An open record of things people cannot explain

Tarn, France · 1975-02-18 · from the GEIPAN archive

An account in Tarn, France

On February 18, 1975, around 12:20 a.m., a witness driving on a country lane is frightened by a luminous spherical object that moves vertically and oscillates silently in the landscape. No other testimony will be collected. The astronomical check indicates that the Moon is close to setting in the West-Northwest (azimuth 290), in the shape of a half-moon (First quarter). The report contains a copy of the land registry map that does not appear to be oriented with North at the top; the current version of the registry map available via Geoportail (IGN) does not give the same orientation; with the current reference, the witness also observes the phenomenon to the West-Northwest with an azimuth close to 287 (see attached map), that is, the direction of the Moon: a confusion with the Moon, perhaps partially masked to appear roughly spherical, is conceivable. Poor estimation of distance and size is very common in UAP observations, especially for visible celestial bodies near the horizon. Nevertheless, with this hypothesis, it is difficult to explain the back-and-forth movements of the phenomenon described by the witness; one could at a stretch consider that low clouds may have partially masked the lunar half-disc. Since the witness does not mention the Moon while it was in the direction of his observation, it is highly likely that it played a role in the observation. In conclusion, lacking the ability to refine with the witness the apparent movements of the phenomenon, and to verify the local atmospheric conditions, GEIPAN classifies this case "C" as an unidentified phenomenon due to lack of precise data.

 

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This is an official case file of GEIPAN, the French space agency's unidentified aerospace phenomena office, machine translated from French. The original text and the full investigation file are at geipan.fr. We reproduce it with thanks and remove anything on request.