Sighting in Corneilla-de-Conflent, September 27, 1981

At around 3 a.m., a witness looked west and saw a red object surrounded by a halo, about as big as a star in apparent size. It was moving slowly southward in a straight line, below the highest ridge line but above the nearest hills. When the witness looked away, it was level with the Fuilla valley. A second witness was present but did not make a statement to the gendarmerie.

The case had originally been classed D, along with two other sightings made in the same département in September and October 1981, which the first analysis wrongly treated as a single phenomenon. This confusion may have given an impression of strong strangeness. The re-examination showed that these were three separate sightings.

For this one, the description is fully consistent with a phenomenon located on the ground. The speed of movement, calculated from the azimuths of the line of sight, matches that of a land vehicle or even a person on foot. Finding an explanation therefore goes beyond GEIPAN's own remit, and the case was classed C: unusable.