Sighting in Saint-Ciers-d'Abzac, January 27, 1978

At around 5:45 p.m., a couple at home noticed an unusual object in the sky through the windows of their house. It was flat and oval, pale red, and seemed to hover in the direction of the neighbouring town of Guitres. After four or five minutes it accelerated and vanished into the sky. A third witness, independent of the couple, had also seen the phenomenon.

The gendarmerie investigated on site and in the surrounding villages between 29 January and 3 February 1978. The GEPAN then sent two CNES investigators, who visited on 12 April and first classified the case as D (unexplained). That classification stayed in the GEIPAN database until the file was reviewed, after a correspondent's remark led to the rediscovery in the archives of a supplementary report by the head of GEPAN at the time, which concluded with an A classification.

The account is detailed and consistent, and the witnesses' sincerity was never questioned. GEIPAN found that the duration of the sighting, the shape and the colour matched the planet Mars, which lay very close to the reported direction. The case, of medium strangeness, is classified A: a misidentification of the planet Mars.