PLOEREN (56) 26.03.2012

Around midnight on 26 March 2012, a witness in Ploeren (56) watched a luminous object moving in the southern sky from his terrace. Puzzled, he called the gendarmerie. A patrol attended and confirmed the sighting, then moved to Baden and again saw the phenomenon. Another unit at the Barre d'Étel semaphore station confirmed a twinkling point of light to the southwest at 20° elevation between 00:45 and 01:05. A final observation was made from GERBAM at Gâvres. The UAP disappeared while rising at 01:50. The French summary describes colored lights that appeared stationary and then moved. GEIPAN considers the case complex because several witnesses observed from different locations, with insufficiently precise azimuths and elevations for the various phases. The descriptions have all the characteristics of very bright stars near the horizon: changing colors and apparent sideways and forward/backward movements. It is difficult to identify the celestial object with certainty. Two or 3 stars may have been noticed successively: Sirius, Procyon and Betelgeuse, temporarily obscured by the cloud veil that followed afternoon rain. None of the witnesses separately mentioned Sirius or another star that could have served as a reference to locate the phenomenon relative to known stars and exclude that explanation. GEIPAN reasons that the absence of any phenomenon noticed by the aircraft on patrol or on radar indicates that it was very distant. Taking all these elements together, it concludes that the witnesses probably observed Sirius followed by Procyon and/or Betelgeuse.