Sighting in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, April 29, 1983

At about 11:55 pm, a couple driving in a car noticed a bright orange light in the sky, first square and then round. The two witnesses watched it from several places. It seemed close and appeared to follow them as they drove, which frightened them. They took refuge at a third witness's home, who saw nothing unusual outside. Their statements were recorded in a gendarmerie report.

A re-examination of the file, originally classified D, showed that the account matches the observation of a celestial body: the Moon. The observation lasted more than 30 minutes, low in the sky. The light seemed to stay still when the witnesses stopped and to move when they drove, the "following ball" illusion: the body keeps a fixed direction and moves past along with the landscape. Changes in brightness were taken to be the object moving closer or farther away. Calculation puts the Moon, at 12:20 am, at an azimuth of 128° and an elevation of 6°, above buildings that the witnesses describe as facing their road. It was nearly full and reddish, matching the colour described. Thin cloud veils let it show only through gaps of varying shape, hence the square and then round appearance. The Lourdes-Ossun station, 30 km away, recorded cloud cover, and a local resident had called the gendarmerie to report a glow behind a cloud around 11 pm in the area.

The GEIPAN classified the case A: sightings of the reddish Moon.