MARSEILLE (13) 07.08.2018

Around 01:12 during the night of 6–7 August 2018, a witness on his outdoor terrace in Marseille saw a stationary light ahead of him in the starry sky. Looking through binoculars, he was astonished to see a multicoloured luminous circle with 2 very bright red and yellow lights at its centre. He contacted the gendarmerie, then went to bed at 01:30, disturbed by the sighting. When he got up at 05:05, the UAP had disappeared. No further accounts were collected. GEIPAN describes the case as an example of the alarm that misidentifying a celestial body can cause, particularly when binoculars are used. The witness's precise drawings allowed the viewing direction to be reconstructed as due south. Mars, given in the source as very bright at magnitude −3.6, was above the mountains in the position shown. At 20° elevation it stood clearly above peaks that rose no more than 5° in the witness's view. GEIPAN concluded that the witness had overestimated the UAP's elevation as 45°, a common error. Saturn lay 30° farther right, to the west. At magnitude 0 it was fainter than Mars but still brighter than the other stars in that area. GEIPAN associated these with the witness's 2 bright lights, red Mars and yellow Saturn, surrounded by normally white stars. GEIPAN's reconstruction then has the witness point his binoculars at Mars. It explains that binoculars can reinforce an existing misidentification: difficulties adjusting them to a celestial body can create optical artefacts, and an unfamiliar first binocular view can itself appear strange. The sky was clear, and GEIPAN reasoned that if he had been watching something other than Mars, he would very probably have noted Mars separately, given the quality of the positional information in his drawings. GEIPAN classified the case A: observation of Mars.