COULON (79) 03.07.2025

On the night of 2–3 July 2025, a woman at home in Coulon (79) watched a UAP through her open window. It consisted of 7–8 small green lights arranged in a circle, rotating and then moving jerkily from right to left, as specified in the summary. The lights regrouped into a “water-drop” shape, passed over her house and moved back and forth while returning to a circular arrangement. She watched for about 5 minutes before stopping. Later, she heard 2 dull bangs followed by dogs barking (see location in Appendix 1). Only 1 account was collected, with no photographs or video. Substantiation was moderate; GEIPAN defines this as the amount of reliable, objectively established information collected for an account. The unusual appearance and rapid, repetitive movements puzzled her. Investigators considered skytracers: powerful ground searchlights creating regular, repeated patterns, often circles or back-and-forth motions, whose diffuse spots can merge and separate, matching her description. The nearest available weather station, Poitiers-LFBI, 73 km away, reported uniform low cloud, 8/8 oktas at about 1,300 m (Appendix 2). Météo-France's AROME fine-grid model for the actual location added an estimate of 6/8 oktas with the lowest cloud at about 2,000 m. These conditions favored projected light spots on cloud bases. Green is less common but possible with colored searchlight filters. Niort lay about 9 km southeast; a skytracer can illuminate as far as 20 km, making a display there technically possible. However, no evidence showed local events or nightclubs using such lights that night. A private outdoor party with rented skytracers, common in summer, could not be ruled out. The 2 bangs might have been firecrackers from such an event, but no direct connection to the UAP could be established. GEIPAN classified the case B as a probable skytracer light display. AROME, Application of Research to Operations at MEsoscale, is Météo-France's forecast model with a very fine 1.3 km grid.