Sighting in Boulay-Moselle, February 4, 1979

At about 1:15 in the morning, a witness sitting in their vehicle saw a luminous object in the sky for roughly 30 seconds. It was shaped like an orange half-sphere and moved horizontally from the south-west toward the north-east, then gradually faded away as it shrank.

GEIPAN first published the case in category C because of a lack of information. An astronomy enthusiast suggested it might be a misidentification of the Moon as it set. To test this, they went back to the site in February 2015, 36 years after the event. They looked for dates when the Moon was in almost the same position as in 1979 (elevation 1.4°, azimuth 286°, a lunar age of about 6.7 days, at First Quarter). Two evenings fit: 23 February 2015 at 23:55 and 25 February 2015 at 1:00, with the Moon at 1.1° and 1.5° elevation and azimuths of 288° and 292°.

Their report, published in full by GEIPAN, concluded that the testimony matched the reconstruction on several points: an orange half-sphere tending toward red, almost horizontal. The short duration fits a low Moon near the horizon, which clouds could have hidden at any moment. The observation site also has a slope of about 6% over 250 m, which can create the illusion of something springing up on the horizon while driving. Finding the reconstruction convincing, GEIPAN reclassified the case as A: observation of the Moon at moonset.