REMUZAT (26) 05.07.2012

On 5 July 2012 at 22:22 in Rémuzat (26), a witness (T1) and his wife heard passing jet noise from their living room. T1 went outside and was surprised to see 2 white lights followed at a distance by 3 apparent fighter aircraft flying low. The UAPs disappeared behind the landscape. Other accounts of the aircraft passage were collected, and witness T3 made a statement to the gendarmerie; see the investigation report. The evidence led GEIPAN to consider only misidentification of fighter aircraft's rear position lights, made harder to recognize by poor viewing conditions and possibly repeated passes by the same aircraft. In this hypothesis, the first 2 aircraft may not yet have switched on their landing lights. GEIPAN judges T1's account very high quality: concise, very precise, neutral and written soon after the event. Its evidential strength is good because, although the initial account came from a single witness and had no photographs, a second account filed with the gendarmerie supported examination of the hypothesis. After investigation, GEIPAN considers the sighting only slightly unusual because the UAPs can be readily characterized. The initial puzzlement mainly arose because T1 had not seen the first aircraft during their initial approach, possibly with landing lights off, under unfavorable viewing conditions. GEIPAN classifies the case as B: probable misidentification of fighter aircraft navigation lights.