Sighting in Mende (48) 12.09.1998 T1, September 12, 1998

At 21:46, the crew of an aircraft flying near the vertical of Mende noticed two flashing points of light in the sky. In radio contact with the Marseille control tower, they first thought they were looking at two military aircraft, one above the other, passing well above them. At 21:54 the crew reported that the phenomenon was now "turning back" toward them. They added that they had been watching it for about ten minutes and that it was zigzagging in all directions, rising and dropping. Busy first with the incident report procedure and then with the descent, the crew did not mention the phenomenon again. The file holds only a transcript of the radio exchanges and tracking documents from the CRNA Sud-Est.

The investigation established that there were two separate observations. The first involved the anti-collision lights of two long-haul aircraft, which air traffic control could only identify later: classified A. For the second, the lights of those aircraft were too far away to be seen. At the time of the "turn back", their azimuth was about 70°, while the pilots described the sighting at their 3 o'clock, a 20° difference. The planet Saturn, white and bright, at roughly 100° azimuth and a little over 20° elevation, was probably mistaken for the lights. The zigzagging could come from the autokinetic effect. This hypothesis remains uncertain, however: nothing confirms that the lights were lost from view, the number of points reported varied, and no witness was questioned afterwards. The crew's stress, a month and a half after a fatal collision involving an aircraft of the same airline, may have played a part. The second observation, unusable for lack of reliable information, is classified C.