TOULOUSE (31) 17.05.2015

On May 17, 2015 at around 11:16 p.m., a witness who observes the night sky, is intrigued by a succession of lights, up to 8 by his count, that gradually formed a large V. The whole flies silently at low altitude. One of the points is detached from the formation and the whole disappears. No other testimony will be collected. The witness transmitted his testimony to GEIPAN on June 16, 2015, through the GEIPAN questionnaire. A meeting with the witness took place on December 15, 2015 for cognitive interview and reconstitution. The strangeness of the case results from the V-shaped formation of the lights and their sequence of appearance and extinction. A V formation is generally found only in two cases: - a patrol of aircraft or drones flying in formation; - a group of migratory birds. GEIPAN considers aircraft or drones in formation surprising at night in an urban area and questions why their lights would appear in this sequence. The "group of migrant birds" hypothesis, on the other hand, allows us to explain this sequence: - the date falls slightly outside the migration season, but smaller and larger gulls (mouettes and goélands) sometimes move at night when their roost is disturbed, for example, and they then fly at low altitude, their white body, even barely illuminated by urban lights, can give a bright impression (and above all, "white"). They can also be ducks who move at night and frequently form Vs; - the entrance of the formation into a slightly more lit area could produce this immediate appearance for each bird (from shade to sufficient light) and progressive for the V. The sequence of lights as observed would indicate that the V entered from the left along a more illuminated area; - everything disappeared suddenly, indicating that the V came out of the lighted area by crossing a boundary into shadow or dimmer light that lay approximately across its direction of travel, while the brighter boundary causing the appearance was more aligned along the displacement; - a bird may have been able to detach itself from the formation for a short time, which is more singular but is not contradictory, especially since it is not known how long this detachment occurred just before extinction. An ornithologist helped develop this explanation. However, it was not possible to understand how the lighting configuration of the area could produce such a clear and linear contrast at the bird's altitude. This would mean that a rather small change in lighting can cause a white bird to appear or disappear in a night sky, or that a particular event that evening (it is a Sunday night) has led to particular lighting. The account has good evidential support. It is precise and has been re-enacted on site. As a result, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: likely observation of birds (migrating in formation). GEIPAN had only recently developed this bird explanation and considers that it may apply to some older unexplained or poorly explained cases, including less unusual sightings without this particular sequence of lights.