Sighting in La Roche-Chalais, June 25, 2019

At about 12:30 a.m., a witness was woken by a humming sound outside. Looking through the open window, they were surprised to see a coloured object and woke their partner. Together, the two witnesses watched for about a minute as an oval, fluorescent green object passed at very low altitude, with a few red lights at the rear. It moved away toward the southwest. The witness had no time to take a photo. Only one of the two witnesses gave a statement.

The witnesses found the fluorescent green colour, the oval shape and the sound (a hum, a rush of air) unlike anything they had seen or heard before, and for that reason they ruled out a helicopter.

The investigation nonetheless settled on that explanation. That day, an international exercise involving foreign special forces aircraft was taking place about 40 km from their home, including a CV-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor aircraft with green lights at the tips of its blades. When the blades spin, these lights form two green discs. People in the training area had reported helicopters and a green light to the local newspaper that evening. The home lay between the exercise site and the Mont-de-Marsan base, so the path over it fits an aircraft returning from training to the base. The witnesses were unfamiliar with this type of aircraft, which is very rare in France. The GEIPAN classified the case as A: a military helicopter on exercise.