TALAUDIERE (LA) (42) 01.04.2023

Around 11:00 on 1 April 2023, a witness walking back from a large supermarket in La Talaudière (42) saw a dark object in the sky. It resembled a delta wing with square front and rear sections. It moved slowly and silently, oscillating slightly, at a constant altitude along a straight southwest-to-northeast trajectory. The sighting lasted 3–4 minutes. GEIPAN assessed the evidential strength as moderate: there was only 1 witness and the UAP did not appear in the photograph. It defines evidential strength as the quantity of reliable, objectively supported information collected for an account. A lightweight windborne object could fit the description, since the apparent trajectory matched the wind direction. However, GEIPAN found the relatively long time taken to cover 40° difficult to reconcile with this explanation unless the object was large and farther away. No other observation was reported to GEIPAN, and no additional evidence was found despite the built-up setting. A drone was also considered. The witness himself had suggested it but rejected it because of the lack of sound and the issue of propeller visibility. The French wording is ambiguous about whether propellers were visible. GEIPAN notes that nearby traffic on the national road could have masked the sound, and that fast-spinning drone propellers are not visible in flight. GEIPAN states that drone overflight of the municipality was prohibited, but its investigation nevertheless tried, unsuccessfully, to determine whether a drone had flown there at the time. The unusable photograph could not clarify the UAP's nature, and the investigation found no explanation it could favour. The case was classified C: unidentifiable because of insufficient data.