Sighting in Crépy-en-Valois, October 6, 1954

At about 8 p.m., several members of a family at home watched a red-orange luminous disc for roughly 40 minutes. Its apparent diameter was half that of the full Moon, and it carried a kind of gondola. Its brightness varied, switching on and off in turn. The object appeared to be above Senlis and drifted slowly to the right.

The GEIPAN received only a very brief information sheet from the Gendarmerie, and just one witness account was collected. At the time of the sighting, the sun had set half an hour earlier, but it still lit objects at high altitude, such as aircraft or scientific balloons. The shape the witnesses described and the direction of observation, to the west, fit this explanation. The GEIPAN therefore classed the case B: probable sighting of a scientific balloon.