Sighting in Sospel, September 5, 2008

Between 22:30 and 23:00, on the evening of either 5 or 6 September (the testimony does not settle which), several people looked toward the Col de Braus and saw luminous phenomena moving across the sky. One witness described colored balls of light appearing one after another, some seeming to revolve around each other, along with two other balls traveling side by side at high speed. No particular sound was heard during the observation.

GEIPAN concluded that these were in fact three separate phenomena. The first was an orange point of light on the western horizon that faded slowly after half an hour; the very bright star Arcturus setting close to the indicated direction is a plausible candidate. The second, white balls moving erratically against the cloudy background, closely matches the look of a nightclub laser, even though the witness did not see the rising beam, which is normal unless the air is very humid. The third, two points of light crossing the sky very fast in a straight line, suggests the atmospheric entry of a fragmented meteoroid or of space debris.

Because the date is uncertain and there is no proof behind these hypotheses, GEIPAN classified the case as C, for lack of information. What makes it unusual is mainly the succession of these three phenomena.