BISCARROSSE (40) 07.08.2021

On August 07, 2021, as the witness was going to bed at 23:00, a glow caught his attention while he was looking at the sky through a roof window. The witness reported "A “pale” star, with a low but easily distinguishable brightness, which gives the impression of being relatively close... It moves erratically, like a fly, in a precise area of the sky (a sphere of 500 meters in diameter). The changes of direction are sharp, not an astronomical speed but still fast." The observation with the naked eye and the binoculars lasts from 23:00 to 00:30, when the witness went to bed, while the light is still active. The witness makes a video of the UAP. Another witness present saw the phenomenon but did not testify. GEIPAN’s close reading of the account suggests a skyrose searchlight display, supported by the weather data. The witness made a video which unfortunately is unusable: the device used is probably not suitable for night vision and the nearby white-lit porch interferes with the camera by preventing a correct focus in the distance and closing the diaphragm a little more than necessary to limit the amount of incoming light, which has the effect of making the skyrose light imperceptible. GEIPAN notes that human night vision is much more sensitive to low light than most cameras, so a witness may see a skyrose display that the camera fails to record. The description is directed towards a misidentification of a skyrose searchlight display: - Saturday night in summer, tourist area, - erratic movements in a specific area of the sky, - rapid steering changes, - long duration of the phenomenon. To confirm this hypothesis, meteorological data of cloudiness and visibility were searched (see attached documents). The Biscarrosse weather station reports between 23:00 and midnight (local hours) the following data: - a first layer of clouds between 780 and 870 metres, with cloud cover of 3 to 4 octas (out of 8), - a second layer of clouds between 1380 and 1140 metres, with a cloud cover of 3 to 5 octas. Which means that the clouds were very low and the sky was covered, good conditions to see a phenomenon of skyrose. The visibility was 20 km, which may explain why the witness could not see that the beam was leaving the ground, which contributed to the strangeness of his observation. The tourist office of Biscarrosse contacted did not report any official festive events using a skyrose at that date. Several discos are located within the observation perimeter and could use one during evening events. Only one could be contacted (Safi), it has one but it has been inactive for 3 years, the others could not be contacted. Since the source could not be identified with certainty, the case is placed in B. The GEIPAN classifies the case in "B": misidentification of a skyrose searchlight display.