MARTIGUES (13) 13.08.2021

The witness and his nephew are in the garden of his home, where the observation takes place. Around 3am (local time) on 13 August 2021, the witness sees a bright spot in the sky that seems to be moving very slowly. By the time he alerted his nephew, he sees that the point is not moving any more. A few moments later, his nephew also notices a point which, according to him, “moves strangely”. Indeed, the point moved slightly, backward, right and left, returning to the same place each time. The movements were almost imperceptible. The witness tries to film without result. Around 5am in the morning, they go back to bed. The observation will last two hours, intermittently, the witnesses looking at a few shooting stars and other satellites during this time. The witness, who was reached by telephone on 15 November 2021, told the investigator that it was a small point that seemed to be far in the sky, not larger than a star, the remote investigation determined that this luminous point was in an azimuth near 90°(East). The evidential quality is medium. Telephone exchange with the witness clarified the azimuth but not the elevation accurately. The duration of the phenomenon (2h) and its description point to an astronomical misidentification. In the eastern sky during this time interval, the Stellarium site highlights a possible candidate: Aldébaran (double variable star) for an azimut ranging from 79° to 100° and an elevation from 13° to 35° over the 3h-5h period. Since the witnesses did not continuously look at this UAP, it is possible that they did not notice the variations of azimut. Its magnitude of 0.85 makes Aldebaran less conspicuous, consistent with "this light point weaker than a star". The strangeness perceived by the witness is due to the movements of the perceived UAP and described "it moves strangely". "In fact, it moved little, retreated, to the right, to the left but it always returned to the same point." It is the autokinetic effect that is the source of this perceived strangeness. This optical effect is well known to astronomers. It makes a fixed luminous phenomenon appear to move when placed in an environment with few reference points, like a dark night sky. see the link https://scilogs.fr/raisonetpsychologie/leffet-autocinetique/ . GEIPAN concludes with an observation of the star Aldebaran and classifies the observation in A.