Sighting in Thumeries, April 4, 1982

At about 10:30 p.m., four people noticed a bright, round, white object in the sky. According to the first witness, it hung motionless above the town for roughly two minutes, with three red points underneath, then headed north at very high speed. A second witness compared it to a shiny balloon surrounded by a sort of halo, something that could have been taken for a fireball. They said it moved away toward a neighbouring town, leaving a red line in the sky that gradually faded. The two accounts differ slightly on the direction of travel: north for one, north-east for the other.

Only two of the four testimonies reached GEIPAN, and both were very brief; one witness did not respond to the gendarmerie's summons. The gendarmerie's investigation was limited: no photographs, no reconstruction and no search for other witnesses. Angular elevations and sizes are missing, as is the total duration of the sighting, and both the stationary phase and the way the object disappeared remain vague. The three red points were mentioned by one witness only.

GEIPAN noted that these details could fit a helicopter, since the lack of perceived noise is not an argument against it: the distance is unknown and the wind blew the sound away from the witnesses. Nothing contradicts this hypothesis, but the testimonies are too thin to support it. The case was classified C, insufficient data.