Sighting in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, September 5, 2013
Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France, France
Sighting on September 5, 2013 in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône (Val-d'Oise, France). According to GEIPAN, it was most probably a light from the ground (searchlight, laser, vehicle…) (class B).
What happened
At 4:29 a.m., a witness on a break at their workplace was sitting outside a building. They were startled by a series of five powerful white flashes, which they saw in the direction of a nearby relay antenna. They heard no particular noise, and no other testimony was collected.
After a field investigation carried out with the witness, the GEIPAN investigator carefully examined several hypotheses. The one that appears to account for almost all of the characteristics described is this: flashes produced by the pantograph or pantographs of a train running on a curved railway line, 2,500 m away along the witness's line of sight, lit up the cloud layer. GEIPAN classified the case as B: the flashes were probably produced by an electric locomotive.
Account rewritten by SkyUnknown from the investigation report published by GEIPAN (CNES). The original text and case documents are on the official record.
- Date
- September 5, 2013
- Location
- Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône · town centre
- Type of sighting
- From the ground
- Source classification
- B
- Explanation
- Ground lights and lasers
Sources
- See the original document
GEIPAN (CNES)
n° 2013-09-08567
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.