Red lights in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 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 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. This observation case, previously classified D and named COLMARS (04) 1983, is part of a set of cases recently re-examined. On 28 September 1983 at around 9:30 pm, four witnesses on a balcony saw above the mountain of "la Femme Couchée" lights of intense white and red colour "like flashes". The witnesses noticed that the UAP seemed first stationary, then moving with "zigzags". The UAP quickly crossed a steep valley and disappeared towards the summit of "Chalufy". The brevity of the observation did not allow the witnesses to describe the shape of the object precisely. Two hypotheses are explored to explain the witnesses' observation (see the investigation report). The first concerns confusion with the atmospheric re-entry of an artificial object (satellite, debris). Although certain parameters of the testimonies (brevity of the observation, flashing white and red lights) could suggest such a phenomenon, the fact that no other testimony exists in an urbanised area that this phenomenon could have crossed makes this hypothesis hardly credible. Moreover, in the catalogues listing all such atmospheric re-entries since 1958, none is identified for the month of September 1983. The absence of a luminous trail is also a parameter that goes against the hypothesis. The second hypothesis relates to a simple confusion with a civil or military aircraft, observed at relatively low altitude. This hypothesis fits the testimonial data better (flashing white and red lights in particular, perception of a sound), but also the calculated data involving estimates of heights, speeds and duration of observation. It is not necessarily necessary to consider that the witnesses slightly underestimated the duration of the observation. Indeed, an adequate combination of the two factors height/speed makes it possible to account correctly for the observation, which remains both consistent with the duration of the observation as given by the witnesses, and the angular distance travelled by this aircraft, within the geographical framework of the limited visual field of a steep valley. It should thus be noted that this aircraft would probably have flown both faster and lower than usual in the area. This finding is all the more valid given that this is probably what constituted the strangeness for the witnesses, who did not recognise an aircraft. Although we have been able to demonstrate that civil aircraft nowadays make regular flights, use air corridors and pass through a particular SID point, all located in the immediate vicinity of the witnesses and in the observed direction, we have not been able to determine whether these data were already valid in 1983, but nevertheless the most likely is that this was already the case. The same applies to flight restriction maps, particularly altitudes and heights (regulated zones), which today indicate that the area is used by military aircraft; the most likely is that this was already the case at the time. It is not possible to favour one option between military or civil aircraft. In both cases, it is necessary to introduce a particularity that is just as plausible: for the military aircraft, which generally flies low, it is the fact that there was an exercise that day with this particular flight direction; for the civil aircraft, which usually passes through there, it is the fact that the altitude was lower. The consistency is correct, with a fairly thorough gendarmerie investigation. It should nevertheless be noted that angular measurements taken on site would have allowed a better evaluation of the hypotheses. GEIPAN classifies the case as "B": probable observation of a civil or military aircraft.