An account in France, 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 "B" cases, 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 gained over all these recent years, this re-examination sometimes leads to new remarks or even a change in classification, explained in an investigation note. This observation case (previously named Bonnières-Sur-Seine (78) 13.03.1989) is one of the cases classified as "B" in 1989 by SEPRA as a "spectacular natural phenomenon of light propagation." On March 13, 1989, between 10:30 PM and 11:28 PM, several witnesses, in Morbihan (56) and in Yvelines (78), observed a large-scale luminous phenomenon in the cloud layers. The colors observed were very varied: yellow, green, red. The gendarmerie units that conducted the investigations linked this phenomenon to the solar eruption that occurred at the same time and was reported by the media. The described phenomenon presents many common characteristics (observation duration, size, color) with a perfectly known astronomical phenomenon: an aurora borealis. Moreover, an aurora borealis was indeed exceptionally observed in France on March 13, 1989. It is perfectly normal that the witnesses did not immediately recognize an aurora borealis, because this astronomical phenomenon is rarely observed from metropolitan France (occurrence of about one every ten years). In GEIPAN's current classification, this case of low strangeness is classified as PAN A, observation of an aurora borealis.