Sighting in Saint-Usuge, April 7, 1980

At around 2 a.m., two witnesses were driving along a departmental road a few kilometres from the town, one at the wheel and the other as a passenger. They noticed a reddish-orange light very close to the ground, roughly above a river, whose course it seemed to follow. On another road, at a place called "Varennes", they saw it as a ball moving along at ground level in a series of hops. The ball then dropped and came to rest at the side of the road. The driver, panicking, stopped, then reversed and turned around. As a car was approaching from the opposite direction, the witnesses saw the ball climb and vanish. They then went to the gendarmerie. The observation lasted about ten minutes.

The case, first classified C under the name LOUHANS (71) 1980, was re-examined by the GEIPAN. The two witnesses agreed with each other, their description was fairly precise, and their sincerity was never questioned. Duration, shape, size and colour match the Moon at moonrise, and the Moon was indeed rising in the direction they indicated. The movements they perceived are typical illusions: because the Moon's direction stays fixed relative to a moving vehicle, it slides past the landscape and seems to follow the car; alternating near and far landmarks create an impression of hopping; and a change in brightness caused by atmospheric haze gives the impression of rapid retreat, felt as a gain in altitude. Fatigue, night driving and panic affected how the witnesses interpreted what they saw, not their visual perception. The GEIPAN therefore classified the case A: a misidentification of the rising Moon.