Sighting in Sainte-Cérotte, December 18, 1977

At about 1:20 in the morning, around ten people in a hamlet noticed a red-orange phenomenon in the sky. They could not estimate how far away it was, and their descriptions of its shape differed. All of them, however, noted that it moved down and then up again before gradually disappearing toward the west. No particular sound was heard during the sighting, and the gendarmerie collected no other testimony.

The case had first been classed "C" by GEPAN under the name Saint-Calais, and was recently reexamined. Investigators found it consistent: there were many witnesses, the description was fairly precise, and their sincerity and credibility were never questioned. The phenomenon described matches the setting Moon in duration of observation, shape, size and color. The Moon was indeed in the part of the sky concerned, yet none of the witnesses mentioned it.

According to GEIPAN, the witnesses' visual perception was not at fault; what was at issue was how they interpreted what they saw, influenced by tiredness, nighttime viewing and a misjudgment of the Moon's position. The case, of medium strangeness, is now classed "A": a misidentification of the Moon.