Sighting in Montpellier, March 17, 1997

This account was collected during a gendarmerie investigation. The inquiry began after a regional newspaper article published on 18 March 1997 reported an unidentified aerospace phenomenon seen on the morning of 17 March above Montpellier by several airline pilots. GEIPAN has since explained that morning sighting as a probable atmospheric re-entry of a meteoroid. While looking for further witnesses, the gendarmerie gathered several accounts of evening sightings, this one among them. The press coverage and the active investigation may have heightened the sense of strangeness for these witnesses.

The witness in Montpellier saw a fixed point of light in the sky on two successive nights. On re-examination, the position of Sirius matched that of the reported phenomenon very closely, which strongly suggests an astronomical misidentification. The account lacks precision about times, durations and positions, so its consistency is rated medium to low. The strangeness left after analysis is very slight, however, and the data are enough to reach a conclusion. GEIPAN classified the case A: very probably the star Sirius.