Sighting in Castanet-Tolosan, September 1, 2000

At around 5:30 a.m. (3:30 UTC), a witness caught a brief glimpse of a geometric shape made up of points of light arranged in a triangle. The object passed behind a building and no sound was heard. It was travelling from north to south-west, while the wind, at about 7 km/h, came from the south. No other witness came forward.

Routine inquiries made at the time by the SEPRA, which then handled these cases within the GEIPAN, showed that the airport radar had recorded three tracks of unknown traffic at 5:40 a.m. in the south-east of the Toulouse area. The military authorities did not confirm the recording. Radar specialists at the DGAC examined it and found that the tracks were not significant: they came from a spurious return caused by an aircraft flying beyond the radar's effective range. The coincidence with the sighting had briefly seemed to confirm that the object was physical, but it did not. The case was classified D at the time.

The review carried out eighteen years later upheld the analysis of the radar artefact but could no longer support the D classification, because the testimony is too vague. It is unclear what was orange, the points of light alone or the whole shape. The duration is uncertain: the witness's wording could mean a fraction of a second or about ten seconds. In the first case, shooting stars or a fragmenting meteoroid entry would be possible, but the angular spacing of the points and the presence of any halos would need to be known. In the second, that explanation is ruled out and a flock of white birds lit from below by city lights could be considered. Finally, the north-to-south-west direction runs against objects carried by the wind. Too many questions remain unanswered to confirm or rule out the hypotheses, so the GEIPAN classified the case C, lack of reliable information.