ARBUS (64) 16.05.2022

On 16 May 2022 at 23:26, 3 people travelling by car on the D2 at Arbus (64), towards Mourenx (64), saw 4 warm-white points of light in the clear sky. They seemed aligned and stationary, then disappeared suddenly after 2 minutes. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN assessed the case as moderately strange with weak evidential support. Although 3 witnesses were present, only 1 submitted an account, and the technical questionnaire (QT) lacked detail. No photographs or video were supplied. The missing information made the investigation difficult. GEIPAN defines evidential strength here as the quantity of information considered reliable that is collected for an account. Several hypotheses were examined. Lights near the ground, such as stadium floodlights, work on a high-voltage power line or agricultural vehicles, could explain the description. The alignment and possible stationary position of the points, together with the witnesses' movement around the phenomenon, suggested this possibility. Siros stadium's floodlights were ruled out because they were confirmed to have been off at the time. Night work requiring lights on the high-voltage line in the viewing direction was also considered. This avenue was inconclusive: the operator, RTE, told GEIPAN that no work had taken place on the observation date. Re-entry of a human-made object into the atmosphere was suggested despite imprecise angular location data. CNES's space-surveillance operations centre reported that nothing in its databases matched the UAP's characteristics. Despite follow-up requests, no further details of azimuth, elevation, size or similar measurements were obtained from the witness or witnesses. GEIPAN classified the case C: unidentifiable because of insufficient data.