Sighting in Sommauthe, April 20, 1983

Around 11 p.m., a witness who was near a stable noticed a bright red glow through the window. Curious, they went outside and found a luminous ball in the sky. They saw it make rapid movements over short distances, along with some radiating light. About a quarter of an hour later, the witness called a neighbour and then the gendarmerie. After roughly an hour, the object had shrunk to a single point of light, which suddenly vanished. Two witness statements were collected. The gendarmes were present for the end of the observation and saw the same phenomenon as the witnesses; they took photographs to reconstruct its position in the sky.

GEIPAN re-examined the case, previously classed D, and concluded that it was Venus. Its position in the sky matches, and its very bright yellowish-red colour among white stars is typical of Venus at low elevation, where the thick layer of atmosphere alters its hue. The small jerky movements may come from the atmosphere or from a perceptual error (the autokinetic effect). The sudden disappearance around midnight can be explained by the trees visible in the gendarmes' photograph, since Venus was only 2° above the horizon, or by a few clouds, which would also account for the three brief disappearances the witness mentioned. Only that one photograph could be used for the reconstruction; the others had no reference point or known location. No witness distinguished the phenomenon seen with the gendarmes from another seen earlier: it simply looked larger and closer at the start, when Venus was higher. The inconsistencies in the testimony could be resolved by identifying the errors and imprecisions involved. The case is classed A.