Sighting in Buc, October 2, 2008

Someone had just bought a new camcorder and was testing it by filming a helicopter. When they played the footage back, they noticed a grey sphere visible throughout the whole recording. The witness did not want the film to be released, even though, according to the investigation, it is an excellent example of this kind of recording.

GEIPAN concluded that the video almost certainly shows a very small object passing very close to the lens, without the person filming necessarily noticing it, most probably an insect or a bird. Photos and videos like this are fairly common since digital cameras appeared, compact models in particular. Their very short focal length means such tiny objects are not completely blurred out, and so not "diluted" into the scenery, as they would be with film photography or conventional video. The case was classified A: identified.