Sighting in Arras, March 17, 1978

At about 1:30 in the morning, a witness noticed a round, luminous object moving slowly across the sky, travelling from the south toward the northwest. They watched it for around ten minutes, first with the naked eye and then through binoculars. No particular sound accompanied it. The object gradually sank toward the horizon. The gendarmerie investigation turned up nothing further.

GEIPAN had rated the case "C" in 2008 and then reviewed it. The account was judged consistent and fairly precise, and the witness's sincerity and credibility were never questioned. The duration, shape, size and brightness described match those of the Moon setting. The Moon was indeed present in the part of the sky observed, yet the witness did not mention it. According to GEIPAN, the problem lay not in what the witness saw but in how they interpreted it, influenced by how they felt (tiredness, surprise). The case, of low strangeness, is classified A: a misidentification of the setting Moon, seen with partial cloud cover.