Sighting in Claira, November 9, 2009

The witness stepped outside at about 6:55 pm on a very windy evening and saw a white luminous sphere surrounded by a luminous ring cross the night sky quickly toward the Corbières and then vanish. The witness estimated that it passed overhead at an altitude of 500 m. An aircraft was visible to the north, on the Rivesaltes airport side. The witness had time to take a photograph with a mobile phone. No other witness was found.

The investigation established that the witness had not been overflown directly, which they confirmed. The phenomenon was more than 13 km away, above the Vingrau quarries to the northwest. It then flew over the Domaine de Montpins and Rivesaltes before heading out toward the sea to the east. The witness therefore saw it from a distance and head-on throughout the observation. It gained altitude and faded out, as if it had been switched off.

In the photograph, the object shows the same features as the last ten streetlights lining the road: a sphere with a hook. The hook is probably a sensor artefact. The strangeness the witness felt came mainly from the power of the white light and its disappearance as it moved away, and little from the half-ring they perceived. Its trajectory, speed and altitude fit a helicopter of the Gendarmerie or the Sécurité Civile. The Dragon66 helicopter has a front-mounted searchlight and also trains at night in the early evening, but no flight could be confirmed for that evening. A passage over two villages that were very busy at that hour should have been noticed by others. With no other reports, it can be assumed that people closer to it identified it. The case was classified B: probably a helicopter fitted with an SX-16 type searchlight at the front.