Sighting in Port-la-Nouvelle, August 1997

In 2015, the witness reported an observation from 1997, made on either 4 or 5 August (they could no longer remember the exact date), at about 11:45 pm. Two people were lying on lounge chairs when a first luminous phenomenon suddenly appeared in a clear sky. It consisted of three flashing orange lights marking out the corners of an equilateral triangle, which the witness described as seeming immaterial. It crossed the sky very quickly and silently, from NNE to SSW, in about 3 seconds.

Ten minutes later a second phenomenon appeared: two rectangular yellow-orange lights following the same path as the first. They moved side by side, a short distance apart. Only one account was collected.

According to GEIPAN, the witness certainly saw three orange lights, but the solidity of the triangle is far from certain and may well be a contour illusion, a well-known effect in the psychology of form. Estimates of distance and speed are unreliable, since the witness had never seen such a phenomenon before. Objectively, three points of light crossed half the sky in 3 seconds at an unknown altitude, and two more lights then followed the same route. Luminous objects carried by the wind were considered, but because the date is approximate, the weather that day is unknown. For 4 August, Perpignan had a light E to NE wind, which cannot account for the observed movement. Because the exact date is unknown and no further investigation was possible more than 17 years after the events, GEIPAN classified the case C, for lack of a precise date and of corroboration.