Sighting in Esperce, August 9, 1998

A couple was on their terrace at around 10:10 p.m. when they saw a silvery, luminous sphere crossing the sky. It moved slowly and silently, in a zig-zag pattern according to the witnesses, on a path heading toward the Moon. The sphere then went out abruptly. Another witness, in a town several tens of kilometres away, reportedly saw the same phenomenon, but they could not be traced.

The case was first classified C in 1998 by SEPRA, then re-examined by GEIPAN. The review found that the phenomenon described (duration, shape, size, colour, trajectory) had many features in common with the Mir space station. Mir was indeed in the part of the sky where the witnesses were looking, although they did not mention it. At the end of its pass, Mir entered the Earth's shadow, which accounts for its disappearance from view as the witnesses described it. According to GEIPAN, the witnesses' perception was not at fault: it was their interpretation of what they saw, shaped by how they felt (astonishment, tiredness), that led to the mistake. The case, of low strangeness, is now classified A: a misidentification of the Mir station.