An account in Sarthe, France

On October 2, 1977, between 9:50 PM and 10:00 PM, motorists in two different areas of the Sarthe department observed in the sky a luminous phenomenon they could not explain. The object was round in shape, slightly flattened on top. It was orange in color. This case was initially classified as "C" by SEPRA due to lack of information, then re-analyzed in 2013 by an internet user who proposed an explanation to GEIPAN, an explanation that was validated. This observation case is a typical case of a "following ball": an effect observed when witnesses see a point or luminous disk that seems to accompany them while they move: in fact, this very distant object is always in the same geographical direction, and it is generally a celestial body. The testimony is very consistent, with two groups of independent witnesses who filed their statements with the gendarmerie. The observed phenomenon is not very strange, because it strongly resembles the Moon. GEIPAN classifies this case as "A": observation of the Moon.

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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.