BACQUEVILLE (27) 04.01.1994

GEIPAN continues to publish all its archives on its public website, www.geipan.fr. These publications include older cases, classified at the time as A, B, C or D, that are now being reexamined solely to improve the relevance of their conclusions. New technical tools (software) and the investigative experience gained over the years sometimes lead this reexamination to new observations or even a change of classification. This sighting, previously classified D and named FLEURY-SUR-ANDELLE (27) 04.01.1994, is among the cases recently reexamined (see investigation report). On Tuesday 4 January 1994 at 23:50, a witness watching television noticed a yellowish light growing in the sky. Through the window he saw a luminous cone-shaped UAP with multicolored horizontal bands, rotating on its axis. He placed it beneath the cloud layer, to the northwest above the Château de Bonnemare, but relatively nearby. It appeared to retreat, then return as a yellow ball before growing again. Panicking, he went to bed without waking his wife. Three to four minutes later he heard noises outside and saw regular flashes. His female dog appeared frightened and he felt muscle contractions in his legs and lower back. He did not report the UAP's disappearance and remained deeply shocked by the experience. He contacted the gendarmerie the next day. No other witness statement was collected. The account is characterized first by its lack of substantiation: - No observation duration is given, although GEIPAN considers it likely to have been short because witnesses generally mention durations longer than a few minutes. There is no angular elevation, change of position in the sky or angular size. Crucially, the witness did not observe the disappearance because he panicked and went to bed. - Reliability is poor because of his extreme stress: “panicking, I went up to my bedroom,” “seized by panic,” “out of fear, I ran up my stairs,” and “very frightened, I hid under my blankets.” During the final phase he was lying under the sheets in panic. The whitish circles he described may therefore be unrelated to the earlier UAP and could be a visual illusion caused by stress. His dog's uncharacteristic growling could reflect her sensing his stress, or the movements on the ground outside that he heard (tree branches? an animal?). His stress was already present during the visual observation, which also affects the reliability of those descriptions. The UAP's appearance and the clouds suggest a possible misidentification of a skytracer, a skyward entertainment searchlight. Such misidentifications were common in the 1990s (see the many cases at www.geipan.fr). The gendarmerie considered and investigated this hypothesis, contacting managers of local function halls and nightclubs. No pyrotechnic event or laser show had taken place that evening. A skytracer generally produces large angular movements in the sky, which the witness did not report. However, without a stated duration, he might have seen a brief stationary phase of the spot. The source then calls the observation a Monday-evening event, despite calling 4 January Tuesday at the beginning; it considers Monday atypical for skytracer use unless testing or adjustment was underway. Given the few decisive descriptive details, the gendarmerie's unsuccessful neighborhood inquiries are the main evidence against this hypothesis. An aircraft hypothesis can also be considered. The viewing direction corresponds exactly to Rouen Vallée de Seine airport (76), 14 km to the northwest. A point of light approaching the witness could be an aircraft taking off there and then flying toward him. A multicolored cone might result if the aircraft were fairly close and partly hidden by clouds, making it hard to identify while diffusing its lights. The witness described “bright, very pretty colors” around the UAP. The absence of perceived sound could be explained by his being indoors with the windows closed and the television on at the beginning. Its apparent retreat and return could result from varying cloud cover over the aircraft, changing its angular size and brightness in a way the witness might reasonably interpret as changes in distance. Nevertheless, the visual appearance is fairly unusual for this type of misidentification. The rotating cone is curious unless it was a hovering helicopter turning on its axis. The witness did not describe alternating white or red flashes from anti-collision lights, but GEIPAN has other confirmed aircraft sightings where these were not perceived. Decisive details to confirm or reject the hypothesis are missing. For an aircraft to appear cone-shaped it would need to be fairly close, a few kilometers away, and the witness should then have perceived angular movement, unless the sighting was short—its duration is unknown—or it was a helicopter. An aircraft eventually moves on and disappears; that phase provides characteristic information, but its disappearance was not observed. The absence of evidence of aircraft presence is not decisive, because traffic records are unavailable 25 years later. However, the official report notes that another person in the village saw a light moving in the sky at the same time but paid no attention, assuming it was an airplane. Ultimately the case retains an element of strangeness because no hypothesis can be assigned a probability above 50%. On the other hand, the lack of substantiation prevents any hypothesis from being strengthened or rejected, and thus prevents validating the case as unexplained. No conclusion is possible. GEIPAN classifies the case C: lack of reliable information.