An orange orb in Nord, 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, which are now being re-examined, with the sole aim of being more relevant in the conclusions. Thanks to new technical means (software) and the investigative 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 is one of the cases classified as "D" in 1984 by GEPAN. On September 28, 1984, between 8:30 PM and 8:50 PM, five witnesses saw in the sky the slow movement of an orange glow the size and shape of a rugby ball. During the observation, this glow split into two ovoid parts and evolved in a way that was intriguing for the witnesses. The described phenomenon presents many common characteristics (observation duration, shape, size, color) with a perfectly known astronomical object: the Moon at setting. Moreover, the Moon was indeed present in the area of the sky observed, while the witnesses do not mention it. It is not the visual perception of the witnesses that is in question, but the interpretation that the witnesses make of their observation, through their feelings (astonishment, fatigue, night observation). In GEIPAN's current classification, this case of average strangeness is classified as PAN A, an observation linked to a misidentification of the Moon.