An account in Eure-et-Loir, France

On May 31, 2018 at 10 p.m., a teenage girl is intrigued by the very yellow color of the stormy sky and films the sky with her cell phone from the balcony. A few minutes later, she tells her mother she filmed "something weird." Her mother testifies on her behalf about her observation. No other testimony is collected. This is a case of strangeness created by the camera/video and therefore not seen with the witness's own eyes. GEIPAN no longer processes these cases in order to devote its resources to strangeness seen in the sky and not to that created by the devices or elements in the immediate vicinity of the device (e.g., insects, reflections). When we have a strong doubt, we send a standard message (see in the GEIPAN analysis document) and the witness generally tells us what it is and we can either close the case or usefully process the strangeness actually seen, and, in that case, the photo/video is of course very useful. The present case was nevertheless studied and published, because it illustrates well the difficulty of processing the testimony of a child established in interaction with or relayed by their parents. Indeed, this type of testimony is not isolated and we sometimes have difficulty obtaining vigilance or critical thinking from the parents following our questions or requests for clarification. We know well that a parent is not always the best placed for a critical analysis of their child's statements! In this case here: - the parent of the minor witness, in response to our standard message about probable photo/video strangeness, assured that their child first saw it with their own eyes and then filmed it. We objected that it was very difficult for such a fast UAP to detect it with the eye and start the video, and the parent responded that their child filmed while looking directly at the sky and turning the device in their hand; - the unusual way of filming, the changing description of an observation condition that remains in contradiction with that reported in the initial testimony where the child alerts their parents because they FILMED (they do not say SAW) something weird are all elements supporting our doubts about the reality of seeing the strangeness with the eyes; - the parent continued to refute our opinion and to assure that the strangeness had been seen, while finding the way GEIPAN classified the case expedient. We are not able to publish the testimony (the questionnaire and the email exchanges beyond the first standard GEIPAN response) because the parent refused. We conducted a complete analysis. We do this when the witness's argument (about the truly visual nature of the observation) is strong; here, we did it for an illustrative reason as specified above. And once again, this confirmed our experience and our need for vigilance with strangeness in connection with photos and videos. We made several captures of the video (see attached document: 4 instants 922, 2050, 2707). Thanks to the specific IPACO tool, we show that each time the "strange" luminous point is in symmetry (relative to the center of the image) with the sun. This is indeed a classic optical reflection effect: a very strong light (here the sun) is duplicated (of course diminished) by the lens in symmetry with the optical center of the lens, the latter being in principle coincident with that of the image (or not far, which explains the small offset). Of course when the aim is in sweeping motion, this reflection sweeps twice as fast. We confirm that this is a strangeness perceived without direct visual observation but on a device screen, and that this strangeness results from a photographic artifact. It is possible that the child saw a strangeness with their own eyes but that is certainly not what was the subject of the testimony and what is spotted on the video. In conclusion, GEIPAN classifies the case as A: photographic artifact.