Police witness in Ard�che, 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, with the sole aim 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 explained in an investigation note. This observation case, previously classified D and named PRIVAS (07) 1989, is part of a set of cases recently re-examined. On October 14 between 5:40 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., a couple is intrigued by a particular luminous phenomenon in the sky: the witness recognizes neither a star, nor an airplane, nor a weather balloon. The object is described as oval, very bright, the size of a dessert plate. Motionless at first, the object seems at one point to pivot on itself. A second small object, accompanied by a glow and detaching from the UAP, descends vertically then goes back up toward the first object. The whole thing disappears toward the South. The gendarmerie investigation and a press article attached to the police report indicate that two other witnesses observed the same phenomenon of exceptionally long duration. These other witnesses did not make a statement to the gendarmerie. The re-examination of the case 30 years after the facts highlights a weak consistency of the case. It has a single witness, with imprecise, even contradictory data, without there having been a field investigation with a meeting with the witness (see the investigation report). Under these conditions, it is difficult to conclude with certainty about the nature of the UAP observed by the witness that day. Indeed, although the majority of the elements of the testimony and those deduced from it argue in favor of a simple astronomical misidentification (in particular a confusion with Jupiter), too many data are missing (e.g.: no indication of elevation), imprecise or contradictory (azimuth East or West, clear sky or not). A field investigation at the time could have clarified certain points, in particular on the presence or absence of a natural obstacle that could have explained why the witness did not notice the full Moon and Sirius. Indeed, the sky is very probably clear and these two celestial bodies are at ~15° and ~30° of elevation. The strangest element, with regard to an astronomical explanation, is the witness's mention of a "small object accompanied by a white glow, detaching from the larger one, then going back up toward it." However, in the absence of precise data and an on-site investigation, various explanatory hypotheses are conceivable, without them being able to be confirmed or refuted. For example: - The probable presence of an obstacle hiding the Moon (tree, cloud) could have been the cause of several gaps of the Moon in this obstacle, whereas during the rest of the observation only one predominated. - We do not know what the witness's visual acuity is, nor whether he could have had any visual problem (which one?), linked to fatigue or to too long a sustained observation. - We do not know whether the observation was made continuously or discontinuously. At what moment did the witness observe this phase? Just after a break in his observation? In which case this "small object and the white glow" could concern a completely different phenomenon, aeronautical for example, observed concomitantly spatially and temporally with Jupiter. The consistency of the testimony is too weak to validate the explanation or the unexplainable character of the only strange element of the observation (which otherwise would be classified as observation of celestial bodies). Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as C: the lack of reliable data does not allow this observation case to be exploited and processed.