SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES (24) 21.10.2015

Around 21:15 on 21 October 2015, a motorist and his female passenger at Saint-Germain-des-Prés (24) saw 3 strong white lights for a few seconds. They described stationary, diffuse halos a few tens of metres above the treetops. The driver stopped observing and finished his journey, then saw the phenomena again from home, now more scattered and farther apart. No sound was audible. The witnesses alerted the gendarmerie the next day, and the driver made a drawing. No additional accounts were collected. The gendarmerie's enquiries indicated that no airship had flown over the area because of strong wind that evening. The witness's drawing showed 3 stationary round lights and a separate red light. GEIPAN considered this strongly suggestive of an aircraft seen head-on at night, with 3 forward lights and a red navigation light on the left. It explains that the witnesses might not hear the aircraft from inside a car with closed windows, and that unlit wings would be invisible from this angle. Although low-altitude flight there, far from any airfield, seemed unusual, the military low-altitude training network (RTBA) map showed that the location was in area R166, reserved for very-low-altitude military exercises, particularly on Wednesday evenings; see the attached map. The weather record at Bergerac at 21:00 showed overcast conditions with a light variable wind; the source refers to Météociel. This differs from the earlier statement about strong wind that evening, and the source does not reconcile the two. GEIPAN suggested that high humidity could explain the halos around the aircraft lights. GEIPAN did not process the case quickly enough: the 1-month delay prevented it from checking with military air traffic control whether an aircraft was present at the time. It classified the case B: probable observation of a military aircraft on exercise. The white points seen in the second phase were probably other aircraft taking part in the manoeuvre.