Sighting in Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, December 4, 1988

The account was collected in August 2013, long after the event. The exact day is unknown: the witness spoke of a Sunday in December 1988, and the GEIPAN dated the case to the first Sunday of the month. At around 12:35 a.m., a driver and their passenger suddenly saw an intense light illuminate the whole landscape. The witness switched off the headlights and made out a dark mass from which the light was coming, and heard a faint humming sound. The light then faded, first gradually and then quickly, toward the west, and the landscape fell back into complete darkness.

The witness was deeply affected by the experience, as was their wife, the passenger, who does not want to talk about it. No other testimony was gathered.

According to the investigation, this strong lighting of the sky, which lasted a few minutes, could have been a luminous phenomenon behind the clouds, such as the atmospheric re-entry of satellite debris, or a dazzle effect caused by fatigue. The imprecise date makes any verification impossible, and the account is short on detail. The case, judged moderately strange but very weakly substantiated, is classified C for lack of precise information.