Sighting in Castelnau-de-Montmiral, February 18, 1975

At around twenty past midnight, a witness traveling along a local country road was frightened by a luminous, spherical object. It moved vertically and swayed silently across the landscape. No other testimony was collected.

An astronomical check showed that the Moon, at first quarter and so a half disc, was close to setting in the west-northwest, at an azimuth of 290°. The case file includes a copy of the land register map, which does not appear to have north at the top. The current version of the register on Géoportail (IGN) is oriented differently; using that reference, the witness observed the phenomenon in the west-northwest, at an azimuth close to 287°, which is the direction of the Moon. GEIPAN therefore considered a confusion with the Moon, perhaps partly hidden so that it looked roughly spherical. Errors in estimating distance and size are very common, especially for celestial bodies near the horizon. However, this hypothesis hardly accounts for the back-and-forth movements the witness described; low clouds partly masking the half-moon are at most a possibility. The witness did not mention the Moon even though it lay in the direction of the sighting, which makes it very likely that it played a role.

Since it was not possible to clarify the apparent movements of the phenomenon with the witness or to verify the local weather conditions, GEIPAN classified the case C: insufficient data.