An account in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France

On December 1, 1979 at around 7:35 PM, a butcher is returning from his day at the market in Braux (04). He is driving a van on a winding stretch of the D110 when he suddenly sees a large, very bright ball appear on his left, whose color changes from white to red then from orange to yellow. This ball emits a shrill beeping sound. The witness, very frightened, speeds up but notices that the phenomenon follows him for about 2 km while the vehicle is traveling at about 70-80 km/h. After about 2 km, the phenomenon suddenly disappears. No other testimony will be collected by the gendarmerie. This case was first classified as "unexplained observation case D." It is one of the French cases covered by the media at the time (see UFO research ANNOT). The present conclusion results from a new investigation, made possible on the one hand thanks to today's digital tools and on the other hand thanks to an on-site reconstruction on a date in the Saros cycle, that is, on a date when the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth take exactly the same positions as on the day of the observation (see the investigation report). The witness having reported the presence of the full Moon at the start of his trip, he paradoxically no longer mentions it afterward, even though at several points along the route it should have appeared very bright precisely in the direction of observation of the presumed UAP. The elements glimpsed in the preliminary analysis phase (at a distance with digital tools) were largely confirmed by an in situ reconstruction carried out under optimal similarity conditions (Saros cycle and similar weather): the witness turned out to be the victim of a perceptual illusion caused by the sudden observation of the Moon. In particular, it turns out that each place where observation of the Moon proves possible corresponds precisely to one of the locations for which the witness described to the gendarmes the phenomenon he thinks he encountered. In fact, the presumed trajectory of the UAP as imagined by the frightened witness corresponds perfectly to the apparent trajectory of the Moon with regard to the winding curves of the road. The sudden appearance as well as the disappearance of the phenomenon are also consistent with the visibility of the Moon for the driver of a vehicle taking this road that day. The surprise effect is reinforced by a very pervasive media context: the Cergy-Pontoise (95) UFO case is in full swing, and the young man allegedly abducted by the UFO has not yet reappeared. These elements probably induced a strong feeling of fear in the witness who, placed in difficult observation conditions and an unsettling context (he was alone and far from any dwelling), was not able to calmly analyze the situation he was suddenly confronted with. The descriptions he gives of the phenomenon are classic and perfectly comparable to those commonly collected in similar cases of misidentification with the Moon (a very frequent misidentification). The only strange features that could have somewhat opposed this well-known scenario are, on the one hand, the noise allegedly perceived during the observation and, on the other hand, the physiological aftereffect suffered in the following days (intestinal blockage). However, no element can be put forward to support the objective reality of the former. Regarding the latter, it turns out to be probably consequent to the stress caused by the observation on a pre-existing physiological condition (two similar previous episodes). Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as A: observation of the Moon.