Sighting in Morzine, August 5, 1981

At around one in the morning, a witness was taking photographs of the starry sky from a mountain pass car park. The sky was clear and cloudless, although a few heat lightning flashes occasionally appeared in the distance. The camera was mounted on a tripod, and each shot was exposed for a minute and a half.

It was only when the film was developed that the witness found a luminous phenomenon on the photographs, which they had not noticed while shooting. It appeared as an object surrounded by a halo, to the left of the star Arcturus.

A sky chart for that date and time confirms that Arcturus was clearly visible, in the constellation Boötes. However, nothing else makes it possible to identify what was photographed. GEIPAN classified the case as C, insufficient data: it is the observation of a luminous halo on a photograph of the night sky.