Pyrénées-Orientales, France · 2013-08-04 · from the GEIPAN archive
On August 4, 2013, during a very hot night, a witness (estimated time 3 or 4 a.m.) takes a photo of storms in the distance before going to bed (photo DSCN5593). Later during sleep, a violent light wakes him and his spouse: both think it is the storm. The witness goes out onto the balcony and takes a second photograph. It is then that he notices a string of white-yellow luminous streaks present on the photograph (photo DSCN5594) and remains intrigued. What is seen by the witnesses does not create any particular strangeness. "My wife said: 'the lightning is arriving here.' We noticed luminous streaks interpreted as lightning" (see the questionnaire). The strangeness and subject of the testimony seem to come from what is seen on photo DSCN5594. Analysis of this photo indicates the presence of photographic artifacts probably caused by the exposure duration (8 seconds) and the movement of the camera within the field of lights, even of moderate intensity, present nearby before the end of the exposure. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies this case as A: misidentification with a photographic artifact.
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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