Red lights in H�rault, France

On August 23, 1976, at around 11:30 PM, a moped rider noticed in the sky the presence of a bright red luminous object moving in a south-westerly direction. Upon arriving home and intrigued by a very high-pitched electric motor noise, he went outside and saw, about 15 meters away, the passage toward the north-west of a luminous object of ovoid shape with white and red lights. The witness noted that the object, after traveling 80 meters, stabilized, then rose rapidly at a very high speed before disappearing. During the gendarmerie investigation, no other testimony of this phenomenon that evening was reported. However, the witness stated that, finishing his work late, he had several times witnessed the movements of luminous sources. Additionally, the local press reported various observations in June and August 1976 that could be similar to this phenomenon. The observation presents a low degree of strangeness. A large proportion of the characteristics described by the witness correspond to those of known phenomena: here, a helicopter. The observation is explainable, and the proposed interpretation is simply plausible. The case is not very strange and does not merit an in-depth investigation (identifying the helicopter flight involved would, moreover, be difficult for such an old case). The testimony is unique, and the consistency of the case is weak. Due to the strong resemblance to the appearance of a helicopter, the case is classified as B — probable observation of a helicopter.