Marne, France · 2012-09-07 · from the GEIPAN archive
On September 7, 2012 at 9:00 PM, a group of 4 people observe in the dark sky the presence of a luminous point coming slowly and silently in their direction. When changing trajectory, the witnesses observe a rounded and dark shape. Only one testimony is collected. This observation of a luminous point low on the horizon suggests an aircraft at low altitude. An investigation was requested from military air traffic control: the radar traces (attached) indicate air traffic at low altitude between 9:23 PM and 9:25 PM (the times shown on the radar readout are in universal time) in the witness's direction of observation between Morangis and Brugny, coming from the West, in an area without an airfield. The low altitude and the winding path show that it was a helicopter traveling in that location. But the witness observed between 9:00 PM and 9:10 PM, and the observed object was heading West, while the radar traces indicate a path coming from the West. These traces therefore do not match the observation, but prove air activity in that area. One can put forward the hypothesis that similar activity occurred 20 minutes earlier (rotation) but at too low an altitude to be detected by radar. The radar traces begin at 9:00 PM. If the observation took place a little before 9:00 PM, the air activity would not have been recorded at that time. The silence noted during the observation is not surprising for a helicopter observed at 10 km. Given this information and these uncertainties, GEIPAN classifies this case as slightly unusual in category B as a probable observation of a helicopter. The low strangeness of the phenomenon does not justify a field investigation.
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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.
Anomaly