Sighting in Fitou, October 13, 2012

At around 2 a.m., a witness looked west and, for only eight to ten seconds, saw a good ten objects resembling shooting stars. They were pale blue and very dim, each following a short path, crossing one another in all directions and quickly going out. The witness put their height at four or five finger-widths above the hills and the village rooftops.

Immediately afterwards, the witness noticed a red point of light at the zenith, moving westward like a satellite for fifteen to twenty seconds. It suddenly stopped for three or four seconds while its brightness rapidly increased, so that it looked like a sphere surrounded by a blurry red halo. It then moved off in a series of very fast zigzags, with sharp, angular turns and no jerks, acceleration or deceleration. It went back to its original path, stopped a second time, gave off a series of vibrations, stopped a third time and finally vanished at very high speed in the area of the wind turbines. No other witness came forward.

The investigation ruled out several explanations: the first objects did not behave like shooting stars, the second did not resemble any known manufactured or natural object, laser spotlights were excluded because there was no cloud or mist to act as a screen, and micro-nystagmus could not account for the zigzags. GEIPAN wanted to meet the witness at the site for an interview and a reconstruction, but despite repeated attempts by phone, text message and email, the witness could not be reached. It was therefore impossible to make progress toward an explanation or to confirm the reliability of the account, which remained insufficient given how strange the reported events were. The case is classified C, insufficient data.