Sighting in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, October 21, 2015

At about 9:15 pm, a driver and their passenger saw three bright white lights for a few seconds. The lights looked like diffuse halos, motionless, a few tens of metres above the treetops. The witness stopped watching and finished the drive, then saw the phenomena again from home. This time they were more scattered and farther apart. No sound was heard. The witnesses contacted the gendarmerie the next day, and the driver made a drawing. No other testimony was collected.

The gendarmerie inquiry established that no airship had flown over the area that evening because of strong wind. The drawing shows three fixed round lights and one separate red light, which clearly suggests an aircraft seen head-on at night: three headlights and a red position light on the left. From that angle the unlit wings would be invisible, and the witnesses, in a car with the windows closed, may not have heard the engine noise. An aircraft flying low far from any airfield is unusual, but the military RTBA map shows that the area, zone R166, is reserved for very low-altitude military air exercises, particularly on Wednesday evenings. The weather was overcast with light, variable wind at Bergerac, and the high humidity could explain the halos around the lights.

GEIPAN could not check with military air traffic control that an aircraft was in the area, because the case was handled a month too late. It classified the case B: probable observation of a military aircraft on exercise. The white points seen in the second part of the observation were probably other aircraft taking part in the manoeuvre.