LIMONEST (69) 08.12.2018

On 8 December 2018 at 17:13, a witness in a parking lot took two photographs of points of light in an overcast sky, then left the observation site. No other account was collected. GEIPAN presents this case as illustrating the casual attitude of some witnesses—fortunately a very small minority, it says—who show little regard for its resources. In its assessment, they contact it merely to satisfy curiosity, without having experienced real strangeness, and send reminders and sometimes sharp comments about GEIPAN's failure to fulfill its mission even when their accounts lack information, if not sincerity. Here the witness wrote: 'I took out my smartphone and took 2 photos 9 seconds apart, then got back into the car and we left. I did not check whether the lights were still there. I took the photos by reflex, as I do when I see something unfamiliar in the sky, so I can look at them later on a PC.' In a follow-up intended, in GEIPAN's view, to challenge it to fulfill its responsibilities, he wrote: 'After 5 months, have you made progress with the investigation? Air Base 942 Lyon Mont-Verdun seems to have been overflown by these UAPs, judging by their north/south paths. Did the military detect anything, given the importance of this base, as you are well aware?' GEIPAN assesses the strangeness as follows: - The witness took photographs and left without continuing to watch. GEIPAN argues that, had it been truly strange to him, he would have followed its development, which need not have delayed him much: the configuration had already changed considerably over the approximately 10 seconds between photographs, specified elsewhere as 9 seconds. - He certified in writing that he had seen both UAPs with his own eyes. Yet one that he specifically identified—'then another less bright light above the fourth streetlamp'—could not have been seen directly because it was a reflection created by the smartphone lens (see the attached photograph analysis). The brighter UAP, by contrast, does not initially appear to be a reflection. - His stated duration is inconsistent or imprecise. He gave 1 minute, but described only what appears in photo 1. Photo 2, taken 9 seconds later, shows a very different appearance: no faint points clearly stand out from the other scattered points, except if some are assumed to be continuations of those in photo 1. Either he saw and photographed only a fleeting phenomenon and misestimated its duration, or he omitted what happened during the minute before the photograph. - The other UAP in photo 1 is not a reflection. The light would therefore be real and short-lived, at least after the photograph. With so little information, it is compatible with a low-altitude aircraft's lights: a small course change would suffice for a headlight to fade quickly. Without a description of the trajectory's development and duration, this hypothesis cannot be investigated, confirmed or refuted. A lack of supporting data on commercial flight-tracking sites such as Flight Radar does not rule it out, since these services do not claim to track every aircraft, especially private, security or military flights. Given the account's weak evidential basis and its assessment of the witness's actual need, GEIPAN chose not to request a traffic record from the military CNOA. When, 5 months later and following the witness's reminders, GEIPAN decided to publicize this type of demand on its resources, it was too late for CNOA to reconstruct the traffic. GEIPAN considers the observation of low strangeness: - It argues that it was not strange to the witness, who would not have reported it without his habit of photographing points of light and examining them afterward to decide whether they were strange. - At least one compatible explanation is available. In GEIPAN's assessment, the observation has low strangeness and even lower evidential strength. Information is limited to a frozen image in one photograph, and reliability is still poorer: the witness claimed to see with his own eyes a phenomenon internal to the camera and was inconsistent about the observation's duration and development. GEIPAN therefore classifies the case C: lack of reliable information. It does not classify this as a hoax, because the witness did see a light in the sky before taking the photograph.