[D17] de FONTVIEILLE (13) vers PARADOU (13) --.12.1978

A 2015 account of an old sighting, with an arbitrarily assigned day because the exact date is unknown. In December 1978 (the witness does not remember the exact date of the day) at about 18:40, a bus driver, observed in the east in the sky the silent passage of a luminous phenomenon N-S. The UAP is described as a green glow, sort of a large drop of water accompanied by three other small drops in its wake. Passengers also observed the phenomenon. The whole disappeared at an extremely high speed. Only one testimony was collected. This testimony has all the characteristics of an observation of the atmospheric re-entry of space debris: duration, appearance, behaviour. GEIPAN sought other similar facts in December 1978. On 2 December 1978, from 17:15, a special luminous phenomenon was observed from different points in French territory. An incident on a military rocket launched from the Biscarosse test centre caused these observations. This rocket, which went into a spin at launch, was intercepted and exploded in flight at 10,000 meters altitude, which explains the vision of this event on part of mainland France. Besides the time discrepancy, 17:15 versus 18:40 here, the viewing directions do not match: the witness looks eastward and the phenomenon is observed as moving from north to south; to see the Biscarosse incident, the witness should have looked westward. It is therefore not this phenomenon that the witness could have observed. The witness cites an article in the daily "La Provence" about the observation of an atmospheric re-entry of rocket or satellite debris. It may well be that this phenomenon was observed by our witness, but the GEIPAN did not find this article on the Internet. A search of the newspaper could resolve the uncertainty. Spacetrack (US Space Command) indicates many atmospheric reentries of space debris in December 1978; the absence of a date on this testimony does not allow for any correlation between observation and one of these reentries. Despite the similarity with an observation of atmospheric re-entry of space debris, the GEIPAN cannot confirm this hypothesis due to the lack of corroborating information (the article by "La Provence" could possibly provide the necessary information). Pending further information, the GEIPAN classifies this case "C" for lack of precise date information.