Charente-Maritime, France · 1980-03-03 · from the GEIPAN archive
Red lights in Charente-Maritime, France
On March 3 and 7, 1980, several people observed unusual and distinct luminous phenomena. On March 3 at 10:15 PM, a female driver and her daughter were suddenly blinded by a red light coming from a ball moving close to the horizon. This ball, the size of a soccer ball, moved silently in a southeast-to-northwest direction. Its movement seemed to occur in stages and at high speed. This phenomenon was also seen by other people, including police officers who at 10:25 PM saw a large reddish luminous point, 5 degrees above the horizon, which slowly disappeared at 10:35 PM to the northwest. These officers returned to the site the next day and observed through binoculars an orange luminous object producing bluish flashes. It disappeared completely at 10:45 PM at the horizon. It should be noted that at this time of year, Venus was particularly visible (magnitude -4.10) and very low on the horizon (less than 5 degrees above the horizon) and disappeared completely around 10:38 PM. The speed and stepwise descent reported by the witnesses is an impression created by the fact that the celestial body was very low and very far away on the horizon. The witnesses probably made an astronomical observation of Venus that evening. On March 7, 1980 at around 10:10 PM, these same people and others witnessed a new unusual luminous phenomenon. Returning home and getting out of her car, one witness observed a luminous ball made up of different circles of several colors. A flash struck the ground at the feet of her child. The ball, with an estimated diameter of 20 to 25 cm, moved from west to northwest and then disappeared completely. No noise was heard and no electric discharge was felt; however, a voltage drop on the power grid was noted by many people in their homes or on public lighting: it should also be noted that one of the witnesses mentions an electric arc seen between a power line and the ground. These people probably witnessed an electrical phenomenon.
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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.
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