Photographed in Deux-Sèvres, France

Recent testimony (07/03/2013) of an old observation whose witness does not remember the exact day (an arbitrary date is given). The observation took place on a road between La Rochelle (17) and Niort (79) at the entrance to Niort then at Échiré (79). One Saturday night around midnight at the end of August 1997, a motorist and his passengers are surprised to see in the cloudy sky an oval whitish mass around which smaller oval shapes swirl. No particular noise is heard. The observation will last several hours from different places, notably from the witness's home, where several photographs will be taken with a disposable camera. The witness will eventually go to bed. All the photographs will be black. Only one testimony has been collected to date. This case of observation of "spinning saucers" in a cloudy sky on a Saturday night over a long duration has all the characteristics of sky tracers, those spotlights used by nightclubs to signal themselves: - fairly typical shape (set of ovoid masses arranged in circles or ellipses). - typical behavior (continuous rotation around a central point and overall movement by slow sweeping or total or partial rotation, with possible stops. A central beam around which various smaller spotlights rotate. - cloudy sky: ideal support for spotlights which draw more or less rounded shapes there depending on the angle of incidence and the relief of the clouds. - and if there is an absence of haze, which is likely in this summer season, the upward beams remain invisible. - it is a Saturday night (day of highest frequency for sky tracers) and summer holiday period, therefore more festive than usual. - the duration of several hours: dance halls turn on the sky lights around 10 p.m., until early morning. - sky tracers were very fashionable in those years. - no noise heard. - whitish color: the most frequent for sky lights. - large angular size of the whole. - phenomenon visible from several tens of kilometers and movement of the halos over several km. Compatible with the movement of the witnesses. - failed photograph: this is fairly normal because the phenomenon is mobile and ultimately not very bright; a camera with a large lens and a very sensitive film would have been needed to get a good image of the phenomenon. GEIPAN classifies this case "B": very probable observation of a "skytracer". The imprecision about the date and the age of the facts do not allow GEIPAN to find the precise origin of this spotlight. See: light animation and light animation