Haut-Rhin, France · 2015-11-13 · from the GEIPAN archive
On November 13, 2015 at around 10:15 PM, two people in a car are intrigued by the low-altitude passage of a triangular object whose shape is outlined by three steady white round lights. Two red lights are seen at the center of the object. It moves away silently and smoothly in the cloudy sky. The witness served in the army and does not recognize any airplane or helicopter. Only one testimony is collected. GEIPAN asked the military air traffic control (CNOA) for the air traffic recorded in the area at that time: the CNOA radar recording does show an identified aircraft, on a hospital mission, at low altitude, which matches the testimony perfectly in trajectory, location, and time of passage overhead. This is described by the overlay of radar tracks on the attached map (see Reconstruction). The low-altitude and uneven trajectory (seen by radar track and observation) is characteristic of a helicopter. The radar recording cannot confirm a hover at an altitude as low as that observed (15m) but is compatible with it. It should be remembered that estimating the distance of light points at night is very subjective. The observation of a triangle with steady lights, one white at each corner and two red at the center, is compatible with that of a helicopter. One might be surprised that the witness does not see the red and green steady navigation lights, nor the flashing white strobe light, but the helicopter about to land probably turned on white landing lights masking other lights. Note that an aircraft can use various lights in addition to the required ones (navigation, anti-collision, strobe). The Hellenic Navy AB-2012 ASW (night Flight) video shows a case with three red lights, two steady and a third that can be perceived as steady and comes from the rotating red anti-collision light, and here too the red and green navigation lights do not appear. Regarding the absence of perceived noise from the object while according to radar it is only at 200m altitude, the witness indicates having the window slightly open, but the vehicle engine remains running, which is not an ideal condition. But above all, it is common in UFO observations that attention focused on a very "striking" visual observation masks the accompanying sound perception. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies this observation as A, perfectly identified: Helicopter.
What stood out: red lightsa triangle shapehoveringpilot witness
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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.
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