DREUX (28) 31.05.2018 TI1

On 31 May 2018 at 22:00, a teenage girl, intrigued by the very yellow stormy sky, filmed it from a balcony with her mobile phone. A few minutes later, she told her mother she had filmed “something strange.” Her mother submitted an account on her behalf. No other account was collected. GEIPAN concludes that the unusual appearance was created by the camera and was not directly seen by the witness. It explains that it no longer handles such cases, to concentrate resources on unusual phenomena seen in the sky rather than effects created by cameras or nearby elements such as insects and reflections. Where it has strong doubts, it sends a standard message (see the GEIPAN analysis document). The witness usually clarifies matters, allowing the case either to be closed or the actual visual sighting to be investigated, with the image or video then providing useful evidence. This case was nevertheless investigated and published to illustrate the difficulty of assessing a child’s account developed with, or relayed by, a parent. GEIPAN says such accounts are not rare and that its questions sometimes fail to elicit sufficient parental caution or critical assessment; a parent is not always best placed to scrutinise their child’s statements. Here, in response to the standard message suggesting a photographic or video effect, the mother insisted that her child first saw the object directly and then filmed it. GEIPAN raised the extreme difficulty of noticing such a fast UAP and starting the recording in time. The mother replied that the child filmed while looking directly at the sky and turning the phone in her hand. GEIPAN found this unusual filming method and changing account of the viewing conditions inconsistent with the initial report, in which the child alerted her parents because she had FILMED, rather than said she had SEEN, something strange. These points supported its doubts about direct visual perception. The mother continued to reject GEIPAN’s view, insisting it had been seen and regarding the classification as hasty. The questionnaire and email exchanges after GEIPAN’s first standard response cannot be published because the parent refused permission. GEIPAN nevertheless performed a complete analysis. It normally does so when a witness presents strong reasons for a genuinely visual sighting; here it did so for the illustrative purpose explained above. It says the result again supported its experience and need for caution with unusual appearances associated with images and videos. Several video frames were extracted; the source refers to “4 instants” but lists only 922, 2050 and 2707 in its reference to the attached document. IPACO’s dedicated tool shows that in every case the “strange” light lies symmetrically opposite the Sun about the image centre. This is a familiar optical-reflection effect: a very bright source, here the Sun, is reproduced more faintly by the lens on the opposite side of its optical centre. That centre normally coincides with, or lies near, the image centre, explaining the small offset. When the camera pans, the reflection sweeps twice as fast. GEIPAN confirms that the reported unusual feature was perceived on a device screen without direct visual observation and resulted from a photographic artefact. The child may have seen something unusual directly, but GEIPAN states that it was certainly not the feature reported and identified in the video. The case is classified A: photographic artefact.