next to the UAP, otherwise at least two of them would naturally have said "by the way, we could clearly see the Moon next to the UAP" to support the fact that it was not the Moon. Alongside that, there is at least one who says "It was pitch black, there was no moon." - they could not have not seen it over such a long observation duration with a sky otherwise described as clear and a Moon position at the end of observation at 20° elevation above the ocean, in the observation direction. This type of misidentification, generally caused by clouds or veils of clouds partially covering the Moon, is frequent in GEIPAN's records (see GEIPAN website with keyword Moon). One finds here in particular the illusion of the following ball (perceptual illusion due to the witnesses' own movement), since the UAP seems to stop when the witnesses are stationary, and resume its course when the witnesses start moving again. This perception generates strong emotion (perhaps with the idea or hypothesis of dealing with an "intelligence"), and in doing so can favor a loss of precision in perception or memorization. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as A: observation of the Moon.