TELOCHE (72) 02.01.2019

On the evening of 2 January 2019, a woman in Téloché (72) and her son saw an unusual light that appeared distant and high in the sky. It alternated between red, blue, white and green, seemed very mobile, and rapidly disappeared and reappeared repeatedly. They watched together for about 35 minutes, and she filmed it. GEIPAN rates strangeness as low and evidential support as good: there were 2 witnesses, 1 submitted account and a video. It identifies a misidentification of Sirius (see the investigation report). In GEIPAN’s terminology, evidential support is the amount of reliable, objectively established information collected for an account. The description and long duration are typical of an astronomical misidentification. In the reported direction, Sirius matches the UAP’s greater brightness than other stars, coloured scintillation giving an impression of rapid movement within a small area, and a nearby star. Only the reported angular elevation appears overestimated relative to Sirius’s actual position, a common feature of UAP accounts. The case is classified A: observation of Sirius.