SAINT-DENIS-DE-L'HOTEL (45) 24.03.1997

GEIPAN continues to publish all its archives on its public website www.geipan.fr. Its publications include older cases classified at the time as A, B, C or D that are now being re-examined solely to improve the accuracy of their conclusions. New technical tools (software) and the investigative experience gained over the years sometimes lead to new observations or even a change in classification. This observation case, formerly classified D and named CHATEAUNEUF-SUR-LOIRE (45) 24.03.1997, is among the cases recently re-examined. On 24 March 1997 at about 06:30, a motorist on the N60 expressway about 4 km from the Fay-aux-Loges (45) interchange briefly saw a luminous phenomenon moving in the cloudy sky. He described several sets of 5 or 6 rows of lights spread across a wide area. These bright, orderly rows, one above another, prevented him from distinguishing a precise outline. He saw the UAP move toward La Ferté-Saint-Aubin (45), then Sully (45), before returning to the same axis toward La Ferté-Saint-Aubin. He slowed but continued toward Orléans and lost sight of it. No other account was collected. GEIPAN considers several features suggestive of a nightclub skytracker (see investigation report): - Lights were seen without a “solid” object. - Some skytracker models can arrange lights geometrically. - It was Monday morning, so a nightclub open Sunday evening might have kept its outdoor light display on into the early morning. - A stratocumulus ceiling could provide a surface for beams projected from the ground. - Orléans was about 20 km west of the witness as the crow flies. Many nightclubs still operated on its outskirts in the late 1990s and could use outdoor skytrackers for advertising. - Skytrackers have a very long range, described as covering a diameter of more than 20 km around the searchlights. - Ground-based motors produce back-and-forth movement. - GEIPAN’s records contain many similar observations, especially from that period (search its website for “laser” or “Skyrose”). More than 20 years later it is impossible to trace venues using such searchlights in 1997, still less verify equipment that could have operated on the observation evening, as the source puts it. Most of those nightclubs have permanently closed. Given contemporary practices and the size of the possible urban source area, GEIPAN considers this inability neutral: it neither confirms nor refutes the hypothesis. One point weighs against it: GEIPAN knows no example of searchlights producing the particular geometry described. Although within the equipment’s capabilities, this remains uncertain and lowers the hypothesis’s probability. The case’s evidential substance is poor. The location, duration and shape are imprecise: 5 or 6 rows were described, but 4 were drawn. There is no information about colour, angular size or elevation. GEIPAN has a potentially explanatory hypothesis but finds the uncertainty too great given the limited evidence. It classifies the case C: the phenomenon cannot be identified for lack of data.