Sighting in Doullens, October 19, 1954

Shortly before 2 a.m., several soldiers at a radar station, including a private second class, a corporal-chief and a sergeant, watched an unusual aerial phenomenon for about ten minutes. The radar was not operating that night. It was dark, and the sky was covered by a continuous layer of stratocumulus with its base estimated at 1,000 m. The phenomenon stayed beneath that layer.

In the first phase, around 1:34 a.m., a green light came out of the clouds above a farm to the east-northeast, at a 45° angle to the vertical. It then moved horizontally toward the east, silently, in half a second, changing from green to orange and then to a dull red. Only the sentry, in his box in front of the station, seemed to see this part. In the second phase, the object stopped dead in the east at an angular height of 60°, an estimated altitude of 800 m. It stayed there for two to three minutes, depending on the witness, which gave the sentry time to alert his superiors. It stood out clearly against the clouds, with an angular size of about 1°. The sergent saw a disc whose underside was visible, and drew it as an ellipse tilted 25 to 30° from the horizontal. Its light changed color about every 5 seconds: from a pale, ghostly green to orange and then yellow for the sergeant, with a greenish background that persisted for the private. The sergeant said it oscillated; the private said it moved horizontally and vertically. In the third phase, it left at high speed, back the way it had come, and vanished into the clouds for 30 seconds. It then reappeared, for a few seconds (sergeant) or two minutes (private), before disappearing for good.

The investigation considered several explanations. The Moon, in the east and very close to an especially bright Jupiter, could have caused a mistake, particularly as it lay in the direction the witnesses gave and they did not mention it. However, the color changes and movements are hard to explain this way. An airplane does not fit a stop of several minutes at constant angular size. A helicopter could account for the colors through the alternating red and green position lights, but not for the very high speeds. If the 800 m altitude is correct, the object was about a kilometer away during phase 2, with a size of 15 to 20 m. The case, of medium consistency and strange though distant, was classified D: unexplained.