A triangle shape in Aude, France

Recent testimony (23/02/2015) about old observations. GEIPAN is processing the observation made at Port-La-Nouvelle (11). On the 4th or 5th of August 1997 at 11:45 PM (the witness no longer remembers the exact date), two people lying on deck chairs are surprised to see two luminous phenomena appear in the clear sky at a 10-minute interval. The first phenomenon is described as blinking orange lights outlining a triangle of equilateral shape. The observation lasted 3 seconds. The silent NNE-SSW movement of this UAP is very fast. The second phenomenon is described as two perfectly rectangular lights of yellow/orange color moving along the same trajectory as the first UAP. The lights moved in parallel and at short distance from one another. Only one testimony was collected. The first observation, a dark triangle bounded by 3 orange lights flying at low altitude, requires an interpretation according to the psychology of perception: the witness certainly did see the 3 orange lights, but the materiality of the triangle is absolutely not certain, and very likely results from a well-known illusion, called contour illusion or shape illusion (cf. Psychology of form). The witness moreover writes "triangle of equilateral shape, immaterial in appearance". On the other hand, the estimate of distance, and therefore of speed, has no chance of being exact since the witness has never seen this phenomenon, which he nevertheless compares to aircraft he may have known (cf. Estimation of size and distance of an unknown phenomenon). What the witness objectively saw is a set of 3 luminous points crossing together half the sky in 3 seconds, at an undetermined altitude, from NNE to SSW. Two other lights will follow the same trajectory 10 minutes later. One might think of luminous objects carried by the wind: since the date of the observation is approximate, it is difficult to know the weather of that day, and in particular to correlate the movement of these lights with the wind direction. For August 4th, there was in Perpignan a light E to NE wind, which cannot explain the observed movement. Due to the lack of knowledge of the date, and the impossibility of conducting an investigation more than 17 years after the facts, GEIPAN classifies this case "C" for lack of precise date and lack of cross-checking.