Alpes-Maritimes, France · 2016-01-24 · from the GEIPAN archive
On Sunday, January 24, 2016 at around 12:45, a witness is intrigued by the west-to-east passage of a luminous flying craft of ovoid shape. The unidentified aerial phenomenon disappears as a gray dot on the horizon. No particular noise is heard during the observation. The phenomenon described by the witness suggests an aircraft, helicopter, or airplane, despite an ovoid shape description that is a priori incompatible. A check of civil air traffic by the Flightradar site, based on so-called "secondary" radar information, shows two unusual aircraft in the area (see the records available in the appendix): - a Beech 200 airplane, flight referenced OOLET, flying at about 8000m altitude, making multiple circles above the Braus pass. - an Ecureuil helicopter, flight 3AMAX, which the radar only detects intermittently because it flies at an altitude of about 1000m, at a distance of about 10km from the witness. One can see on the record from 11:57 UTC (12:57 local time) the two aircraft very close together, as the witness indicates. The airplane then makes a clear change of direction. This aeronautical activity in this sparsely populated area is not usual: a search of regional events tells us that at that moment the special stage No. 16 of the Monte-Carlo automobile rally was taking place (see copy of the web pages in the appendix): - ES16 Start 12:08 from Col de l'Orme Finish Saint-Laurent (Power Stage) (Live TV) 12.07 This stage was broadcast live on television. For this, it is highly likely that the helicopter was taking the shots, transmitting them to the airplane, which transmitted them to the central TV control room. GEIPAN did not conduct research to identify the various operators of the system. This type of operation is usual for large, highly mobile sporting events (see this airplane that intrigues). The Meteociel record for Nice: Meteociel indicates a slight NW wind at 12:00, turning due south at 13:00. In both cases, the wind is unfavorable to the propagation of the helicopter's noise toward the witness. The helicopter is about 10km from the witness, a distance sufficient for it no longer to be heard under these conditions. The witness, who discerns only an ovoid shape, probably observes only the reflection of the sun on the aircraft, without being able to distinguish details. GEIPAN classifies this case as A: observation of a helicopter flying over a stage of the Monte-Carlo automobile rally.
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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